The Eras Tour and the Obvious Connection Between Presales and Selling Would-Be Elitism

As Taylor Swift reckons yet again with having the kind of clout that could invoke the swarming of various attorneys general onto Live Nation and Ticketmaster, another deeper issue has come to the surface in the wake of The Eras Tour presale. That issue being, well, presales are founded on the very principle that has wrought so much havoc in this society: elitism. The idea that if you assert yourself as being some kind of “VIP” by spending the money to be as such (whether it’s through paying to exist within a fan club or having an American Express), you can get whatever you want. Money buys everything. That’s the “benefit” of capitalism. Especially for pop stars who know the power of their worth to fans in a parasocial relationship with them. No one knows that worth better than Swift.

Maybe that’s why she included in her statement on the matter in the aftermath, “It’s really difficult for me to trust an outside entity with these relationships and loyalties, and excruciating for me to just watch mistakes happen with no recourse.” Nonetheless, Swift and other performers are left with little choice but to rely on Ticketmaster for their concert ticket sales. After all, the “entity” and its parent company, Live Nation, control roughly seventy percent of the live ticketing marketplace. Something that might have been prevented twelve years ago upon the sealing of the merger, but that no one appeared too bothered by at the time. Nor has the notion of “presales” seemed to vex any ticket buyers over the years. Instead, music enthusiasts ostensibly relish the opportunity to jump ahead in the proverbial queue. It gives them a delight to know that they’re “beating” other fans to some worshipping-in-person punch.

As Ticketmaster “politely” describes the concept of a presale, they’re “usually sold from a separate allocation of seats, which may not be the same as the tickets being released to the general public.” This implies, of course, that a bulk of objectively “better” tickets are made available to those “elite” ones. Or, at least, the ones who believe in the American concept that class can be bought (something the British are only slowly coming around to). In the case of Swift’s presale, it’s not about having an AmEx card, but a Capital One card. For Swift, like any adept capitalist, is obliged to cross-promote her endorsement deal with said credit card company. And it was this demographic of Capital One cardholders for whom the second wave of presale tickets catered to as Ticketmaster tried again to lead more casual fans down a primrose path to “hell.” Hell to “First World” ilk inferring that they have to stare at a screen and watch the clock count down the minutes as they “wait in line” for their turn to buy.

Considering the second presale was meant to commence on Tuesday, November 15th, but was pushed back to Wednesday, it’s clear Ticketmaster persisted in its ill-preparedness and incompetence… once again. So much, in fact, that the ticket sale intended for the general public had to be cancelled. Who needs “average” buyers anyway, when one can sell millions of tickets to “special” people without them? And yet, perhaps there wouldn’t be false ideas of “specialness” if presales were abolished altogether. If everyone was “allowed” the same opportunity to purchase concert tickets at the same time, surely the initial bum-rush wouldn’t be so intense as a result of everyone viewing these lots of tickets as inherently better by sheer virtue of being able to choose from them “first.”

To this end, juggernauts like Ticketmaster are possibly only feeding into what the people “want.” Or rather, what they want to believe about themselves. That they are somehow more superior to others—a more “diehard” fan, etc.—and should be given the divine right to access the best seats before the hoi polloi. By this logic, one could ask if Ticketmaster can fully be blamed for driving the bloodlust for presales. The answer is, if you don’t build it, they will not come. In short, permitting 3.5 million customers to register for the presale hardly makes anyone feel “special” regarding their preliminary access to tickets. And, the way the presale went, it only served to remind that it is forever people with “real” influence who can actually get what they want easily.

What’s more, Swift is no stranger to invoking political imbroglios, which began when she finally decided to grow a political voice and speak out against the election of Marsha Blackburn in October of 2018, when the U.S. was faced with yet another extremely close midterm election. Evidencing her power to make website usage surge, in the two days after Swift posted about the importance of registering to vote, vote.org saw a spike of 102,000 new voters registering (seventy percent of whom were under the age of twenty-five). And yes, they knew it was attributable to Swift telling her hundreds of millions of followers, “So many intelligent, thoughtful, self-possessed people have turned eighteen in the past two years and now have the right and privilege to make their vote count. But first you need to register, which is quick and easy to do. October 9th is the LAST DAY to register to vote in the state of TN. Go to vote.org and you can find all the info. Happy Voting!” Cue the onslaught of registering voters. But hundreds of thousands are nothing compared to millions, which, evidently, even the strongest of interfaces can’t withstand.

With Swift’s popularity manifested anew amid The Eras Tour presale, a fresh spotlight was placed on something political. She being the catalyst for politicians to weigh in on a pop cultural matter (even though government and pop culture have been enmeshed for quite some time—*cough cough* Marilyn and JFK). Specifically, the inability of customers to go elsewhere for their tickets making it all the more apparent in this particular scenario that Ticketmaster’s 2010 merger with Live Nation constitutes a monopoly in violation of antitrust laws. The insanity of trying to secure a presale seat prompted Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar to remark, “When there is no competition to incentivize better services and fair prices, we all suffer the consequences.” And yes, what a “tragic” consequence—not being able to attend a little stadium concert.

Even the presidential level of government weighed in via a quote that Joe Biden said earlier this year. One dredged up by White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, who reminded, “Capitalism without competition isn’t capitalism; it’s exploitation.” Does anyone have the heart to tell Biden that capitalism is full-stop exploitation no matter what? Oh well. There’s no stopping this system until it implodes anyway—and Swift’s presale tickets were yet another harbinger of that inevitable implosion. The patent unsustainability of “everyone” (read: a lotta white folks who listen to Swift) wanting to be “elite.”

This largely due to the American dream still being peddled—the one that insists each person can have a piece of the “pie.” Just not the Taylor pie. Or any other, for that matter. Because the greatest lie ever sold is that “everyone” can be “elite” when the entire reason the “genuine” elite (a.k.a. those with generational wealth) relish being such is because no one else will actually be “let in.” Ergo making the Ticketmaster fiasco a prime example of middle-class aims turning out to be too relatively lofty.

Swift might do her best to shirk any blame (what with having a song called “Don’t Blame Me” and only admitting to being “the problem” in “Anti-Hero”), but surely she must have some say in kiboshing such Ticketmaster disclaimers as, “Ticket prices may fluctuate, based on demand, at any time.” For this is the woman who can bring down (or at least bring into question) entire institutions with a single post. Even so, Swift herself isn’t immune to the temptations of “more money,” with Forbes commenting of the ticket sale setup, “Swift could have put Swifties’ names on the concert tickets, set a fair price and turned off the resale market… she did not do this because it would not ‘have been as profitable.’”

Thus, perhaps as her on-again off-again foil, Billie Eilish, is known for touting, maybe Swift truly believes that, regarding some “catering-to-the-little-people-pretending-to-be-VIP” matters, it’s “not my responsibility.” For music, whether “art” or not, remains a cold, hard commodity in the undiscerning eyes of the “free” market.