‘It’s kind of like the Hunger Games’: Swift fans on the battle for tickets
By The Canadian Press on August 9, 2023.
Swifties are going to great lengths to get tickets to a series of Taylor Swift concerts in Toronto next year. While those who snagged seats on the first day of sales Wednesday can now breathe a sigh of relief, others are still on a nail-biting journey. Here’s a look: REGISTERING MULTIPLE ACCOUNTS Holly Mounsteven enlisted friends and family over the weekend to enrol more than a dozen different Ticketmaster accounts in the Swift “verified fan” registration to get a presale code, a necessary prerequisite to buying a ticket Wednesday. “Unfortunately, we were unsuccessful on all 16 (accounts). And so we’ve been wait-listed for every single show,” she said Wednesday afternoon. “It’s definitely frustrating.” But the Toronto resident doesn’t want to sound too sour – she’s already attended a show in Detroit and will head to Paris next summer for a second show on the singer’s “Eras Tour.” Mounsteven has launched a TikTok account to offer advice to other Swifties who hope to score tickets for a Toronto date. She says that despite some disappointment, the Ticketmaster lottery is still better than the process used for U.S. stops when they first went on sale last year and resulted in technical nightmares for fans. FROM HUNGER GAMES TO VIP Armed with a presale code, Anastasia Kountouris and her best friend Helen Patriarche waited in virtual lineups Wednesday, eventually securing two VIP tickets, costing $750 dollars a piece. “It’s kind of like ‘The Hunger Games,'” said Patriarche, 23, who is from Toronto. “Once we got the email saying we got the tickets, both of us just sat there with a sigh of relief on FaceTime…There was nothing to be said it was just, ‘I can’t believe it’s over,'” added Hamilton native Kountouris, 24. WINNING THE LOTTERY Fallon Hewitt from Hamilton was thrilled to get a presale code for the show on Nov. 16 – she feels incredibly lucky, though she acknowledges that some of her friends are bigger “Swifties” than she is. “I feel like I like won the lottery. I feel like I should buy a lottery ticket,” said Hewitt, who posted her code success on Instagram on Tuesday night. Presale codes give fans a chance to buy tickets for specific show dates, but do not guarantee access to seats as they’re sold on a first-come, first-serve basis. Hewitt will be able to try her luck on Thursday. “I had several people reach out to me being like, ‘Can you buy me tickets? Can you buy me tickets? I’ll buy your tickets from you.'” She credits Swift’s artistry and marketing prowess for the massive fan base she’s developed throughout her career. “It’s hard to describe the mania around Taylor Swift. I think it has a lot to do with the storytelling and the relatability of her music. People see her as a very calculated artist – the way she releases music, the way she sneakily drops Easter eggs into different situations about when she’ll put out an album and when she’s doing a re-release,” the 26-year-old said. “She’s been around for such a long time. A lot of people have grown up beside, alongside her career. So that’s been, I think, pivotal for people.” – With files from David Friend, Noel Ransome and Nairah Ahmed This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 9, 2023. 22-21
