Taylor Swift announced embarking on her “Eras Tour,” set to begin mid-March. She has over 50 stadium shows all over the United States planned. November 2, fans had the opportunity to wait in a digital line for a chance to qualify for a presale code through a ticket-selling website, Ticketmaster, who was in charge of the sale for the tour. November 14, fans got emailed their presale code, and the early access purchasing would occur the next day at 10 a.m. Once Tuesday the 15 had come around, fans were going crazy and filled with excitement to finally get to see their favorite artists. These fans call themselves “Swifties.”

Many Swifties skipped school, work, or had a reliable friend do so for them. But, the sale did not go as smoothly as it should have. Fans waited all day in the queue line, waiting their turn to be let into the checkout to view the stadium and choose their tickets. For many Swifties, they waited up to six hours just to be told all of the tickets were sold out. For others, once they had selected their tickets the website would kick them off and put them all the way to the back of the line. Another issue people had was getting so close to picking out their tickets, having just a few people in front of them, and the website crashing. This upset many fans incredibly, considering that tickets were meant to be guaranteed if you received the exclusive presale code.

After all of the problems Ticketmaster created during the presale and after countless fans couldn’t get tickets, Swifties still stayed hopeful for the general sale that was said to happen Friday, November 18. Not only were fans furious over the unfair problems with the first sale, they also got angry the longer Taylor Swift stayed silent about the situation. To add even more to the frustration, Ticketmaster did something unforgivable. November 17, the night before the general sale that was keeping fans hopeful, Ticketmaster dropped a bomb. It was announced on Ticketmaster’s Twitter account that the general sale set to happen the following day, was now canceled. Meaning no more tickets were to be sold for the tour.

With Taylor Swift still staying silent after all of this, it continued to make fans even more upset. It had later come out that Ticketmaster made a huge mistake. Rather than sending out 1.4 million presale early access codes, sources say they sent out 14 million. While nobody knows what Taylor was saying to Ticketmaster behind the scenes, still no apology had come from her to all of her devastated and crushed fans.

It was not until November 18, the planned day of the general sale, that Swift herself publicly brought any attention to the situation. She posted an Instagram story saying things like, “It goes without saying that I’m extremely protective of my fans.” She then writes, “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.” Taylor even said how it aggravates her that only 2.4 million fans were able to purchase tickets, when so many more had hopes to.  She even admitted how Ticketmaster claimed they would be able to tackle this. As of this publication, nothing else has been said by Taylor Swift.

An interesting conspiracy many fans have is that Ticketmaster got mad at Taylor Swift. The theory is, Swift saw how horrible the presale was going, and talked to Ticketmaster telling them to pause the presale to fix it. Swifties think Ticketmaster was being greedy and didn’t want to temporarily stop it. It is believed that some disturbing words were exchanged between Swift and Ticketmaster, and the company got mad at the singer, so announced the cancellation of the general sale. This is backed up by the fact that Ticketmaster posted the canceling of the ticket sale, not even Swift when it is her own tour. 

Needless to say, Swifties are furious at Ticketmaster, even those who were able to get tickets because it is still unfair the amount of true fans who weren’t able to get some. Swift said she hopes for another way to have fun and sing her songs together another way, so Swifties stay hopeful.