Ticketmaster has canceled ticket sales for the US leg of Taylor Swift’s tour due to “insufficient ticket inventory” to meet “extremely high demand”.
General Ticket Sales Swift’s The Eras Tour, her first tour in five years, is scheduled to open Friday morning.
But Ticketmaster tweeted Thursday night that Friday’s sale had been canceled due to “extremely high demand on the ticketing system and insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet that demand.”
The decision comes days after the tour pre-sales crashed the website, leaving many fans frustrated and unable to get tickets.
The ticket company had previously asked fans on Twitter to be patient as “millions” of people tried to buy tickets in the pre-sale, resulting in “historically unprecedented demand”.
Swift fans, known as Swifties, criticized the company on social media after experiencing long wait times and website outages during pre-sales for the tour, which opened Tuesday.
Fans reported waiting in line for up to eight hours online, with many finding they were too late to buy tickets, which cost between $49 (£41) and $449 (£377) each.
In a statement on Thursday, Ticketmaster said it expected high demand for tickets, adding that a record 3.5 million people had registered as verified fans.
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 scheme had been undermined by attacks from “bots” (automated software requests) and demands from people who hadn’t previously registered.
“A staggering amount of bot attacks and fans without invitation codes have brought us unprecedented traffic
site, resulting in a total of 3.5 billion system requests—four times our previous peak,” Ticketmaster said.
“Never before has a verified fan garnered so much attention in a sale — or unsolicited sales.”
Swift wins four MTV EMAs this year
Ticketmaster dominates the ticketing industry and has frustrated fans and artists for years with hidden fees, skyrocketing costs and limited ticket supply due to pre-sales.
In a letter this week to Ticketmaster’s parent company, Live Nation Entertainment Inc, Sen. Amy Klobuchar expressed “serious concerns about the state of competition in the ticketing industry and its detrimental impact on consumers.”
Swift has yet to comment publicly on the matter.
The 32-year-old singer’s US tour will begin on March 18 in Glendale, Arizona and end in August.
Swift will join a number of artists during the tour, including bands Paramore and Haim, as well as solo artists like Phoebe Bridgers.
read more:
Swift thanks her fans as she wins four MTV EMAs
Glastonbury festival tickets sold out in an hour
Harry Styles pleads with fans after smashing concert
Swift’s latest album, “Midnight,” released in October, set the record for the biggest opening week of an album since the release of Adele’s “30” last November.
It also claimed the title of the most streamed album of the year in its first week, with 72.5 million streams in seven days.