It’s no doubt that Taylor Swift is one of the most popular musicians of this decade. So when she announced her first tour in over four years on November 1, her ecstatic fans eagerly awaited opportunities to purchase tickets. In reality, though, the 11-time Grammy winner left her fans less than satisfied with her tour management and ticket sales, as only a select handful of verified fans could secure the expensive tickets.

The first problems with Swift’s Ticketmaster sale arose with the presale, a special lottery ticket sale in which fans could win codes that they would then redeem for an early release of the tickets. “I registered for the pre-sale,” junior Tillie Powers said. “But I wasn’t selected to be a part of it, so I didn’t even get the chance to [buy tickets].”

Although unconfirmed by Swift or her team, some fans believed that buying other items on Taylor Swift’s website gave fans an advantage, or an increased likelihood of receiving a pre-sale code. “I bought merch on her website with my email address, so I got a boost in the queue,” senior Lizzie Lucas said. “But I don’t think everyone knew that you could get priority with it.”

Lizzie was right in that this hack is not widely known. “I was unaware that Taylor Swift gave priority to people who bought merchandise from her website,” junior Charlotte Dann said. “I think that is very unfair, considering not all of her fans have the desire, or the money, to buy extra [merchandise] from her website.”

Tillie echoed Charlotte’s perspective. “I was not aware of the merchandise policy,” Tillie said. “And I don’t think it’s fair to make people spend more just to have a slightly better chance to get a ticket.”

And these problems escalated on November 15, the day of the pre-sale. With 3.5 million fans nationwide competing for tickets, Ticketmaster couldn’t handle the amount of traffic, and as a result, the site crashed multiple times. “I was in the queue at 9 a.m. and finally got my tickets at 2:30 p.m.,” Lizzie said. In her attempt to buy tickets, the queue paused several times, and she was forced to wait almost six hours to finally get them.

Charlotte had similar problems. “I had to wait five hours to even get onto the page to buy tickets,” she said. With the queue starting at 9 a.m., most of this waiting was done during school hours.

For those across the nation who were able to buy tickets, another shock was the sky-high pricing. Lizzie was a part of the lucky few who got tickets in the first row, but the pricing was much more expensive than anyone expected.

“I expected to spend less than $500 for a good seat, and less than $200 for any other seat,” Charlotte said.

Her price expectations were similar to others’. “I really wanted to sit on the floor,” Tillie said. “But I thought I would be spending $200 to $400 on my ticket.”

The real prices were much higher than $400. “Anything for the floor was $899, plus the Ticketmaster fees, which added [around] $200,” Lizzie said. “I ended up paying almost $2,000 dollars for just two tickets.”

Typically, not buying a ticket in the pre-sale wouldn’t be a big deal. However, the scheduled general admission sale never came to fruition. While the Ticketmaster site was supposed to only pre-sell a handful of tickets, the general public never even got the chance to purchase tickets on the open market.

“I don’t know how every ticket could sell out,” Tillie said. “It was my understanding that they would only sell a fraction of the tickets. When I didn’t get a ticket in the pre-sale, my plan was to get one in the general admission, but that never happened.”

When asked who was to blame for the incident, all three Swift fans echoed the same belief. “I think it’s Ticketmaster’s fault,” Charlotte said. “They were warned about the high demand of fans and did nothing to deal with it.”

Tillie shared a similar view, saying, “I don’t think the fiasco is Taylor’s fault, I think the blame lies in Ticketmaster’s hands.”

Similarly, Lizzie said, “They gave out too many presale codes. Ticketmaster should have known that everyone who got a pre-sale code was going to use one.”