Taylor Swift has canceled plans to sell tickets on Friday to her “Eras Tour,” her first live tour in five years, after pent-up demand by millions of Swifties overwhelmed ticket systems.
Fans snapped up more than two million tickets to her 52-stadium tour on Tuesday–the most for any artist in a single day, Ticketmaster said. The company said it received 3.5 billion system requests on its site—the largest in its history.
The crush happened despite Live Nation Entertainment‘s (ticker: LYV) Ticketmaster limiting presales to Verified Fans who had preregistered weeks in advance and been vetted by the ticket company in an effort to discourage scalpers. Tickets were priced from $49 to $899 for VIP packages.
Ticketmaster confirmed that the general sale would be called off, after it received 3.5 billion system requests on its site—four times its previous peak-–and cited “insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet that demand.”
“Swifties” who had reported problems logging on and hours-long waits to buy tickets were furious, with some suggesting Swift should start her own rival ticket company.
Ticketmaster said on its website: “[W]e know we can do more to improve the experience and that’s what we’re focused on.”
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.) sent a letter Wednesday to
Live Nation Entertainment
President Michael Rapino raising concerns about Ticketmaster’s dominance in the market.
That dominance “insulates it from the competitive pressures that typically push companies to innovate and improve their services,” the letter said. She asked Ticketmaster to answer her questions by Nov. 23, including whether it has upgraded its systems to “address demand surges.”
Ticketmaster, which had previously urged fans hoping for tickets to “please hang tight,” on Thursday and noted a “staggering number of bot attacks as well as fans who didn’t have invite codes [to buy tickets] drove unprecedented traffic on our site.”
On resale site StubHub, seats near the stage at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey were being offered for as much as $76,000 Thursday morning, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Write to Janet H. Cho at janet.cho@dowjones.com
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