Ticketmaster, Or: How To Fail Every Marketing Class

It’s me. Hi. I’m mad at Ticketmaster. It’s me. 

That’s right – Swiftie Maria is back again, here to bring you a marketing breakdown of how Ticketmaster failed Swifties, its customers, the world, and every basic marketing class ever taught.

If you’ve followed the news recently, you’ve probably heard about the upcoming Taylor Swift Eras tour. Specifically, you’ve heard about how badly Ticketmaster botched the sale. And that’s not just angry Swifties talking – it’s so bad that the US Congress is investigating Ticketmaster for violating antitrust law.

So if you’ve been waiting for a combination roast and educational post on Ticketmaster, then pull up a chair and grab your teacup.

Because I’ve got a steaming pot of TEA.  

How Ticketmaster’s “Verified Fan” program would have worked…in Ticketmaster’s wildest dreams

First, let’s start with what Ticketmaster thought was going to happen. 

Taylor Swift wanted to make sure that tickets got into the hands of actual Swifties and not scalpers or bots. Ticketmaster’s solution to this problem, as it has been for other artists, is their Verified Fan program. However, because Taylor Swift is such a massive star and this is her first tour in years, Ticketmaster attempted to stagger the entry of Swifties onto the Ticketmaster website. The idea was that fans were to select their top three concerts. Then they would only be able to shop for tickets in those concert venues’ time zones. 

Swifties submitted the information to Ticketmaster, then received an email with their concert selections as well as a confirmation that they were verified. This did not guarantee that they could participate in the Verified Fan presale event, however. Demand was too high.

But Ticketmaster knew that was coming and they had a plan for it. On November 14, 2022, the night before the presale, Swifties would be randomly selected from the Verified Fan pool. Then they would be notified via email, later followed by a text message containing:

• Concert date for which they were eligible to shop
• A shopping link
• A unique code required for access

It should be noted: throughout the Verified Fan signup window, Taylor Swift’s team kept adding shows due to the unprecedented demand. Additionally, Swifites who previously purchased tickets for the canceled-for-COVID LoverFest were to receive a “boost”, as were Swifties who received emails from Taylor Nation for being loyal fans. Keep this in mind for later on in the article.  

How Ticketmaster imagined presale day would go

Ticketmaster instructed Swifties to use the link they received via text message on presale day in order to log onto Ticketmaster. This would be done 30 minutes before 10 am, local venue time.

Using me as an example, I live in EST but was eligible to shop a Nashville concert. That meant I was to log on at 9:30 central time for the 10 am central time opening, even though for me this was actually 10:30 and 11 am eastern time respectively. 

The 30-minute waiting period was intended to allow Swifties a chance to make sure their payment information was up to date, and that they were logged in without issue prior to the opening of the virtual waiting room. Ticketmaster encouraged fans to keep the page open, saying they would automatically place fans in the virtual waiting room at 10 am venue time.

Once in the waiting room, fans would see a bar across their screen indicating how many fans were ahead of them in line. This bar would progress like an installation bar as fans moved through the queue. Swifties understood that their unique code would be required to enter the queue. 

Once at the front of the line, fans would be placed in the “ticketing room.” This screen would show the venue layout and the ability to pick seats to then purchase. Fans would be given 30 minutes in the room, but once tickets were added to their basket, they would have 8 minutes to check out before the tickets were released back into the pool. 

After purchasing the tickets, fans would have the option to purchase parking and ticket insurance and then receive a confirmation email. 

This process was to repeat for every time zone of the Verified Fan presale portion of the day. 

Afterward, the Capital One Pre-Sale was to go live a 2 pm eastern the same day.

In summary, sales would go like this:

• 10 am EST – eastern time zone Verified Fan sales
• 11 am EST – central time zone Verified Fan sales
• 12 pm EST – mountain time zone Verified Fan sales
• 1 pm EST – pacific time zone Verified Fan sales
• 2 pm EST – Capital One Pre-Sale

This was how it was supposed to go. But Swifties know it didn’t turn out that way. We remember what actually happened all too well.

We knew you were trouble, Ticketmaster – and the missing codes proved it

Fact: the Verified Fan pre-sale went so badly that Swifties started calling it The Great War.

But even the day before The Great War was nerve-wracking. Verified fans selected for the presale were supposed to receive their emails that day.

Why was that nerve-wracking? Because the emails went out in batches, but the corresponding text messages were not being sent in the same batch.

Around 1 pm eastern time, emails started going out. Then text messages with links and codes followed. The Swiftie Discord server I joined specifically for the Eras Tour lit up.

