'Swifties' Respond To Taylor Swift's Highly-Antipated Statement Amid Ticketmaster Controversy

Taylor Swift has finally addressed the ongoing controversy pertaining to matters surrounding ticket acquisition for her highly-anticipated return to the stage for her first tour since 2018.

Swift released her statement via her Instagram story on Friday morning, expressing her frustration and her intention to uncover more information about Ticketmaster's handling of the situation.

The "Lavender Haze" singer also revealed she and her team had been assured that the "outside entity" she had enlisted to oversee ticket sales was equipped to handle such high demand.

Tickets for Swift's first tour in half a decade went on sale earlier this week. However, fans quickly began to encounter an increasing amount of roadblocks which would later result in Ticketmaster crashing shortly after tickets went on sale!

The Blast would take a look at the exponentially priced resale tickets that would soon begin popping up in response to inflated ticket prices. According to our piece, front-row tickets for Swift's shows at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, MA, were priced up to $22,500. In Boston and Chicago, the cheapest tickets range between $600 and $800.

Ticketmaster would announce the cancellation of Friday's public on-sale a day before, attributing "insufficient remaining ticket inventory" as the reason for the company's inability to sustain demand.

Swift finally broke her silence on Friday, releasing a statement via her Instagram story amid increasing fan speculation about her silence.

"Well. It goes without saying that I am extremely protective of my fans. We've been doing this for decades together and over the years, I have brought so many elements of my career in-house. I have done this SPECIFICALLY to improve the quality of my fans' experience by doing it with myself and my team who care as much about my fans as I do," Swift began in her statement, "It's really difficult for me to trust an outside entity with these relationships and loyalties, and excruciating for me to watch mistakes happen with no recourse..."

Swift also revealed she and her team had been assured Ticketmaster would be sufficiently prepared with the technology to handle ticket demand and traffic to their systems.

"There is a multitude of reasons why people had such a hard time trying to get tickets and I'm trying to figure out how this situation can be improved going forward. I'm not going to make excuses for anyone because we asked them, multiple times if they could handle this kind of demand and we were reassured they could. It's truly amazing that 2.4 million people got tickets, but it really pisses me off that a lot of them feel like they went through several bear attacks to get them," Swift continued.

Swift concluded her statement by revealing her hope that fans would be able to eventually have more opportunities to enjoy hearing her songs live, including several albums worth of tracks never before performed live.

Swift's "Lover Fest" shows were postponed and eventually canceled due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Swift released the shows' namesake album in August of 2019, before the Coronavirus' early 2020 on set.

She would put her quarantine period to good use: Swift would go on to release two albums in 2020.

Social media responses soon began pouring in following the release of Swift's statement.

Swifties took to discussing the news on Twitter, an outlet that has experienced an onslaught of coverage this week as well.

"taylor swift publicly siding with her fans against a huge corporation like ticketmaster and risking her touring career and relationship with this monopoly is honestly the most loyal thing i can think of I don't ever want to hear again that she doesn't care about her fans," a Swiftie tweeted.

"Raise your hand if Taylor's statement confused you even more," another Swiftie wrote alongside a photo of Swift raising her hand. When fellow fans asked the original poster to elaborate, they tweeted "I wanna know if resale tickets are going to be valid cause that's the only way we're all going."

"The blame lies on Ticketmaster," a fan reasoned. "Anyone saying differently is wrong. It's their job to handle the demand. They shouldn't have done a lot of things they did. Taylor cares and always has about her fans. To say differently is wrong."

"One thing I admire about Taylor is that when sh*t doesn't get done how she wants it done and how it should be done, she takes matters into her own hands with her own team. She's done it before and she will do it again," a Swiftie wrote in support of Swift's actions. "I trust her with everything in me."

Taylor Swift's highly anticipated tour will begin on March 17th, 2023 in Arizona, and conclude on August 9th in Los Angeles.