This week, the New York Post published a curious piece about Taylor Swift and the waning interest of her Snake Army. Well, maybe it’s not that the Snake Army’s interest is waning as much as they are not all overwhelming rich. Like, does the average snake fan have $500 or more to spend on one ticket to see Taylor in concert during the Reputation Tour? That’s the question, and we keep getting the answer: the Reputation Tour is not sold out. The tickets have been on sale since Taylor’s birthday, December 13th, and none of the 33 dates has sold out. By comparison, her 1989 Tour sold out “within minutes.” The NY Post says that the lack of sellout dates is all because A) the ticket prices are WAY too expensive and B) fans are actually angry about being duped by Taylor. Well, guess what? Snake Queen doesn’t care – she’s making money no matter what. So she’s just added some new dates to her tour.
Taylor Swift is adding new concert dates to her massive reputation stadium tour amid mixed reports about ticket sales. Bringing the total number of upcoming concerts to 51, Swift announced seven new shows on Wednesday.
In a story calling the tour a “disaster,” the New York Post reported “stratospheric markups and greedy sales gimmicks” have prevented shows from selling out. “Sales so far have been a mega disappointment,” said a music industry insider, according to the Post. “There are hundreds if not thousands of tickets left for every show.” (Reps for Swift and concert promoter AEG did not immediately respond to EW’s requests for comment.)
However, Billboard contends the singer is on track to notch one of the highest billing runs ever. According to estimates from Billboard sources, Swift’s jaunt could earn anywhere from $390 million to $510 million. At their initial release, Swift’s seat prices had some fans balking at the numbers. That might mean dates don’t sell out at lightning speed like they used to, but the move is intentional: Swift is poised to take home more cash for those billings while also combatting the notoriously problematic secondary market that plagues live music fans.
The Post story points the finger at Taylor Swift Tix, the name of her Fan Verified Ticketmaster program, which sells much smaller batches to potential audience members and rewards “real” fans with better access to purchase points. Artists like Bruce Springsteen have employed the program, but Swift’s version added a “boosts” feature that promised priority to fans who purchased reputation (the best-selling album of 2017), ordered merchandise, and showed Swift love on social media. Billboard noted that this “slow-ticketing” model might suggest the “days of instant tour sellouts are gone.”
The full run kicks off in Arizona on May 8 and concludes in Texas in the first week of October. Tickets for the new performances will go on sale Jan. 31 at 10 a.m. local time and fans can also purchase advance tickets via Ticketmaster’s Taylor Swift Presale. Registration opens this Friday at 10 a.m. ET and continues through Jan. 18 at 10 a.m. ET.
I understand the concept of Taylor wanting to “reward” her richest and most loyal fans, but here’s the question: what about the casual fans who don’t want to sign their lives away to the Snake Machine? What about the fans who are like “Oh, I like those Taylor Swift songs I hear on the radio, I bet I would enjoy the concert too”? And then those fans check out the prices and are like “Jesus, nevermind, my mortgage payment is less expensive.” Basically, by adding more dates, Taylor is just confirming that she doesn’t really care about her fans’ complaints about the ticket prices and how much snake merch they were manipulated into purchasing – she’s only interested in having wealthy fans anyway.
Photos courtesy of WENN, Backgrid.
I guess the real twist to the story is that she is not selling like she used to. Because I checked Beyoncé prices and they’re the same. I am not comparing their musical skills, but the fact that both are huge pop machines and one is constantly reinventing herself successfully and the other one had a fail (if still earning millions although less can be seen as such) and an incredibly miscalculated marketing strategy.
Tbh, I would pay a lot more for Beyonce than for Taylor as a casual fan because I know that Beyonce will give me A Show for my money whereas Taylor… will try her best.
It wasn’t my point and I avoided the comparison bc regarding the level of fame they’re on par with each other. Also we were saying how insulting it was to fans to have those prices yesterday and I imagine Beyoncé also has fans who can’t afford those prices too. But, having said that…..
Agreed 😉
I saw beyonce free back for the beyonce experience tour. she didn’t sell out (not a shock the tickets were crazy priced) the office said they wanted a full arena to they passed out tickets to arena employees and my sister took me. I’m thinking the unsold tickets will be “donated” and written off and given to random people.