Some people received their emails and codes. Others were getting only emails, others just codes. And some got nothing.

I received my email, but no code. 

Hours passed. I still didn’t have my code.

My friend called and said she got her email and code an hour later. So what was I supposed to do?

It was getting late and people in Discord said that for previous concerts on Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan program, they would receive an email but no code. They couldn’t get tickets. This was not a new problem.

Would I be one of those unlucky ones? 

The delayed delivery of emails and text message codes pointlessly tortured the Swifties

As the evening progressed, I slowly morphed into a blob of a human being. I was 90% anxiety, 10% human. I began questioning if the anxiety I felt, as though my life depended on receiving a single text, was how Zoomers felt all the time. 

It wasn’t a shining moment for me. 

Ticketmaster put me out of my misery seven hours later. I received a text message from a random number. THE random number. I finally had my code. 

It seemed like the end of my problems, but I should have known it wouldn’t be. The elation I was feeling now would soon be replaced by more anxiety.

I would soon have to reach into the depths of my soul for courage and the will to press on in what would later be called “The Swiftie Hunger Games.”

The Great War, or: Ticketmaster’s chaotic, drawn-out pre-sale left fans feeling burnt

I set my alarm for 8 am. Today was the day. November 15.

Even though I didn’t have to be on the computer until 10:30 eastern (9:30 central), I wanted to hit the Discord early and show support for the Swifties looking to gain tickets to east coast concert venues. I also wanted to get a jump start to make sure I could access my Ticketmaster account. I always forget passwords and wanted to make sure my payment information was up to date.

So color me surprised when I couldn’t even get Ticketmaster’s website to pull up.  

Ticketmaster just kept clocking. Then it errored out. I couldn’t even open the page, much less look up any concerts.

The only way I could access the page was through a stroke of luck. The previous day, I had emailed myself the link I was texted by Ticketmaster. When I clicked that link, it brought up Ticketmaster and by some soft kiss from the Swiftie Gods, my Ticketmaster account automatically logged me in. To this day, I don’t know how that happened.

The screen said I was in the waiting room and that my screen would automatically refresh and place me in line once the appropriate time came. Sure, no problem. But what I learned real quick was that I could not do a single thing to mess with my internet connection. The east coast Swifties were warning others about getting booted from the system.

Slowly, the stories started getting worse as my time to enter the line was getting closer. Thousands upon thousands of east coast Swifties were still waiting in line. Central was about to open up. And if you know Taylor Swift, you know that seeing her in Nashville is a high-demand location. 

Ticketmaster dropped Swifties onto a vague screen saying “2000+ people ahead of you”

Central opened up. My screen moved me to the queue. Tummy butterflies were a flying. I had no idea what to expect but I was going to be ready. I had my code copied to my clipboard to enter it to get into the line…except Ticketmaster didn’t request it. That couldn’t be good. 

Well, that’s OK. I did have the boost from Taylor Nation, but I couldn’t expect that to put me right in front of the line. After all, there were all the LoverFest Swifties who needed to get priority (because they bought tickets for a tour canceled by COVID).

But then I started seeing some discord messages about people getting seats fast who did not have either Taylor Nation boost or LoverFest. And then I saw messages from people who had LoverFest and didn’t even get a code.

Then more and more messages arrived from the east coast saying they were getting booted out of the ticketing room. People with legitimate codes ran into errors. Others waited hours, only to get sent to the back of the line instead of the ticketing room.

Something was afoot. 

Pardon the interruption: Ticketmaster randomly stopped the queue for an indeterminate amount of time

Image ℅ Interview Magazine

Without warning, Ticketmaster paused the entire ticketing process. And that’s when the rumors started flying. 

Waiting in line for hours felt like death by a thousand cuts. You might call me dramatic (my husband does), but imagine having to sit in a chair for seven hours straight feeling like you are playing Russian Roulette if you dare to go to the bathroom.

Don’t let the computer fall asleep.

Don’t refresh the page.

Avoid doing anything that could possibly tax the internet connection, lest it make you lose your place in line. I thought I was mentally and physically prepared for this day. But I was not ready for it. I was too delicate.

The Taylor Swift puns just kept coming as we all began to go a little batty. 

Ultimately, Ticketmaster screwed up so badly that you could only get Taylor Swift tickets if you could afford to spend hours waiting on the computer

Hours went by. I tried getting non-internet-related work done, chatted on the Discord, and cleaned my office for a bit. I learned how to see what my place was in line by viewing the source code of the page.

