A diehard Taylor Swift fan has revealed she is filled with buyer’s remorse after forking out an eye-watering USD$5,500 (AUD$8,285, £4,645) for just two tickets for the singer’s upcoming Eras tour.
Paige, who declined to reveal her last name for privacy reasons, told Insider that she waited in the presale for more than three hours before turning to resale site StubHub for tickets being flipped by scalpers.
Paige reported that ticket prices on the website already ranged from USD$5,000 (AUD$7,523, £4,220) to more than USD$30,000 (AUD$45,143, £25,325).
Swiftie, a Swiftie fanatic, ultimately located two-floor seat tickets for a little under USD$2,000 (AUD$3,008, £1,688) each and bought them.
After fees and taxes, the total cost her just over USD$5,500 (AUD$8,273, £4,642).
Paige was overwhelmed with remorse rather than excitement at the idea of seeing her favorite performer in concert for the first time.
“I don’t feel good to have tickets anymore. It wasn’t something fun like it was supposed to be,” she explained to Insider.
“I feel guilty. I feel like I did something impulsive in panic mode, and I am disappointed in Ticketmaster and Live Nation for letting it get to this point of just being a complete frenzy.”
“Once I realized how many people were impacted by this and how I fed into what resellers do, which prey on people who are in that panic mode, it didn’t feel good anymore.”
She went on to reveal she felt ashamed for purchasing the tickets at the massively inflated price.
“I felt nauseous that I spent so much,” she added.
After Ticketmaster bungled the presale for Taylor’s US leg of her tour and canceled the main sale completely, it wasn’t long before tickets were being sold for exorbitant prices on resale sites, with some tickets going for as much as USD$95,000 apiece.
Following the Hunger Games-style pre-sale, Ticketmaster stated that they had received record demand.
Regardless of their reasons, the US Justice Department is now looking into Ticketmaster’s parent company, Live Nation Entertainment, to investigate if the music ticketing corporation misused its power over the multibillion-dollar live music industry, according to The New York Times.
Taylor issued a statement in which she apologized to fans and criticized Ticketmaster for the ‘excruciating’ mismanagement of her tickets.
“It goes without saying that I’m extremely protective of my fans,” she wrote on her Instagram story on November 18.
“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.”
She added: “I’m not going to make excuses for anyone because we asked them, multiple times if they could handle this kind of demand and we were assured they could.”