Ticketmaster released a statement last week that “due to extraordinarily high demands on ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet that demand, Friday’s public ticket sales for Swift’s Eras Tour has been canceled.” Ticketmaster said on Thursday that over two million tickets were sold for Taylor Swift’s upcoming tour on Tuesday, causing a massive slowdown in its platform.
The company later explained that its “Verified Fans” system couldn’t keep up with the high demand. “A staggering number of bot attacks as well as fans who didn’t have invite codes drove “unprecedented traffic” to the site,” Ticketmaster explained. “Never before has a Verified Fan on sale sparked so much attention – or uninvited volume,” the company said in the blog post. “This disrupted the predictability and reliability that is the hallmark of our Verified Fan platform.” On Tuesday, Ticketmaster told CNN Business that “people are actively purchasing tickets” and the website was “not down.”