Some of Taylor Swift's devastated fans got a surprise Christmas gift on Monday: a second chance at tickets to the Eras tour.
Last month, thousands of fans were frustrated over the ticket-buying process, reporting they waited hours, got booted from the digital line, or were not able to buy tickets at all. But some of them on Monday got an email from Ticketmaster that they'd get a second chance.
"Congratulations, you have been selected to participate in a limited-time opportunity to request to purchase 2 tickets to Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour," the email from Ticketmaster reads.
"You were selected for this opportunity because you have been identified as a fan who received a boost during the Verified Fan presale but did not purchase tickets. We apologize for the difficulties you may have experienced, and have been asked by Taylor’s team to create this additional opportunity for you to purchase tickets."
The email added that more information would be sent out by Dec. 23.
"Thank you for your patience and we will be in touch soon."
Holly Perry, a Swift fan in Los Angeles, had set aside hours during a vacation to buy tickets the first time. After about an hour and a half of adding tickets to her cart but then seeing them disappear, Perry gave up. She told BuzzFeed News she had come to terms with not getting tickets.
But when she received the email from Ticketmaster, she said it felt like "the best holiday gift out of nowhere."
Perry has been to every Swift tour, and breaking her streak would be particularly painful because Midnights is her favorite Swift album, she said.
"Taylor is pretty much part of my personality at this point," Perry said. "People sent me condolences texts after the sale didn't happen."
When asked for a comment, Ticketmaster directed BuzzFeed News to a FAQ section on its blog, which said that all fans given the opportunity were notified Monday. Swift's team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
After the "verified fan" presale process did not go smoothly and then the general sale was canceled altogether, Swift posted on Instagram that it was "excruciating" for her to watch "mistakes happen with no recourse."
"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 said. "I’m not going to make excuses for anyone because we asked them, multiple times, if they could handle this kind of demand and we were assured they could. 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."
Ticketmaster apologized to Swift and her fans.
"Even when a high demand onsale goes flawlessly from a tech perspective, many fans are left empty handed," Ticketmaster said in a statement. "For example: based on the volume of traffic to our site, Taylor would need to perform over 900 stadium shows (almost 20x the number of shows she is doing)…that’s a stadium show every single night for the next 2.5 years. While it’s impossible for everyone to get tickets to these shows, we know we can do more to improve the experience and that’s what we’re focused on."
The chaotic ticket-buying process prompted Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Sen. Mike Lee to schedule a hearing in the Senate. They said in a statement that Ticketmaster's lack of competition became "painfully obvious" after Ticketmaster failed fans trying to buy the concert tickets.
The hearing's date has yet to be announced, but Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a member on the House Select Committee on Economic Disparity and Fairness in Growth, tweeted in November that Ticketmaster is a monopoly and should be broken up.
Daily reminder that Ticketmaster is a monopoly, it’s merger with LiveNation should never have been approved, and they need to be reigned in. Break them up.