Taylor Swift Breaking Records.. And Ticketmaster

Taylor Swift is one of the biggest pop stars of our generation, so when she makes an announcement that she will be going on a tour, people are sure to go crazy. This is exactly what happened on November 15th, 2022. Not only did Taylor Swift announce a tour, but she also set and broke records with her new album “Midnights,” and received Grammy nominations for her previous album, “Red (Taylor’s Version).” 

On November 1st, Swift made an appearance on Good Morning America announcing that she will be touring in 2023. Starting in Glendale, Arizona in March, all the way to Los Angeles in August, Swift stated that this tour would be called the “Eras Tour.” She took to her Instagram explaining that the Eras Tour would be, “…a journey through the musical eras of my career (past and present!)” 

Pre-sale for tickets was held November 15th. At 10 o’clock in the morning the pre-sale tickets went live. As millions of people logged on and joined the queue to attempt to buy tickets, the website, Ticketmaster, crashed. In an official Ticketmaster statement they said, “There has been historically unprecedented demand with millions showing up to buy tickets for the TaylorSwiftTix Presale.” Many fans were upset with this statement because Ticketmaster sent out the codes so they should have known that there would be so many people trying to buy tickets. The West Coast on sales got rescheduled for 3PMthat same day, and the Capital One onsale had been rescheduled to the next day at 2PM local venue time. With tickets being in such high demand, scammers and bots sell their tickets for as much as $90,000. In an interview with the chairman of Live Nation Entertainment, the website was supposed to be opened up for 1.5 million verified Taylor Swift fans. Ticketmaster’s website had 14 million on the site. This means that Ticketmaster could have filled 900 stadiums. The Eras Tour ended up breaking a Ticketmaster record, as over two million tickets were sold for Swift’s shows on November 15th, the most tickets ever sold for an artist in a single day. 

 With Swift’s new release of “Midnights,” Swift not only broke numerous records but made history by being the first person ever to occupy the Top Ten spots all at once of the Billboard Hot 100. Swift is not only the first artist to do so, but this also means that for the first time in history, no male appeared on the top ten. With Anti-Hero holding the number one spot, Swift’s record means that other artists can not  break her record, but only tie it. According to Billboard, Midnights earned more than 1.578 million equivalent album units in the U.S. through its first week, and after four days Midnights had the biggest streaming week of the year so far with 357 million streams. This is the largest streaming week ever by a female artist. As we take in all the records Swift broke, we can take a look at the nominations for the 2023 Grammys. 

Midnights is not eligible for the Grammys this year, but All Too Well (10 Minute Version)(Taylor’s Version)(From the Vault) is and received two nominations. Swift received a total of four nominations at this year’s Grammys. Swift’s All Too Well was nominated for “Song of the year” as well as “Best Music Video” for the All Too Well Short Film. Swift was also nominated for “Best Country Song” for her song I Bet You Think About Me. Finally Swift received a nomination for “Best Song Written for Visual Media” for her song Carolina. Swift took to her Instagram story to state her excitement for All Too Well 10 being nominated for Song of the Year. She stated, “All Too Well 10 is the song I’m the most proud of, out of anything I’ve written. The fact that it’s nominated for Song of the Year at the Grammys, an award I’ve never won, that honors the songwriting…it’s momentous and surreal.” As we congratulate Taylor Swift on her nominations, we wait until April 3rd to see if she wins any of her categories. 

Taylor Swift will keep you up at night whether that’s listening to her music, attempting to get concert tickets, or processing the records she broke.