Taylor Swift Eras tour: Heartbreak as Sydney sells out in under two hours, Melbourne fans also upset
Taylor Swift fans are upset in Melbourne as ticket trading began, after the general public ticket sale for the star’s Sydney shows sold out in 2 hours.
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Only a handful of top tier Taylor Swift VIP and Hotel packages were left for the Melbourne concerts at the MCG just 90 minutes after going on sale at 2pm on Friday.
Frustrated fans were flocking to resale sites including Tixel, which caps prices at 10 per cent above face value.
Fans began trading tickets after Monday’s Amex pre-sale, with reasons for offloading their prize including “Bought two tickets to the wrong night” and “Selling because I am going another night.”
There was about $150,000 of “auto-buy pledges” from Taylor fans on Tixel waitlists.
The auto-buy option allows fans to opt in to automatically purchase a ticket immediately after it lists which bumps them ahead of others on the waitlist.
American reseller TicketNetwork was offering tickets to the Australian shows of the Era Tours in US dollars.
MELBOURNE UPDATE 💜 Friday and Saturday shows are now allocation exhausted! SUNDAY: Limited tickets available with higher availability in VIP and Hotel + Ticket Packages! https://t.co/CYuw8kCqIG@Ticketek_AUhttps://t.co/d7gm5vLUoU
— Frontier Touring (@frontiertouring) June 30, 2023
The Great Taylor Swift Ticket Battle isn’t the only cash injection to Taylor Inc this week.
It appears Swifties were streaming up a storm while enduring Ticketek lounge torture as they despertaely tried to buy tickets to her seven Eras Tour show from Monday.
The Taylor takeover of Australia extends to the ARIA charts this week with 10 of her hits in the top 50 singles and nine records in the top 50 albums.
Three of her hits landed in the top 10 with Cruel Summer the highest at No.3, Anti-Hero at No.7 and Karma at No.8.
She dominated the top 10 albums with a whopping five records - Midnights (2), Lover (3), 1989 (5), Reputation (6) and folklore (10).
It comes as Swift fans hoping to land a ticket to her Sydney shows have been left gutted after general reserve tickets sold out in less than two hours on Friday.
The last remaining tickets went on sale to the general public ay 10am AEST, with thousands of fans flooding the Ticketek website and app to grab their chance.
Ticketek used Twitter to update fans before midday that A-G Reserve tickets had sold out and only VIP and hotel packages remained.
By 12.15pm Swift’s Friday and Saturday shows in Sydney were completely sold out.
SYDNEY UPDATE 💜 A-G Reserve now allocation exhausted. VIP and Hotel + Ticket Packages remain across all Sydney shows! https://t.co/MVhOlDgtWe@Ticketek_AUhttps://t.co/IN4ONKJ7ps
— Frontier Touring (@frontiertouring) June 30, 2023
NSW fans who missed out on tickets to see the songstress in Sydney will need to travel to Victoria if they manage to snag any of those tickets.
Fans were vying for an estimated 225,000 tickets when the remaining general sale and two new Eras Tour shows went live.
Each of the four Sydney shows at Accor Stadium will have a total capacity of up to 80,000 seats and the Melbourne Cricket Ground will host about 100,000 fans at each of the three concerts there.
It is believed close to 400,000 tickets had already been snapped up before Friday in the two pre-sales on Monday and Wednesday, spurring huge demand for flights to Sydney and Melbourne.
As the four Sydney shows sold out, fans continued to bemoan the randomness of the Ticketek “queue”.
The most common complaint was despite a four ticket limit per person, friends had been able to buy tickets to multiple shows.
get an actual queue system it’s messed up people have gotten in multiple times when many of us haven’t even once https://t.co/4eVGER1wPP
— ana WILL SEE TAYLOR (@hrrysclawclip) June 30, 2023
Adding fuel to their FOMO was I GOT TICKETS was again trending on social media in Sydney.
Ticketek reiterated the reselling of Eras Tour tickets was “strictly forbidden” except via the official resale platform which will open on September 4.
anyone who got multiple tickets, please consider selling to someone who got nothing
— hal ♡ IS SEEING TAYLOR (@haloveslouis) June 30, 2023
An industry insider revealed the long waiting times fans endured trying to secure tickets during the pre-sales were caused by Ticketek’s systems trying to repel more than half a billion bots flooding the site.
The platform had to sort out the four million humans online from the cyber scalpers.
And with many fans trying to buy tickets via WiFi from workplaces or homes at the same time, the increased traffic from those IP addresses appeared similar to a bot attack.
But the Friday ticket frenzy will not be the final shot at tickets for disappointed Swifties.
Ticketek will open their official resale for tickets in September. That’s when many tickets will become available again because groups of friends secured multiple allotments and will sell the ones they no longer need.
It is also expected there will be fans who need that cash back because of cost of living pressures and will have to make the tough choice to give up seeing Swift perform at one of her seven shows in Australia in February.
The last resort will be just before the tour kicks off here.
That is when the restricted sight line seats will be released. This happens with most big stadium shows as the stage, lights and video production is built in the venue and seats with limited visibility are identified.
Footage of Swift’s concerts in America this year have shown fans seated in areas to the side and slightly behind the lip of the main stage.
But Australian Swifties – and not just those in the cities that missed out on concerts in their stadiums – continue to hit out at how the Eras Tour tickets sale was rolled out.
The biggest gripe from longstanding supporters was they received no priority access to tickets and instead had to sign up to the Amex or Frontier Members pre-sales.
Andrew Lipp, the co-founder and CEO of e-commerce tech company EQL believes the pop superstar and her Australian representatives should have used data to identify Super Swifties and give them early access to tickets.
“At the end of the day, you shouldn’t have to game a system,” he said.
“There are many more ways of floating real fans to the top of the queue. For example you can understand fandom by publicly available data like whether that fan liked a post on Taylor’s Instagram from six years ago, or by understanding their Spotify listening habits.
“For high-heat purchase moments we have managed, we analyse hundreds of signals like these to ensure bad actors are being removed and those true fans who are participating fairly are being rewarded.”
Lipp also believed the traffic pressures on ticketing sites would be alleviated and waiting times reduced by dropping big concert events in batches of shows rather than all at once.
WHICH ERAS TOUR TICKET TO BUY
MCG – February 16 and 17.
Accor Stadium, Sydney – February 23, 24, 25.
A limit of four tickets per person.
A Reserve $379.90
B Reserve $309.90
C Reserve $239.90
D Reserve $199.90
E Reserve $159.90
F Reserve $119.90
G Reserve $79.90
It’s Been A Long Time Coming Package $1249.90
Karma Is My Boyfriend Package $899.90
I Remember It All Too Well Package $749.90
More Coverage
Lewis Capaldi shares major Aussie tour news
Taylor Swift fans issued ticket warning
Ready For It Package $599.90
It’s A Love Story Package $399.90
We Never Go Out Of Style Package $349.90
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Originally published as Taylor Swift Eras tour: Heartbreak as Sydney sells out in under two hours, Melbourne fans also upset
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