Taylor Swift announced that, after five years, she will tour in the U.S. once again in 2023, with her highly anticipated Eras stadium tour. The three-time Album of the Year Grammy winner’s original schedule was expanded to include a grand total of 52 shows across the United States, with international dates to come. Unfortunately, the superstar will not be performing in the DMV, most likely due to venue limitations in the area. This did not stop her devout fans at Bishop O’Connell High School from going to great lengths to secure tickets to what will undoubtedly be one of the biggest events in live music this upcoming year. 

In the past, many O’Connell students have been able to access presale tickets during Knight Time, as Ticketmaster presales tend to open at 10 a.m. and the flexible instructional block extends from 9:36-10:25. Students have obtained tickets to see artists popular amongst Swifties, such as Lorde, Olivia Rodrigo, and Conan Gray, with relative ease on Ticketmaster in the last couple of years. However, due to a mandatory assembly during Knight Time November 15, O’Connell students had to get creative with their ticket purchasing methods.

Once it was determined that they could not buy the tickets themselves, several frantic fans placed phone calls to their parents with clear instructions. “We need six tickets, Friday in Philadelphia, lower bowl,” a group of girls explained over the phone after sending one’s mother the presale code and Ticketmaster login. “You can do it, Mom!” In a family group chat buzzing with purchasing strategies, another student’s grandfather commented that “the invasion of Normandy took less coordination and planning.”

That observation foreshadowed the rest of the ordeal to come, as some Swifties began to refer to the presale as “The Great War,” alluding to a bonus track off of Swift’s newest album, Midnights. By the time third period began, it was clear that Knight Time would not have been a big enough window of time for most ticket hopefuls. While a select few people had secured tickets, mainly to the Philadelphia shows, the majority of fans were still anxiously checking their phones for updates from friends and family. Members of the O’Connell community who had been able to log onto Ticketmaster were faced with a screen that would soon be familiar to all: the dreaded queue, more than 2,000 people long. With little to no movement, students and teachers alike settled into a long, anxious wait. Mrs. Schuyler, the faculty moderator of Bishop O’Connell’s Taylor Swift Association (TSA), joined the queue at 9:30 and finally reached the purchasing screen five hours later. “It was pretty discouraging to watch other people get in to buy tickets within minutes of joining the queue while my queue would freeze for hours at a time.” Mrs. Schuyler kept one eye on her screen throughout the day, but she was ultimately grateful for her English classes and her fellow teachers. “I think I was lucky to have the distraction of the school day,” she continued,  “otherwise staring at the never-ending queue would have driven me mad!”  

Hayley O’Brien, president of the TSA, voiced her opinions on how the presale was handled. While Hayley celebrated her luck at eventually securing tickets for her and her friends in Pittsburg, she shared that the process was not easy. She reported that, around 11 a.m., a family friend had exposed the estimated time embedded in the website and found that it predicted that Hayley would be in the front of the line almost eight hours later. Three hours later, her transaction was complete, just before the Capital One presale was originally scheduled to begin. Hayley feels that “[Ticketmaster] is solely responsible for the many troubles fans encountered as they knew there would be a high demand for these shows and should have been better prepared.” 

Ticketmaster, describing the volume as “unprecedented”, reported that a staggering 3.5 million people registered for its “Verified Fan” system. The media conglomerate claims that the presale system would have functioned as intended if their site had not been flooded with 14 million users with and without the proper codes. This surge was cited as the reason for so many queue failures, including the issues that senior students Iris White and Autumn Zeoli faced while trying to purchase tickets for all of their friends. At first, it seemed like smooth sailing for the pair, as Iris reached the selection page only thirty minutes after the sale opened. However, Ticketmaster glitched and kicked her out for having an “invalid code.” “She was forced to the back of the queue for six hours and by the time she got through the tickets were all taken,” Autumn explained, expressing her frustration that Iris’ legitimate presale code was rejected. After multiple attempts, the two eventually got tickets along with their friends and family outside of Ticketmaster.

The Capital One cardholder presale, which had originally been scheduled for 2 p.m. the same day, was postponed to November 16. And, it would prove to be the last chance for many fans to get their hands on the coveted tickets. By the end of the week, Ticketmaster had completely canceled the general sale of tickets as over 2.4 million had been sold during presale alone — the most ever for any artist in a single day, and the entire inventory for Swift’s expanded tour. Swift herself expressed her excitement for the tour but also her ultimate disappointment towards Ticketmaster and the way the sale was executed. “It’s really difficult for me to trust an outside entity with these relationships and loyalties,” Swift said, speaking to her beloved fans in an Instagram post, “and excruciating for me to just watch mistakes happen with no recourse.” Ticketmaster, after its merger with Live Nation in 2009, is now under investigation for violating antitrust laws by maintaining an unethical monopoly over live music and entertainment tickets.