Few world-famous artists enjoy as close a connection with their fans as Taylor Swift.
So when the pop icon announced that she would be revisiting the most beloved songs from her celebrated body of work on her upcoming Eras Tour, excitement spread like wildfire across social media.
That enthusiasm has since turned to outrage and disappointment, however, thanks to baffling mismanagement by distribution giant Ticketmaster.
After several days in which fans complained of outrageous prices (with seats listed for upwards of $19,000) or griped that they were unable to buy tickets at all, Ticketmaster made the situation worse by canceling public sales.
It was a betrayal so appalling that it could’ve inspired a Taylor Swift song.
It might be a while before we find out exactly how and why this happened, but in the meantime, Taylor has gotten in front of the situation by assuring fans that she’s heard their complaints, and she’s doing what she can to rectify the matter.
“Well. It goes without saying that I’m extremely protective of my fans. We’ve been doing this for decades together and over the years, I’ve brought so many elements of my career in house,” Swift wrote on Instagram today.
“I’ve done this SPECIFICALLY to improve the quality of my fans’ experience by doing it myself with my team who care as much about my fans as I do,” the singer continued.
“It’s really difficult for me to trust an outside entity with these relationships and loyalties, and excruciating for me to just watch mistakes happen with no recourse.”
Swift concluded by confirming that the situation is a complicated one, but she explained that she plans to do everything in her power to make sure it will never happen again.
“There are a multitude of reasons why people had such a hard time trying to get tickets and I’m trying to figure out how this situation can be improved moving forward,” she wrote.
“I’m not going to make excuses for anyone because we asked them, multiple times, if they could handle this time of demand and we were assured they could.”
Tay wrapped things up on a humorous note, writing:
“It’s truly amazing that 2.4 million people got tickets, but it really pisses me off that a lot of them feel like they went through several bear attacks to get them.”
Her comments come after a week in which tens of thousands of fans flocked to Twitter and Instagram to complain about the ticket situation.
“THIS TOUR IS CALLED THE TAYLOR SWIFT ERAS TOUR. ITS UNDER HER NAME. SHE NEEDS TO SAY SOMETHING ABOUT THIS,” one angry fan tweeted.
“Please say something this is devastating to the people who have loved and supported you for over a decade and came out of this with nothing @taylorswift13 please say anything,” another pleaded.
Well, Ticketmaster might have incurred the wrath of Swifties, but that’s not the mega-corp’s only problem.
According to a new report from TMZ, the company is the subject of a federal investigation into allegations of corrupt business practices, including violations of anti-trust statutes.
“Due to extraordinarily high demands on ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet that demand, tomorrow’s public on-sale for Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour has been cancelled,” the official Ticketmaster account tweeted on Thursday afternoon.
We’ll have further updates on this developing story as more information becomes available.
In the meantime, best of luck to all Swifties who still looking to score tix!