Vigilante Sh*t (The Taylor vs Ticketmaster Version) or, How Taylor Swift Can Get Fans to the Eras Tour
Do you really want to remember where you were November 15th? Nah, neither do I.
(The tl;dr for non-Swifties: Taylor’s tickets went on pre-sale for her new tour, Ticketmaster had one job and failed at it, they oversold, many people didn’t get tickets, tears were shed, they canceled the general sale since there weren’t many tickets left).
With the general sale canceled (or postponed?), Taylor’s response leaves Swifties wondering: are we ever getting back together? Is there karma for Ticketmaster? Will we ever get to sing along, in person, to All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version)?
Swifties are left with the Question…? What will Taylor do to get loyal fans to see her show? I have a few ideas.
Scale Secret Sessions for Swifties
Starting with 1989, Taylor invited top fans to her home(s) to get a first listen to her albums. Dubbed “secret sessions,” Taylor and her team stalked Tumblr, Instagram, and Twitter to find Taylor’s most devoted and loyal fans. These lucky Swifties were welcomed into one of Taylor’s homes for one-on-one introductions, photoshoots, and an intimate first listen to her album before it was released.
This is the ultimate way to reward loyal fans — giving them an experience of a lifetime that money could never buy. What if Taylor did something similar for her Eras tour? Tours take time to rehearse — her first concert kicks off March 17, 2023 — what if Taylor invited top fans who couldn’t get tickets to her show to watch her rehearse? Presumably, there’s a bit more room in her rehearsal space than there would be in her home (although, this one looks like it could fit a few hundred of her biggest fans…)
Or, what about letting in a few thousand lucky fans to watch her sound check in each city before her shows? That way, local Swifties get to technically be at the tour, even if they don’t get to watch the full show. A personal invitation from Taylor to see her rehearse may be just the salve for waiting 8 hours online for a ticket you weren’t able to get.
Taylurk Across TikTok for Tickets
We already know from Secret Sessions that Taylor is an expert in finding her top fans on the internet and stalking them (aka Taylurking). What if she gave the remaining tickets to top fans she finds on TikTok? Swifties took their easter-egg hunting skills to the next level by calculating how many tickets may actually remain in each stadium based on reported pre-sale numbers and venue capacity. Based on Swftie calculations, there are anywhere potentially around 700K tickets still available — plus there are her yet-to-be-announced international shows. What if Taylor and her team hand-selected fans to get these tickets? While this may take a lot of time, (curious time. Gave me no compasses, gave me no signs) fans did wait 8 hours online to get these tickets, to no avail. Taylor — hire a few interns, set them loose on TikTok, and I promise you every fan who gets a DM from Taylor Nation will totally forget the Ticketmaster debacle ever happened.
Taylor Swift Tickets (Web3 Version)
While it’s too late for the Eras Tour, I could see Taylor adopting some Web3 best practices for future tours to avoid some of this tour’s chaos. (Note: I am not a web3 bro, but I do think there’s some great applicability to facets of web3).
The beauty of an NFT is in its smart contract — these are the rules written into the code of the asset you’re receiving that govern how it can be used, traded, sold, or what it grants you access to. If each concert ticket comes with an NFT, Taylor can stipulate in the contract what you can do with this ticket. She could prevent the secondary sale of tickets, meaning once you own it, you can’t resell it — it’s yours and yours alone.
But Jodi, what about all the people who buy tickets for friends and need to transfer tickets? Ok, in that case, Taylor could limit the dollar amount a ticket is resold for to curb sky-high ticket scalping. And, she could write in the contract who gets royalties for secondary sales, meaning she could make it so that she gets 1%, 10%, or 50% of the value of the resale, discouraging scalpers altogether.
If you take Web3 and NFTs a step further for Taylor, she could have Taylor Tokens that you get from the purchase of merch and albums, or from streaming her content. The more Taylor Tokens you get, the more likely it is you’ll get a ticket to her concert, similar to what she did for the Reputation Tour. If buying her album comes with an NFT, that NFT could white-list you (gives you access) for pre-sale to her concert, meaning only those with the album NFT can get early access to her concert. What I love about NFTs here (as opposed to the Reputation Tour boosts) is that Taylor can add additional value to the NFT over time, so perhaps anyone with the album NFT not only gets access to the concert, but they also get first access to future merch, or her next album release, or an opportunity to meet her in person.
Swiftmaster Ticket Sales
The most challenging option— but potentially the most rewarding for Taylor — would be to eliminate the need for Ticketmaster altogether and bring that in house. While bringing ticket sales in-house would be a huge technological undertaking, Taylor could do it in a way that prioritizes her fans by giving those within her database first-access to her shows. Only remaining inventory (if any remains, that is), could go to Ticketmaster or other ticket sales operators to give more casual fans access to her shows. She could even allocate certain shows to be Fan-first shows and manage ticket sales for select shows directly while putting other shows for sale through third parties. While this is a longshot, it’s not totally out of the question given Taylor’s nod to bringing “so many elements of [my] career in house” in her Instagram response. Again, this would not be possible for Eras Tour US, but if anyone could make this happen — it’s Taylor.
Whatever Taylor decides to do, she has options. She has sway within the music industry, access to capital, and fans who are ready to never have to log in to Ticketmaster ever again. (Also, Taylor, if you need a marketing consultant, it’s me, hi).
For more on my Taylor Swift POV, check out my podcast AP Taylor Swift.