Taylor tried to be Beyonce and it didn’t work.The songs I heard were not good.She tried but failed.I think Taylor and Beyonce need to take a break for awhile.I think for the most part people are tired of them.Oversatuation.They are The Kardashians of music.
The 1989 tour sold out within minutes because scalpers bought all the tickets and then sold them in the secondary market for triple what they were going for if not more. That’s how “sell outs” happen. I understand some people might not be happy about how she sold her tickets but for someone like me, I’m actually able to afford to go see her this time around because my $100 ticket didn’t end up on stub hub right off the bat for $350 like it was during 1989.
That may be the case but the end result is she looks greedy.
I would’ve thought there are better ways to stop touts.
I think it’s a combo of things but Miles is right in that scalpers really screw fans over. My husband has a family member who has spent years buying up tickets and selling them at double or triple the original price (don’t even get me started on it, we don’t have anything to do with said person). While the fan verification is because of that i don’t see how that should excuse the fact that the ticket prices are still ridiculously high compared to last tour though.
Agreed and I’m very disappointed in her. I usually defend her in threads bc I am…well was a fan, but I hate Hollywood greed. They have enough money to live comfortably the rest of their lives, but they aren’t happy unless they take all of ours too. I strongly dislike Beyoncé, JayZ, and all the kardashians for the same reason.
A concert and tour cost a lot. Quite a lot, but you profit heavily from it.
The whispers of Reputation isn’t thst this tour costs an insane amount. It’s generic. It’s not like a U2 show, or Pink show, or Beyonce show where it’s like theatre. Props, stunts, visual marvels, etc… Swift is offering nothing special so the price tag is extreme. Worse, her fans bought in to prepurchase exclusively tickets early. A week or so later tickets costs half the price and available to everyone. Worse still… the tickets came with no special experience. No special seating that anyone else couldn’t purchase for half the price.
Please, Miles. So Ticketmaster and the infamous “verified fan” program are a myth, huh?
🐍 is adding more dates as an FU to the bad press and because she’s living up to her Reputation. See what I did there?
When did I say it was a myth? I used the verified program and was able to buy tickets to her show for $100. And no I did not buy merchandise or any of that nonsense. And she added more tour dates because her shows in the areas she added are selling well. Her show in Philly (the show I got my ticket for) is practically sold out save for pit seats. Why would she add shows to a tour if her tour wasn’t selling? If those shows she added don’t sell she’s going to have to cancel them and that’s bad press.
And where are you sitting, Miles? The parking lot? In the next state?
Sure, Jan.
Miles
I took a peek at some various seating charts for her tour on ticketmaster… you might be in tbe parkingron lawnchairs behind support beams placed so they csn sell parkinglot lawn chsir seating withoit support beam obstricted views…
Kidding. But really. Everyone else is saying with their fan verified program they got shafted by a few hundred dollars for not great seating.
Also most of the stadium venues she is holding her concerts in are twice as large (or larger) than the arenas she played for the 1989 tour.
I’m side eyeing this comment hard.
Hopefully this will turn out to be a PR disaster for her and she will fade away.
Hopefully we are watching her flame out in this mess. I honestly do not get the attraction to her and her music. She is like a higher end Kardashian at this point. Maybe she knows this is the last hurrah and is looking to bank as much as possible.
A Vegas show is her next stop?
Poor Tay Tay, she made the mistake of growing an ass so now Karma has something to bite her from.
Muhahaha!
ps: just kidding! She will be fine. She is making more money then before.
Seems her popularity soars for the wrong reasons….new bfs, breakups, fights with other celebs. Gone are the days of princess Taylor looking for her true love. Innocence lost? She hardly seems like a victim the moms of her tween fans cried for. She is more like the victimizer. Why the scowl all the time. The tweens grew up, she didn’t. Bless her heart
She’s struggling like all stars who became famous in adolescence or with an adolescent audience. Some make the transition to adulthood with adult fans. Many do not. How do you properly “grow up” from fairy princess romances? Hell if I know. She’s tried to reinvent herself, but it’s coming off far more like “this is how I’ve always been, the sweet and innocent thing was always an act” instead of “I’ve matured and I am now delving into complex adult themes which aren’t always very nice”.
