Taylor Swift The Eras Tour Singapore: How The War for Tickets Led Me to The Grey Zone of Internet

The hunt for Taylor Swift’s ‘The Eras’ tour tickets has been maddening. And when I tried to get my hands on some, it involved more nerves than I’ve encountered since my Class 11 mathematics examination which I was sure I was going to fail (I did not fail, eventually).

Initially, on the ticket front, there was some hope. My friends and I were armed with strategies, theories and multiple devices. In the end, however, the hunt led me to shadier areas of the internet than I’d anticipated.

I had kept an eye out for the international dates of her tour because my love for her goes back a long, long way. So, here’s how I waged The Great Swiftie War of The Tickets and the many things that unfolded in the process.

My long-standing Love for Taylor Swift

I was in Class 7 when ‘Love Story’ by Taylor Swift took the world by storm. There was no social media back then, and limited access to the internet at home. A friend got hold of the song somehow on a CD and then I incessantly pestered my father to help me ‘burn’ a CD to copy it (millennials will know what this means). Then I played it on loop. I was 12 back then. It’s 2023, I’m 27 years old and still play ‘Love Story’ on loop.

Every now and then, a new song of hers would become my obsession over the years. ‘Our Song’ was literally that for a friend and me. ‘All Too Well (Ten Minute Version)’ was released just a month after I’d broken up, and it seemed to echo my thoughts better than I could articulate them.

My younger sister, too, got hooked to her music, and some of my fondest memories of trips include us screaming out the ‘Cruel Summer’ bridge during drives. Taylor Swift’s music and fame grew as I grew up, but what remained unchanged was my love for her.

And then came The Eras Tour, starting with the US leg. I’ve never quite seen madness among Swifties (what her fans call themselves) before. People scrambled for tickets. Ticketing sites crashed. Cities got temporarily renamed! Parking lots of stadiums saw huge numbers just hearing the concert from outside. Hotels got booked out during her show dates. Record-breaking numbers were created, like ticket sales crossing over $13 million per night. The tour is set to bulldoze the $1 billion milestone — uncharted territory for any artiste ever.

Read: Taylor Swift's Eras Tour Ignites The Music Scene: 5 Reasons Why It Is Making Global Headlines

I kept an eye out for the international dates, secretly, and obviously, hoping she makes her first-ever India stop.

When she announced that Singapore in March 2024 would be her only South East Asian stop, I had to give it a shot.

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A post shared by Taylor Swift (@taylorswift)

Registration day: June 23, 2023

The rules told us that the process would require us to register earlier, and after that, only selected fans would receive unique access codes, which would give them a chance to book tickets.

So I made a Ticketmaster account; tried to register at exactly 12 pm in Singapore time, which was 9:30 am Indian time; and waited in the online queue for 45 minutes after finally managing to register.

I wasn’t convinced that this was enough, so I made at least 20 other friends register. If it’s a game of random odds, let’s increase my chances; right?

Anything for Taylor Swift.

July 5, Access Code Day: Surprise Surprise!

I frantically keep checking my email every two minutes hoping for some news. About two hours later, I get an email.

“Congratulations! You’ve been selected to participate in the Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour ticket sale for the Singapore show.”

What? This doesn’t feel real!

Could this really be happening? Excitement and anxiety usually hang out together. So it was in my mind.

I asked the other friends who had registered. Nobody else had got it. Some were waitlisted, some others didn’t get any email at all. So, all hopes on mine. Okay, keeping fingers and toes crossed.

T-2 Days: Planning Starts

Thus began the research.

How many internet browsers should we use? How many devices? How do you clear the browser cache on phones? Should we do it in incognito mode?

Reels, YouTube videos and “How to secure tickets” articles were studied in detail.

T-1 Day: Group Together and Manifest

Queen Tay can only be reached if powers of manifestation actually work.

Anxiety levels soared. Seating arrangements were carefully studied. Three of us were interested in going: my sister, my childhood best friend and I, of course. We decide to meet and stay the night together so we could wage the war together.

We set alarms, kept devices charged and ready; and were all set for the D-day.

The D-day: Manic Panic

Sales were to start at 9:30 am. We were up by 8.

Our morning chant for the day? ‘Cruel Summer.’

We entered the online holding room, and saw the timer starting to tick. The feeling was similar to a day where you’d have an examination, but you’re under-prepared.

The clock struck 9:30, and the webpage changed to a queue. My number? 1604892. That’s beyond 16 lakh!

Umm… That’s futile, because there are only around 3.3 lakh tickets in all: Capacity of the stadium is 55,000 and she’s playing for six nights.

But it strikes me as odd, because nowhere till now have they asked us for the unique access code that we got for having pre-registered. What was the point of it then? Now anyone could stand in the queue.

After an hour, the walking man symbol seemed to have not moved at all, leading to severely dampened hopes.

Yet, on the side, I could see multiple accounts on Twitter and Reddit declaring they’d got tickets and even sub-Reddit threads, proposing resale.

What Is Going On For Taylor Tickets?

My journalistic instincts kicked: How are people booking tickets already?! That too, so many of them.

A little more digging, and I find conversations around something that hadn’t even crossed my mind.

Paid groups or services, which come up with something called bypass links, which help secure tickets by getting ahead in the queue. How reliable were they? I won’t know.

This is what listings read on one site:

“*Please make sure you have EITHER access code or uob card for the general sale on 7 Jul, 12pm.

- No queues needed! Straight to booking page!

- 100% legit ticketmaster link will be sent to you ahead of 99% of people

- Link will be sent by 12:01pm onwards on 7th July 2023

- 100% refund if no link given by 12:45pm”

There were also tweets like this.

Taylor Swift The Eras Tour Bypass Link

2,000 PESOS

Read FAQs in the form!

Fill up the form to availhttps://t.co/pOCg69Lwbd

— nica’s sm queue it bypass (@tktkmin) July 7, 2023

I could not verify how legitimate this was. Who even knows at this point? But something in me told me to find out more.

I had an access code, so no harm in trying to find out more. It’s a good story either way.

A little more searching; calls to some friends in Singapore; some friend who’d filled some form of this kind on the internet; and a minimal amount needed to be paid, for me to soon be in a Telegram group. Unironically, the shady account I sent the amount to was named ‘Taylor Swift’.

A random link was sent to me, which I opened in a new browser. Voila, queue number 3,579! It seemed like the original Ticketmaster link.

In 10 minutes, I was through to selecting seats. There were my preferred Cat 1 tickets available. I selected floor seats. Even now I was expecting that the rates would be considerably higher because this was some shady business.

But, nope. The same rates as normal. Everything seemed legitimate because now I even had to use the access code for them to let me checkout to payment. Could this still be a fraud?

This is where, again, a little voice inside of me told me not to pay, so I chickened out.

After all, Taylor Swift’s official ticketing partners had always warned against any resale, or unathorised sellers. The Ticketmaster guidelines and cyber-experts in various articles had warned against fraudsters, given the huge demand for tickets.

I went back to the internet to find many speaking about getting legitimate tickets through such bypass means, with some reviews praising some services as well.

So where do I stand now, five hours after the ticket sales went live? Still in queue, behind lakhs of others.

Hopeless, disappointed and also quite wary of the overall ticketing business at large.

As I am writing this, have I finally reached the end of the queue after over six hours of being in it, only to find all seats except the most expensive VIP blocks sold out. Those were for SGD 1228 or INR 75,214 per ticket. Sigh.

Should I have taken that bypass? Too shady for me to try, honestly.