Taylor Swift has criticized Ticketmaster after her fans said they waited for hours and were repeatedly kicked off the company’s website when trying to get tickets to her upcoming US tour.
The pop star said conductors assured her and her team that they could handle the surge in demand for her Eras tour — her first in five years.
Ticketmaster handled ticket sales for most of the shows on the 20-city, 52-day tour, though SeatGeek sold tickets for a few shows in Texas and Arizona.
In a statement on Instagram, Swift, 32, said: “It’s really hard for me to trust an outside entity with these relationships and allegiances, and it pains me to watch mistakes happen with no recourse.
“There are a number of reasons why people are having a hard time getting tickets and I’m trying to figure out how I can improve the situation.
“I’m not going to make excuses for anyone because we’ve asked them multiple times if they can handle the demand and we’re sure they can.”
She added: “It’s amazing that 2.4 million people got tickets, but I’m shocked that so many of them felt like they had to go through a couple of bear attacks to get their tickets.
“For those of you who didn’t get tickets, all I can say is that I hope it opens up more opportunities for us to come together and sing these songs.
“Thank you for wanting to be there. You have no idea what that means.”
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Earlier on Friday, Ticketmaster canceled ticket sales for the US tour due to “insufficient ticket inventory” to meet “extremely high demand”.
The move comes days after tour pre-sales crashed the site, leaving many fans frustrated and unable to get tickets.
Fans said they had waited in line for up to eight hours online, with many finding it too late to buy tickets, which cost between $49 (£41) and $449 (£377) each.
Ticketmaster said on Thursday that it expected high demand for tickets, adding that a record 3.5 million people had registered as verified fans.
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The company said it plans to invite 1.5 million of them to the sale for all 52 show dates, including the 47 Ticketmaster sold, with another 2 million on a waiting list.
But it said the plan had been undermined by attacks from “bots” (automated software requests) and demand from people who hadn’t registered before.
Ticketmaster said this resulted in 3.5 billion system requests — four times the company’s previous peak.