In the end, the Capital One Pre-Sale that was supposed to also happen that day was ultimately pushed to the next day. The pacific coast venue sales were pushed back to the afternoon.

Ticketmaster unpaused the queue without warning after two hours. People started sending screenshots of their loading bar. The East coast had loads of Swifties bemoaning the fact that they were still stuck in line.

Finally, it happened. I was next in line.

I was also about to vomit because several of my new Swiftie friends were next in line and then got booted to the back of the line for no reason.

I held my breath as the screen refreshed to put me in the ticketing room….and BAM I was IN!

Though the sale started at 11 am eastern, I did not get into the ticketing room until just before 4:30 eastern. As I sat staring at the stadium seating chart trying to make my selections, the seats were blinking like Christmas lights. The same tickets were appearing and disappearing over and over again.

The 7-minute ticket hold was not working the way it was supposed to. It was madness.

I grabbed my tickets, paid, and then went back to send screenshots to the Discord. In a matter of 15 minutes, I watched the stadium sell out. 

Note: there were still people waiting in line for hours after me, only to get into the ticketing room and find it sold out. There were still people on the east coast who had not gotten into the ticketing room by the time I got my tickets. 

Like I said – madness. 

I Think There’s Been a Glitch: Ticketmaster sold out all the general sale tickets before it was supposed to

As bad as my experience was, I was fairly lucky. I would be remiss if I didn’t cover what happened in the next 24 hours.

The next two time zones opened up much later than initially promised. While it was still an insane mad dash to get tickets, the pacific time zone venues had a better shopping experience as the servers were no longer completely overloaded. 

The next day was the Capital One Pre-Sale event. I attended this as I wanted to still try and score floor seats. Already, the process was substantially better, albeit I still had to wait a lot. The line was shorter, but the ticket purchase page resembled Christmas lights again. Available seats would be there one moment, then gone the next. And that pre-sale sold out even faster. I watched it happen. 

Here’s the catch. After the Capital One Pre-Sale, Ticketmaster canceled the general sale. They were out of tickets. The entire tour sold out. 

Due to extraordinarily high demands on ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet that demand, tomorrow’s public on-sale for Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour has been cancelled.

— Ticketmaster (@Ticketmaster) November 17, 2022

Ticketmaster failed to set aside tickets for the general sale, screwing over everyone who wasn’t part of Taylor Nation, the LoverFest tour, a Verified Fan, or the Capital One Pre-Sale

Swifties were SHOOK.

This was not supposed to happen.

Only a certain percentage of the tickets were to be sold during the two presale events combined. A whole other set of tickets was supposed to be available for general sale that Friday. So how could they possibly be sold out? 

There must have been a glitch. 

Or some serious shady business. 

Tickets were already popping up on resale websites, with one ticket in Houston going for $22,000. Nosebleed seats for $500 were considered a bargain. Scammers came out of the woodwork.

If you were lucky enough to score tickets, you were advised to change your Ticketmaster password. Hackers targeted accounts with Taylor Swift tickets.

Up to this point, neither Taylor Nation nor Taylor Swift herself had made a statement. They just kept releasing re-mixes of Anti-Hero, the irony not lost on any of us Swifties. 

Just after noon eastern on November 18, Taylor Swift made her statement. It was short, it was clear. She drew on the cat-eye sharp enough to kill a monopoly. She was dressing for revenge.

Ticketmaster is a de facto monopoly. That’s the only reason they can get away with this.

Music fans have dealt with crummy ticketing experiences for years. It was almost a right of passage to attend a high-demand concert. Ariana Grande, Olivia Rodrigo, and Harry Styles also had historically intense ticketing experiences. But even rock stars for the older crowds have been impacted too, such as the recent Bruce Springsteen debacle.

Ticketmaster has been a problem for a long time. Pearl Jam even fought them in court all the way back in 1995.

So why now? Why are Ticketmaster and LiveNation in hot water now?

Optics.

Taylor Swift has grabbed the spotlight for smashing records and fighting the good fight against big conglomerates.

Swift has built herself a reputation for fighting for what is good and right, and no longer is she letting herself be pushed around. And if she gets weary, she has millions of Swifties there to back her up.

So it has taken an artist like Taylor Swift, who had a large enough and dedicated enough fan base spanning multiple generations – the majority of whom are incredibly tech savvy – to get the attention of the Tennessee Attorney General, North Carolina Attorney General, the Justice Department, and Congress itself to finally look into the LiveNation and Ticketmaster monopoly. 

