Ticketmaster Blames Software Vendor for Halted Taylor Swift Tour Sale in France
A third-party software provider is to blame for a major disruption to a ticket sale for six Taylor Swift shows in France, according to a statement issued by Ticketmaster France.
“This morning’s sale was disrupted by an issue with a third-party vendor who is working to resolve the issue as soon as possible,” the company said on Tuesday, hours after the sale was halted. “As soon as we saw fans having problems, the queues were put on hold. Any codes not used to purchase tickets today will remain valid.”
Approximately 700,000 fans had queued up earlier today for a chance to buy tickets to four concerts in Paris shows scheduled for May 9, 10, 11 and 12 two Lyon concerts, June 3 and 4. The unidentified third-party company had issued the codes to Taylor fans who had registered in advance with Ticketmaster for a chance to buy tickets. Approximately 15 minutes after the first of three ticket sales began, fans began reporting technical glitches with the codes, preventing many from completing their purchase. The ticket sale was eventually postponed and will be rescheduled for a later date.
Some of the complaints were reminiscent of Swift’s disastrous Nov. 15 presale for the North American leg of her wildly popular Eras tour, with fans describing being kicked off the site while trying to buy tickets. While both incidents occurred as millions of fans flooded the site trying to buy tickets, the Nov. 15 sale was hit with a massive bot attack that flooded the Ticketmaster website with billions of visitors, causing the site to freeze up.
So far, bots and hackers have not been blamed for the disruption to the Ticketmaster France site, where the majority of tickets for the six French stops on the Eras tour are still available.
Marc Schneider
Billboard
