Niall Horan fans are expressing their fury on social media after an apparent “glitch” on Ticketmaster saw them knocked out of the queue to buy presale tickets for his live tour.
The Irish singer and former One Direction star kicks off his UK and Ireland dates in February 2024, taking in arena shows in Belfast, Dublin, Birmingham, London, Cardiff and Manchester.
Presale tickets went on sale in the morning on Tuesday 30 May. Ticketmaster quickly began trending on Twitter as fans vented their frustration after failing to get to the front of the queue.
“If you’re trying to get tickets for Niall Horan and you see this can we start a petition to ban Ticketmaster [for] life, please,” one fan tweeted.
They added a screenshot of a message they’d received from the site, which said: “We’ve detected that you are already in the queue for this sale on another device. If you are unable to proceed with your original device, then click ‘Confirm’ to start a new session and rejoin the queue.”
Many of the fans replying said they had received the same message.
“I’ve been on Ticketmaster since 8.30am trying to get tickets and it keeps saying this and keeps glitching!” one wrote.
Another said: “I was [number] 80 in the queue and this happened I’m so mad.”
In a separate tweet, one fan revealed they had received the same message and asked: “Anyone else having trouble with Niall Horan presale on Ticketmaster. Just kept showing this and wouldn’t let me join the queue.”
“TICKETMASTER KICKED ME OUT AND WON’T LET ME BACK IN COS IT THINKS I’M ON MULTIPLE DEVICES I’M GONNA CRY I JUST WANT MY NIALL TICKETS,” another outraged fan tweeted.
The Independent has contacted Horan’s representative and Ticketmaster for comment.
The upset comes months after Taylor Swift fans sued the ticketing site over the presale ticket fiasco for her Eras tour, which is currently underway in the US.
In December, the website crashed after tickets to Swift’s shows went on sale for the North America leg of her tour. Soon after the presale launched, tickets emerged on resale sites for as much as $22,000 (£18,500).
Around 26 Swift fans later filed a lawsuit in the Los Angeles County Superior Court, accusing Ticketmaster of “intentionally and purposefully” allowing scalpers and bots to buy concert tickets.
“Ticketmaster was eager to allow this arrangement, as Ticketmaster is paid again in additional fees every time a ticket is resold,” the suit stated.
“Millions of fans waited up to eight hours and were unable to purchase tickets as a result of insufficient ticket releases,” the document, obtained by Deadline, alleged.
Swift herself issued a statement expressing her disappointment that so many fans had been left empty-handed.
Ticketmaster’s parent company Live Nation said that they should have done a “better job” by staggering sales over a longer time period, during a congressional hearing addressing its handling of the singer’s ticket sales.
It blamed an overwhelming surge and bot attacks for generating an unprecedented demand, blaming that more than 3.5 million people registered for the presale.
“We apologise to the fans. We apologise to Ms Swift. We need to do better, and we will do better,” said Live Nation president Joe Berchtold.