Which is funny because 1989 was mature and different. Even Red was a good transition. She hasn’t done the princess thing in a minute. So its not that…mentally she just has not matured. Her music for a while seemed to age up but now we see it was mean girl vibes dressed as maturity.
I confess I don’t really listen to her music much, only what’s been on the radio. So I can’t really judge based on her albums, only on her PR and media narratives. Which I suppose is wrong of me, since I tend to avoid the media coverage of artists I enjoy because they often open their big yaps and ruin their work for me by being complete idiots.
I mean I’m no taylor fan but its hard to get away from her when you spend years in nashville. 1989 is the only album i own personally
Don’t most girls grow out of the fairy princess stage without a problem? I did…
D@mn, Kaiser, that picture is terrifying. 😂
😄😄
I was thinking exactly the same thing! All the pics are. Especially the one where she raises her arm. Her head looks so tiny on her body!
Yeah I’ve gotten to the point that I can’t stand seeing her face.
Acts always add on some more concert dates after the first initial rush of ticket sales. Depeche Mode, U2, on and on.
Lol again it’s all about the bottom line. If she wanted to she could combat scalpers AND make her concert affordable just like Adele did. But Adele cared about her average fan seeing her on tour…Taylor cares about getting the most money from each fan and making sure they buy into her crap.
This isn’t new but she thought she could up the ante with no fuss. She thought wrong
Interesting. Because Adele’s concert for 25 at Wells Fargo Center was sold out within the first 5 minutes and the tickets were later sold on the secondary market by scalpers.
I remember because just like the 1989 tour, I wanted to see Adele and her tickets were on stub hub for like $400. So how did Adele beat the scalpers when the average ticket price to her last tour was over $450.
Because there were no ticket transfers and TM cancelled a lot of the secondary market tickets that were put up. You had to swipe a credit card to get your tickets. And it wasn’t sold out in five minutes because I got my tickets 45 minutes after the window opened for the tour.
Adele used the same program Taylor is using. But without the “boosts” and without her tickets being priced at $450 from the jump. There’s no logic that makes Taylor the good guy here.
I won’t get into anecdotal evidence with you. Here’s a list of the average ticket price for concerts from 2016 the year Adele tour.
http://www.businessinsider.com/most-expensive-concerts-artists-2016-12
Notice Adele is averaged at $469. Pretty hard to average that price without them going over $450 like you claim. And for a fan like me, there is no difference between Adele charging me a sky high price and a scalper charging me a sky high price. At least if it’s Adele, I know the money is going to those actually working on the tour and not to those who have bots/computer systems to beat out us casual fans for our money.
@miles: funny how you had no problem using your own anecdotal evidence until someone came in with an anecdote that differed from yours…
“she’s only interested in having wealthy fans anyway.”
She is who she’s always been: a mean girl trying to be the head of the most exclusive club. Now that she’s done collecting token friends, she’s dropped all pretenses and is pandering to rich folks. I can only imagine the things she says about poor people, fat people, people of color in private, but that’s probably just because I hate her. *shrugs*
Don’t forget the Nazis, Shambles. Her fan base.
I don’t really think she’s going to play to a half empty stadium. From what I have read the amount of seats that are open is crazy. I am just saying if they want the seats filled odds are they have to lower the price
which makes sense but will only piss of her fans. And they would be right.
That’s why I don’t think she’ll reduce the price. That would be a public admission that she priced them too high initially and would definitely piss off the fans who purchased at the higher price.
My guess is that, at the last minute, she’ll give away a lot of seats to nonprofits (or the like) to fill space. She’ll look charitable and avoid the dreaded row gaps down front, while giving herself a tax write-off.
The play Aida came to Vancouver in the early 90’s. Part of the play publicity involved a large floating pyramid. Ticket sales for such a huge production were way down, so after a month of ticket sales, the prices were cut in half. The director literally ended up losing her home and business when all those angry early ticket buyers sued her.