Ticketmaster has so much power that a superstar who took her music back from her own record label didn’t have any viable alternative for ticketing

Based on Swift’s statement, it was clear that she was forced into working with LiveNation/Ticketmaster due to a lack of competition in the industry. LiveNation controls access to most major music venues in the United States. Want access to a LiveNation venue? You have to go through Ticketmaster. No option.

If it walks like a monopoly and talks like a monopoly, then it’s probably a monopoly.

In case you were wondering, the last time Congress got involved in something like this was when Facebook was facing antitrust violations. 

Up to this point, Ticketmaster has been growing and forming important relationships with concert venues throughout the United States. The 2010 acquisition by LiveNation only further improved that growth. Users liked the Ticketmaster interface, and the name was trusted back in the day.

But more ticketing experiences are beginning to resemble the Eras Tour. Their business practices are seeing increased scrutiny. Now a once-in-a-generation music star like Taylor Swift says that she was forced into business with Ticketmaster because there were no other available options in the marketplace offering the same service.

At the time I’m writing this, Congress has given the CEO of LiveNation until December 15 to schedule a briefing with Congress to discuss the process used for the Eras Tour ticketing experience. 

Time will tell what happens to LiveNation and Ticketmaster. Will they stay BFFs? Will they be torn apart?

We don’t know yet. All we know is that Taylor Swift and her team continue on with their vigilante shit.

But what we do know is that Ticketmaster’s monopolstic control over live music ticketing has allowed them to get away with failing at all the marketing fundamentals.

Ticketmaster vs. the 4 P’s of Marketing

One of the first things you’ll learn in marketing class: the 4 P’s of marketing. Ticketmaster and LiveNation, a long time ago, understood these lessons. But at some point, they forgot them. So let’s look at how their monopoly status makes them exempt from the most basic marketing rules.

Promotion 

In marketing, promotion is every method of communication that you use to inform people about a product or service.

Why the 4 P’s of Marketing Remain So Important

Ticketmaster didn’t have to do much to promote the Taylor Swift event. Her fan base is practically one massive omniscient being. For me, the way that I knew about the Eras Tour was through the social media profiles of Taylor Swift, Taylor Nation, and their mailing list. The communication was detailed and frequent, and it laid out the process and made very clear what the important dates to know were if you wanted to get tickets to the tour. 

As for the Capital One Pre-Sale event, enjoy the below promotional commercial that Ticketmaster, Capital One, and Taylor Swift put together. It’s honestly one of my favorite things, despite the bitter taste of how the events actually went down. 

Promotion is about message strategy and frequency, as well as ads and PR. But execution is an important part of promotion. Ticketmaster botched that.

You needed an email and text message code to buy a ticket. But text message codes and emails didn’t go out at the same time. Some people didn’t get them at all. And for those who did, the codes sometimes didn’t work.

Some people logged on, waited for hours, and then got kicked out of the ticketing room and put back in line. It was utter chaos.

Then the general sale was canceled due to Ticketmaster accidentally selling out tickets too early. Figure that one out.

Basically, Ticketmaster invalidated all prior communication with their abysmal execution of the sale.

Place

Place typically refers to how easily customers can access a company and how convenient it is to buy from them. Ticketmaster is a virtual ticketing system, so their “place” is their website and virtual waiting room. It’s also the place they screwed up the worst. 

Through the Verified Fan program, Ticketmaster hoped to gauge the amount of web traffic they would be experiencing on November 15. But their servers could not handle the traffic surge, and they had to pause the pre-sale process.

In fact, they kept sending out emails stating the historic demand. Yet, their servers were still not up to snuff, resulting in the entire pre-sale process being paused for an undetermined amount of time. 

During the Taylor Swift sale, customers simply couldn’t reliably access Ticketmaster. Codes never arrived or didn’t work. Customers were randomly booted from the ticketing room due to server errors, having to start again at the back of the line.

Now I am grounded enough to recognize that not all of the errors were Ticketmaster’s fault. I’m sure some of the codes or payment issues were user errors. But I was in direct communication with fellow Swifties who were using the codes issued to them by Ticketmaster, for the correct date and venue, and they were getting kicked out. Other users that I spoke with were being booted to the back of the line when they were next to be allowed into the ticketing system.

Simply put: Ticketmaster didn’t prepare their place for a big sale.

But what about the blog post Ticketmaster released?

The one defending their preparation?” 

Yes. Let’s talk about that.

