On another day of unimaginable highs and lows, it turns out the least stressful place to be on Friday - if you're a Swiftie, that is - was standing in a line.
In a physical, in-person queue, that is.
While frantic fans were watching in mounting panic as the online order screen for tickets to Taylor Swift's much-hyped tour refreshed again and again, every nine seconds and into eternity, there was a long queue snaking well out the door and across the top floor of Cooleman Court shopping centre on Friday afternoon, as canny fans opted to go old-school for tickets.
Ticketek's only physical agency in Canberra, Songland Records, was filled with goodwill and unalloyed joy, with a slow and steady stream of beaming shoppers emerging clutching actual paper tickets to the show.
But store owner Frog Harris insisted it was a completely normal week for the longest-running Ticketek agency in Australia.
"We've been in this 27 years - this is just standard for us," he said, with the patience of someone who has been explaining the same thing to punters for years.
"People think that doing online is always the quickest and fastest and easiest, and this is an example of how that's not the case."
He even had an information sheet at the ready for all Eras Tour hopefuls as they entered the queue, urging calm and quiet and he and his sidekick Fliss Boxall processed the tickets as quickly as possible.
"Everyone that was here for Sydney tickets this morning got tickets, and I'm hopeful that everyone here for Melbourne actually gets tickets," he said.
Sisters Jo and Kate Pickles scored four tickets each to the Sunday, February 18 show in Melbourne, and said the two-hour wait had been worth it as their respective kids would be thrilled.
"A workmate rang me and said you could get tickets at Cooleman Court, so I just fanged on down," said Jo.
She said it had been a while since either had queued for a music concert in person - "probably not since Pearl Jam in 1995".
Elizabeth Hanley and her 14-year-old daughter Olive also scored Melbourne tickets, although they hadn't planned this style of old-school attack.
Ms Hanley had read in the news that morning about a woman who had driven from Sydney to Orange to line up in person at Ticketek as a way to beat the queue.
"I thought, 'I just live around the corner, I'll just pop down'," she said.
Meanwhile, Mr Harris and Ms Boxall were keeping a tight rein on the crowd, regularly ordering the affable punters in no uncertain terms to "keep the chatter down to zero".
Still, you can't keep a good Swiftie down, and true fans will always hedge their bets: most people in the calm and orderly queue were also clutching laptops and phones, logged into the now-infamous virtual queue that has caused so much emotional turmoil this week.
The second and final batch of tickets went up Friday at 10am for the Sydney show, and sold out within two hours.
Disappointed fans were then able to set their sights on tickets to the Melbourne show at 2pm, which also sold out in two hours.
It was exactly the amount of time most people waited in the queue at Cooleman Court.
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