Or she will ‘give away’ all the unsold tickets to people in a public way and look like a Saint!!!! There is no way she would play to an half empty place.
usually they write off the tickets and arena staff who aren’t working get some as a bonus for good work and radio stations give more out. saw beyonce free when she didn’t sell out and they have to close the 3rd level and bring people down to the 2nd level. best center seats ever!!1
Rewarding loyal fans would be a great thing. If they were actually rewarded and and got priority and cheaper tickets. The casual fan point Kaiser makes also makes sense. Lots of people take a friend who isnt as much into the band or singer. Or you go with your romantic partner who also mostly does because of you. That all fine if its cheap tickets. Who wants to spend a couple hundred dollars to see a show you are only going to as a favour?
Ticketmaster is doing this with a lot of bands but artists with a younger fan base should always get a bigger side eye.
Also all bigger acts add dates. Always looks better to add than to have to cancel because not enough people show up.
Yes, that’s a good point. You’re not rewarding your fans if you’re making them pay more. However, a true fan buys merch, good tickets and cd + vynil eventually. So being a good fan makes you spend money not save. I suppose that’s the greedy logic most artists base their ticket sales on. Some are nicer and make themselves and their merch more available, some don’t. Swift has made a point of being really close with her fans and paying stuff for thé so I guess that’s why this seems more callous than with others.
And again the boosts are extra. I havent seen a boost option on verified fan or had that impede my ability to get tickets to several things this year. And I’ve used verified fan for several concerts and broadway shows in the last 6 months
Ok so if she has tickets available for her most loyal fans who go through all the double to earn points….then is she reserving some tickets? Or is she wanting them to sell slowly so those people can continue to earn points and get their tickets?? Like, how does that work that she can promise those people seats are available to them?
Serious question, not trying to throw shade…and yeah…$500 a ticket is RIDICULOUS unless it comes with VIP access and a meet and greet with pictures.
Instead of the scalpels getting the money, she is. That’s why she would be making those extreme rates from her tour, not because they’re selling out. It’s from the lower amount of tickets being sold with a higher price. However, they will have to lower the price eventually, because I find it hard to believe Taylor will want to perform to a half empty stadium. That will result in bad press, and you know Taylor will shit a brick from it.
I went to the 1989 tour in 2015 and I bought my tickets about two months before the show, so I don’t know where this “her last tour sold out in minutes” stuff comes from. They were nosebleeds, but there were tons of seats available at a decent price, so I figured why not. And what really struck me at that show was how many empty seats there were and how many tween girls were there. I still had fun, though. Not planning on seeing her Reputation show because I don’t want to sit at an Florida outdoor stadium in mid-August. And I don’t like the album nearly enough to want to pay anything to see those songs live.
Out of curiosity I checked the ticket prices for her shows here in Foxboro. Yes, there are $500 seats but most tickets were in the $150-$185 range. Still pretty steep for teenage concert goers.
I checked out Taylor Swift tickets for my daughter’s birthday. $145/each to basically sit in the bathroom. Instead, we found Harry Potter live at the NJ symphony orchestra. Way better price for way better seats. Thank God for Harry Potter.
EXactly Lola, 150$ for basically seats in the bathroom is insane. And no tween goes alone, so the parent has to also buy one. So over 300$ for the worlds worst seat. Such a shame, the awful seats should be WAY LOWER in price. This is insane. Also, Harry Potter is life!!!! Great choice!!!!
My guess is a few things are going on here:
1. because scalpers aren’t using bots to buy up tickets, it’s not selling as fast
2. unfortunately the secondary market gave Ticketmaster an idea of what people are actually willing to pay for tickets and it’s a lot higher than they were selling tickets for last time, so they’re raising prices this time.
It’ll be interesting to see how this all shakes out ultimately.
That sounds very plausible. Companies, and Taylor Swift IS a company, usually charge as much as people are willing to pay. Of course they only care about the bottom line, that’s the whole purpose of a company. That’s business. Famous entertainers have to walk the line between being an individual (or group of individuals) and a business. They have to make good business decisions or they don’t make money, but they are judged as individuals. Just look at here. Everybody assumes that Taylor herself makes each and every single decision about everything and judges her accordingly.