Ticketmaster posted two blog posts. The first was deleted within hours of its posting due to backlash. In the second, Ticketmaster states that only 40% of users who sign up to be Verified will actually shop the tour.

Be that as it may, there are always exceptions to the rule. 

Ticketmaster didn’t think this through. Swifties are notoriously dedicated. Taylor Swift has not toured in four years due to the pandemic. The demand for tickets was enormous.

With so much uncertainty around demand, Ticketmaster should have prepared their servers for a minimum of 60% of the Verified Fan accounts. 

Which, speaking of the Verified Fan accounts – remember that Verified Fans did not have to input their codes until after reaching the ticketing room. The codes were supposed to be the gatekeepers. So why let the systems get flooded with millions of fans, only to later boot them out? Ticketmaster had the right tools, they just forgot to use them. 

And lastly, in regards to Place, Ticketmaster should have scheduled sales farther apart. Leaving just one hour between each time zone clearly was not enough time. Consider that there were thousands of fans in the eastern time zone waiting in line when the central time zone venues opened up. 

So what can we take away from this? Standard practices and rules of thumb are important when preparing your place. But remember that every client and situation is different. Sometimes, you have to work outside of the standards to address obstacles beforehand.

Product 

This should have been simple. Ticketmaster had the product. They had all the tickets.

Taylor Swift tickets are basically gold. Perfect product-market fit. Practically impossible to screw up.

But they accidentally sold all the tickets during the Verified Fan and Capital One Pre-Sale events. So they didn’t have any set aside for the general sale.

The problem here is so obvious that I won’t elaborate.

Price 

Price is another part of marketing. Too high and people won’t buy, too low and you won’t make a profit. The price itself sets expectations for the quality of the product.

But it’s not just about the cost of the goods/services themselves. You have to factor in fees and ancillary associated costs.

Concerts must price their tickets based on paying the artist, other performers, choreographers, wardrobe/makeup, sound/lighting, security, and so on. Then there are all of the costs the venue will take on, such as security, concessions, electricity, and additional staff. A lot goes into pricing.

But Ticketmaster managed to screw this up too with their Highway Robbery system, better known as Dynamic Pricing and Platinum Tickets. Fortunately for Swifties, Taylor Swift did not allow either of these practices to be put into place, although there were a plethora of high-priced VIP packages with little real value. 

What’s Dynamic Pricing? Basically, a scam. Dynamic pricing allows seat prices to change based on the amount of demand at the time. In Bruce Springsteen’s case, floor seats periodically surged to several thousand dollars each. And people bought them.

What, pray tell, then, are Platinum Tickets? They say “Optimal Platinum” or “Platinum VIP.” It’s just a fancy label for a higher ticket price. The seats are the same, there is no special perk, just a higher price tag. In a way, they are sucker’s version of vanity pricing. (Seriously.)

Again, we thank our Queen Taylor Swift for being a Swiftie herself and not allowing Ticketmaster to use Dynamic Pricing or Platinum Tickets. She singlehandedly stopped Ticketmaster from failing completely on this P.

(And yet their general sale screw-up still put tickets in the hands of scalpers. Now nosebleeds are going for $500. So did they really pass?)

Think marketing is confusing as hell? You’re not alone.

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Ticketmaster vs. the 4 C’s of Marketing

Let’s take another super basic marketing model: the 4 C’s of Marketing. Surprise: Ticketmaster completely flunked here too.

Customer

So much of marketing revolves around keeping your customer base happy. You have to consider their wants and needs, and how you can fulfill them. That will let you build a loyal customer base.

Or you can just forget all that, build a monopoly, and the customers won’t have an option.

Ticketmaster had two customers when it came to the Eras Tour: Swifties and Taylor Swift herself. Ticketmaster let both down.

As stated earlier in this post, Taylor Swift’s team was forced into partnering with Ticketmaster due to the stadium contracts in place. Kind of hard to have a stadium tour if you can’t book the stadiums due to non-compete contracts with a ticketing office. 

Now let’s look at the Swifties. They too are customers as they are the ones purchasing the ticket and helping Ticketmaster make a tidy profit. And despite Ticketmaster acting shocked as to the historic numbers of fans that turned out to the pre-sales, they said themselves that there were 3.5 million Verified Fan signups. That’s a lot of customers. 

So how did Ticketmaster fail these customers? Two ways.

First, their horrendous customer experience failed to consider ticket buyers’ needs.

Second, they threw their other customer under the bus – Taylor Swift herself. The night of the Capital One Pre-Sale, a chairman for LiveNation was interviewed on CNBC.

