Heart-breakers gonna break, break, break - but let's hope that this week Taylor Swift is not going to break your heart.
Or, let's be fair, let's hope that Ticketek and the Eras Tour don't break your heart.
Statistically, it's going to happen to someone. A fair few more than one. Statistically with only five shows in Sydney and Melbourne combined, at stadiums that seat 83,500 and 100,000 people respectively (without accounting for the space for the stage), there just won't be enough capacity for every Swiftie in Australia and New Zealand. We are talking about the most-streamed female artist on Spotify, after all.
If Monday's American Express presale was anything to go by, the demand is there.
The presale - which was only open to American Express cardholders who were willing to pay $899.99 and $1249.60 for the top two VIP packages - saw the Amex ticket site crash half an hour before tickets went on sale for the Sydney show.
Ticketek put out an announcement that while everything was working well on their end, the issue extended from Amex's website itself. Amex, meanwhile, was redirecting people to purchase their tickets straight from Ticketek, after their site had crashed, and had its website up and running later that morning, ahead of the Melbourne presale at 2pm.
Despite all of this, tickets in the Amex presale, for both Sydney and the Melbourne shows sold out by late Monday afternoon. And those on the Melbourne pre-sale reportedly spent an hour "on hold" waiting to get their chance at scoring tickets.
So how can I get tickets?
Frontier emailed its members ahead of its Taylor Swift presale on Wednesday with tips on how best to position themselves for tickets.
And the number one thing on their list? Do not refresh your browser.
"Our team at Frontier have been working tirelessly with Ticketek to try to ensure the smoothest process possible for these shows, but we are seeing a historically unprecedented level of demand for these concerts," Frontier chief executive Dion Brant said.
"We're asking fans to stay calm and be kind to each other. Be prepared, read our presale tips and whatever you do - don't refresh your browser.
"If you can't get tickets during the presale don't panic, there will be another opportunity at Friday's on sale."
Other tips included:
- Get your presale code and write it down
- Bookmark the taylorswift.ticketek.com.au webpage
- Log into your Ticketek account and select "keep me signed in" on the device you're using for the presale
- Head directly to Ticketek to join the queue to buy tickets. You do not need to go to the Frontier website
- Only use one browser on your device
- Do not refresh the Ticketek queue page. You will be let through when a spot become available
- Keep an eye on the website timer - you get a set time to select and finish a purchase
- And, last but not least, breathe.
Presale for the Sydney dates starts on Wednesday at 10am, local time, while Melbourne dates go on sale at 2pm, local time.
For those who miss out, tickets to the general public go on sale 10am Friday for Sydney and 2pm for Melbourne. Most of the same tips apply - especially the breathing.
What are the chances of the site crashing?
It's the question on everyone's lips - particularly because when tickets to the US Eras Tour went on sale, Ticketmaster - an unrelated company - crashed. Fans also reported waiting up to eight hours in online queues.
Hoping to avoid the same fiasco here, Ticketek Australia has said their systems are prepared to manage high-demand events.
RMIT PhD candidate in music industry, Kate Pattison, is not as convinced, however.
"While the US had a system that allowed fans to get earlier ticket access, Australia does not, meaning that everyone - local and global fans, their friends and scalpers - will be trying to purchase tickets all at the same time," she said.
"The demand for Taylor Swift's concerts is so high that I can't imagine that there won't be ticketing issues in Australia."
How about scalpers?
There has been just as much information surrounding scalpers as there has been getting tickets.
Ticketek has reminded customers that it is the only authorised seller of Taylor Swift The Eras Tour tickets in Australia. And any tickets offered for resale elsewhere - online or offline (including Viagogo, The Ticket Merchant, Tixel, Trade Me, eBay, and Gumtree, or any other unauthorised source including all secondary ticket retail websites, and social media Buy Swap Sell pages) - may result in orders and tickets being cancelled without notice.
That being said, after Monday's Amex presale, a check by The Canberra Times noted that there are already tickets listed on Viagogo for as much as $4075 for the Melbourne show and $2329 for the Sydney show.
Anti-scalping legislation in NSW prevents the reselling of tickets for more than 10 per cent above the original price.
This prompted Australian consumer advocacy group Choice to issue a statement on Tuesday with questions that had posed to the Viagogo and Ticket Merchant websites to see how they would be monitoring the price on tickets.
According to Choice, The Ticket Merchant said they have a compliance team who monitors the website and removes listings in breach of state legislation. If a ticket is sold in breach of the legislation, the customer is refunded on identification of the breach.
"Taylor Swift has a huge number of face-value price points, with tickets available to be purchased from multiple sources. All of these allocations often come in with different price points, which makes policing listing quite difficult," a Ticket Merchant spokesperson told Choice.
"The process we follow is to ask the seller to provide the face value when listing and if something doesn't appear to be in compliance we ask for evidence and remove the listing.
"At present, there are no listings live on our website for this event in Sydney."
Viagogo did not respond to Choice's enquiries when issued on Monday.
"As well as paying inflated prices, Choice has reported extensively on customers who purchased tickets through reselling websites only to never receive their tickets, receive fake tickets, or be turned away at the venue," the Choice statement read.
"In NSW the ticket issuer can also cancel the ticket resold as a part of state legislation. It's why consumers should steer clear of unauthorised ticket resellers and only buy tickets from the official website or official reseller. In the case of the Swift concert, Ticketek says there will be an official reselling website from September onwards.
"In Victoria, weaker ticket-scalping legislation means scalpers may be able to sell tickets at hugely inflated prices without breaching the law.
"The Victorian legislation says the Minister must first designate a sporting or entertainment event a "major event" before anti-scalping legislation affects ticket reselling and when a limit of 10 per cent above the original sale price is imposed."
There are no tickets listed on Ticketek Marketplace - the authorised reseller - as of Tuesday.
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