Taylor Swift fans in France, who were hoping to catch one of her 2024 performances by getting tickets on Tuesday, were stymied by technical hiccups on Live Nation’s Ticketmaster site instead.
Tickets were supposed to go on sale at 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. local time for Swift’s Paris shows at La Défense Arena in May 2024, and at 1 p.m. local time for her shows in Lyon, in southern France, in June 2024.
Instead, less than 15 minutes after the sale started, Live Nation Entertainment‘s (ticker: LYV) Ticketmaster tweeted that “Some of you may be having issues with the site this morning—we are working on it and will let you know.”
Ticketmaster stopped selling tickets for the Paris and Lyon concerts about an hour later. More than 900,000 fans hoping to score codes to redeem for seats were waiting at 5 a.m. Eastern time on Tuesday.
It’s a replay of a snafu last fall that left Taylor Swift fans trying to get tickets to her U.S. tour dates angry and empty-handed.
Fans vented in French on social media on Tuesday, saying they were afraid to leave a line that had thousands of others queued up ahead of them, and blaming the ticketing site.
Ticketmaster’s French site said that the date and time for tickets to Swift’s The Eras Tour would be rescheduled and “tickets are still available,” according to a translation that Ticketmaster emailed to Barron’s.
“This morning’s sale was disrupted by an issue with a third-party provider and they are working to resolve this matter as soon as possible,” Ticketmaster tweeted.
“As soon as we saw fans experiencing issues, queues were paused. All codes that were not used to purchase tickets today will remain valid,” Ticketmaster said. Fans that had been selected for ticket sales “will be notified directly” of the new date and time.
Some Swifties shared on social media that they were able to choose seats, but got error messages when they tried to pay for their tickets on Ticketmaster’s site, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Swift’s Eras Tour, her first live tour in five years, includes more than 100 shows at venues across five continents through August 2024. It is on pace to become the most lucrative tour ever, with some estimating it could rake in more than $1 billion.
Last November, pent-up demand by millions of Swifties for tickets overwhelmed ticket systems. Swifties reported problems logging on and hourslong waits to buy tickets, and some said Swift should start her own rival ticket company.
The 33-year-old performer called what happened last November “excruciating,” later saying that those who were able to buy tickets felt like “they went through several bear attacks to get them.”
Swift is currently performing in U.S. venues, with the next stop at Denver’s Mile High Stadium on Friday. The domestic leg of the tour runs through Aug. 9 in California’s SoFi Stadium, then moves to Mexico City’s Foro Sol on Aug. 24.
Tickets for tour dates in Stockholm on May 17, 18, and 19, 2024, are still available on Ticketmaster in Sweden, and presales for dates in Amsterdam and Madrid are scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday, respectively, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Write to Janet H. Cho at [email protected]
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