According to him, it is Swift’s fault for being “too famous” and having not toured in four years (three of which occurred during a once-in-a-century global pandemic). And according to the since-deleted blog post by Ticketmaster, the pre-sale events were huge successes and there was no need for people to be all worked up. 

They only got away with this because they’re a monopoly.

Taylor Swift had her hands tied, watching Ticketmaster play the fiddle while the Swifties burned. 

Cost

Cost is very similar to price in the 4 P’s, but it also takes into account non-monetary expenses. Time is also considered a cost. And time is what Ticketmaster robbed its customers of on November 15.

As I’ve already explained in great detail how Ticketmaster stole two days’ worth of my time (and oh so much more in my mental health), let’s instead look at how this isn’t the first time Ticketmaster has done this.

Ever heard of Olivia Rodrigo? Or perhaps the song Drivers License? She is a seven-time Grammy award nominee who runs in the same musical circles as Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, Harry Styles, Shawn Mendez, Halsey, and even Justin Beiber. When she held her pre-sale ticketing event with Ticketmaster, a similar fate occurred to her fans. Almost exactly. Fans waited for hours only to be kicked out of the queue with codes not working. 

The ticket cost is high. The intangible cost of wasting an entire day trying to get tickets somehow manages to be higher.

Now Ticketmaster will get a taste of their own medicine, paying both the tangible and intangible costs of going to court.

Convenience 

Generally speaking, Ticketmaster is built upon convenience. Fans don’t have to wait outside a ticketing office. That’s nice.

Enthusiasts can simply whip out their phones or open a new tab on their computer and purchase tickets online. But when it came to the Eras tour, Ticketmaster managed to make something worse than actually going somewhere to buy a ticket.

I don’t know about you, but having to sit at a computer for 7 hours without leaving is not convenient. Sure, desk jobs involve sitting at a computer all day, but at least employees can get up for water, use the restroom, and even go for a walk on their lunch break.

Not in the Swiftie Hunger Games.

I was stuck in a nerve-wracking hellscape for hours. The shopping links went out by text, but Ticketmaster all but required fans to purchase tickets on a computer (which not everyone has). Then there was the aforementioned “temporary pause” that lasted two hours, the “2,000+ People Ahead of You” screen which concealed the fact that sometimes 30,000 people would be ahead of you in line.

So did Ticketmaster make purchasing tickets convenient? Hell no. 

Communication 

Initially, Ticketmaster actually did a good job here. They clearly outlined the steps of how to become a Verified Fan, and even set the expectations that not every Verified Fan would receive a code. It was a harsh truth, but supply and demand is a real thing and Ticketmaster did a good job expressing that piece. 

What they then tanked was everything thereafter. 

Ticketmaster employees who were responding to direct messages on Twitter were giving conflicting information. Some statements said that the general sale was not canceled, just postponed. Others said that there were no tickets. Others said that there were 800,000 tickets. 

Then there were conflicting messages regarding the stadium employees. One woman said a stadium employee tried selling tickets at scalper prices while the ticketing process was on hold. Whereas others have been told that the stadiums have no idea how many tickets there are and only know what the public knows. 

The reason for the pause is still up for debate. Was it due to Ticketmaster not actually inputting all the codes into the system? Was it because the servers were overloaded? Both? 

Did scalpers get in, like they did for Olivia Rodrigo’s Sour concert? 

And then of course there is the previously linked Ticketmaster initial blog post explaining the Eras Tour disaster, which had to be quickly taken down and reworked due to the backlash it received. If you haven’t checked out the link, the post was all but bragging about how historic the ticketing event was, ignoring the fact that it failed at communicating with its customers in a meaningful way.

Not exactly the best way to communicate with one’s customers, if I do say so myself. 

Dear Reader

I hope that you have enjoyed reading this article as much as I had writing it. I’ve never been a part of a community that might actually create change, so it is exciting and interesting to me to see how Swifties might be what finally gets lawmakers to look into Ticketmaster & LiveNation. Will it be the next Facebook Trials? Only time will tell. 

But what we can learn from this postmortem of the Eras Tour sale is what NOT to do in terms of marketing fundamentals. 

And if any Ticketmaster or Live Nation Board Member is reading this – feel free to reach out. I’d be happy to give you a private lesson in your Marketing’s Ps and Cs. 

Think marketing is confusing as hell? You’re not alone.

Join over 1,000 other confused, but curious folks. Download Weird Marketing’s FREE Experimental Marketing Guide.