2022 Taylor Swift Ticketmaster Presale

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Overview

2022 Taylor Swift Ticketmaster Presale refers to Ticketmaster's November 2022 online presale event for Taylor Swift's 2023 "Eras Tour." The presale event brought so much traffic to the site that it caused glitches, errors and crashes, resulting in online criticism towards Ticketmaster and memes about the presale queue.

History

Presale Announcement

On November 4th, 2022, Ticketmaster^[1] announced a presale ticket event for Taylor Swift's 2023 "Eras Tour." On that day, they published a guide on how to take part in the presale, detailing how interested parties could sign up for the presale between November 4th and 9th, invite emails would be sent via email on the 14th followed by a code via text and the presale would begin on the 15th at 10 AM local venue time, where those who registered could buy up to six tickets for one date by entering the code into the event page. They shared this guide twice on Twitter^[2]^[3] on the 14th and 15th.

On November 14th, some people began commenting on Ticketmaster's tweets^[4]^[5] sharing how they had not received their presale codes.

November 15th Presale Event

Some Twitter^[6] users continued to claim they hadn't received their codes yet on the day of the event. Others who had received their codes started posting about how they couldn't access the event due to crashes, timeouts and site glitches, purportedly caused by a massive amount of site traffic. That morning, Twitter^[7] user @mplevz posted a meme referencing Swift's song "ME!" replacing her head with the Ticketmaster logo, writing, "when you're trying to get taylor swift tix but ticketmaster keeps crashing," garneing over 21,000 likes in a day (shown below).

Later that morning, Twitter^[8] user @sydinrealtime posted a meme criticizing Ticketmaster for not preparing for the traffic increase properly, garnering over 20,000 likes in a day (shown below, left). Twitter^[9] user @GoughnourGrace posted a Community meme about the event, garnering over 27,000 likes in a day (shown below, right).

Ticketmaster's Response

On November 15th, the day of the presale, at 1:05 PM, the @ticketmaster Twitter^[10] account posted an update on the situation with the presale event. In their note, they blame "unprecedented demand" for the site errors, claiming "millions" were showing up to buy tickets. They announced a pushback for the event for West Coast US registrants and rescheduled the Capital One presale by a day. The tweet gained over 31,000 likes in a day (shown below).

The response to Ticketmaster's post was mixed, with one of the main criticisms aimed at Ticketmaster's claim that they weren't prepared for the traffic (example shown below).^[11]

Online Reactions

The purportedly disastrous presale event was reported on by numerous media outlets as it happened, including Glamour,^[12] who collected numerous memes about the event. The event was also highly discussed and memed across social media. On November 15th, Twitter^[13] user @HowDoIBeWhole posted a screenshot of Taylor Swift trending above "Poland" after reports of a Russian missile landing on the Polish side of the border, garnering over 74,000 likes in a day (shown below).

Despite the controversy, some people who managed to get tickets started posting videos and content sharing their excitement. On that day, Instagram^[14] user litigation_god posted a meme about how excited he was for the tickets, garnering over 5,400 likes in a day. On the same day, TikTokers^[15]^[16] @peytonwoolf and @thelaurennorris posted videos where they buy tickets, garnering over 133,000 and 400,000 views respectively in a day (shown below, left and right).