What remains to be seen is this still the market price for TS tickets? Is this price point still going to put butts in seats? If not, they’re going to have to adjust prices and risk pissing off a whole lot of people who paid the high ticket price. Or they keep the prices, and risk partially empty venues.
“Companies, and Taylor Swift IS a company, usually charge as much as people are willing to pay”
I agree. And why shouldn’t she charge what people are willing to pay? I don’t understand the idea that she should give away her tickets for as low of cost as possible because her audience is teens. Disney doesn’t lower their prices, no one asks Bieber to lower his prices. This is her business. She has a sought after product, why shouldn’t she make bank while she can?
That’s exactly what happened and I mentioned it in my first comment. Scalpers aren’t buying the tickets because they can’t flip them for a decent profit. Ticketmaster has already said that the way they’re selling her tickets is done on purpose. They’ve done it for The Rolling Stones in the past and it worked for them. It will be interesting to see how it works out for Taylor. While I was lucky enough to get my ticket for cheaper through the verified account thing, I saw my ticket is now on Ticketmaster for almost $300 (the price that’s is also available for on stub hub) I wasn’t paying $300 for a ticket. Anyways what I’m trying to say is that it seems Ticketmaster and Taylor are making an effort to make sure that scalpers aren’t making money which is what they said they would do from the get go. Unfortunately all that means is that the fans lose out.
I feel like her backup plan will be to give away available seats to her “regular” (not rich) fans on the date of the shows that don’t sell out as a way to get back into everyone’s good graces because OMGTAYLORCARESSOMUCHYOUGUYS.
Her changes in appearance seems to be more than just weight gain, right? Especially in the face. Or are my eyes crazy?
You nailed it. I couldn’t figure out why she looked different besides the horrible clothes.
I had two friends I hadn’t seen in a while have weight gain about the same amount as Taylor, both thin before, and the change in their faces was bizarre. This was different years as far as the friends.
Some people gain weight, and their face looks the same. But both friends, the shape of the face was so strange, where the weight went to, It distributed in an odd way. it was hard not to stare at them they looked so different. When they both eventually lost back down, they had the same shape faces they used to have and looked like themselves again.
Gee what kind of outfit is she wearing? She looks like mom working out in the gym. No I wouldn’t pay $$$$ to see that.
She look fat with that outfit.
She is so not fat. She has height on her side for sure, she could have easily gained 30 pounds though. I will say I think this is her natural weight. Like where her body is when she isn’t killing her self in the gym. She was just so, so skinny before. She worked out daily and I remember her saying she ran several miles daily with a treadmill she had on her tour bus! I think she just kinda quit working out. Plus, ‘love weight’, lol, how when you are in a new relationship and eat out a ton and quit the gym to snuggle. I’m in no way saying she needs to drop weight, I think it looks good her on her.
I don’t think she’s fat at all, but when she gains weight it all seems to go to the same exact spot. All of the weight seems to be on her upper-thigh region.
Not fat, but I never expected Taylor to gain this much weight. She seemed pretty set on the whole waif thing. I think she looks terrible, but not due to weight gain. She’s dressing terribly for her new body and her hair is dreadful.
I agree that she’s not fat. She looks to be a healthy weight. She doesn’t know how to dress it, though, and I think it’s her outfit that makes her look fat.
It’s odd that she’s adding dates in the same cities. I guess since it’s a stadium tour Taylor will still make out like a bandit. I can’t believe you can’t even get nosebleed seats for under $100.
“Taylor Swift added more dates to her slow-selling tour, because MONEY”
The title confuses me, as it seems to contain judgement. ALL tours exist to make money. Artists add more dates to make more money all of the time. Why is she expected to not want to hear money?
This site typically applauds the people at the top of the “highest grossing tours”/”highest grossing musicians” list when they are Madonna, Katy Perry, Coldplay, Rolling Stones, Justin Bieber, etc., but I am sure it will be used as an example of what a horrible person she is if Taylor gets on 2018’s list. I’m not a Taylor fan, I just don’t understand the overly negative reaction to everything she does, even when it is harmless…like adding more dates to her tour. Go after her for the legitimate stuff, there’s plenty of that.