Taylor Swift says Ticketmaster's handling of Era tour tickets "really pisses me off"
Taylor Swift is speaking out amid the controversy surrounding Ticketmaster's handling of her upcoming "Eras" tour. The singer commented on the issue on her Instagram story on Friday, saying that Ticketmaster had assured her team "multiple times" they "could handle this kind of demand."
"It goes without saying that I'm extremely protective of my fans," she said. "... It's really difficult for me to trust an outside entity with these relationships and loyalties, and excruciating for me to just watch mistakes happen with no recourse."
On Thursday, Ticketmaster canceled its general sale of the tour tickets that was supposed to debut on Friday after hours of complaints about pre-sale site complications and glitches. The company said the cancelation was triggered by unprecedented demand, with more than 3.5 million people pre-registered to get an access code for purchasing tickets.
The company did not say whether more tickets would be sold for the tour at a later date. The tour, which will be a "journey through the musical eras" of Swift's career, is set to kick off next March in Arizona.
"I never could have imagined how insane this whole process has been," one of Swift's fans, Amber Garis, told CBS Mornings. "It obviously wasn't meant to be if we didn't get tickets but we're upset."
Swift said Friday that the controversy occurred because of a "multitude of reasons," and suggested that the blame for the situation falls on Ticketmaster. She said she's "trying to figure out how the situation can be improved moving forward."
"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," she said. "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."
Swift said she hopes that she can provide more opportunities in the future for all of her fans who weren't able to get tickets to the tour.
"Thank you for wanting to be there," she said. "You have no idea how much that means."