Ticketmaster Postpones Swift Tix Sales

Ticketmaster canceled Friday's planned ticket sales to the general public for Taylor Swift's 2023 U.S. concert tour as 3.5 billion ticket requests from fans, bots and scalpers overwhelmed the website with record demand, reports Reuters.

Meanwhile customer complaints mounted over high prices and poor service, and prominent members of the U.S. Congress backed public pleas for the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate Ticketmaster on antitrust grounds.

The American singer's highly anticipated "Eras" tour, her first in five years, had already set the entertainment industry abuzz. In the "presale" round on Tuesday, over 2 million tickets were sold, the most ever for an artist in a single day, Ticketmaster said.

Even so, the experience left many fans frustrated with long wait times and site outages, and many unable to obtain tickets.

It was not immediately clear when the remaining tickets might go back on sale.

Ticketmaster representatives did not immediately respond to interview requests to answer the criticism, but the company, whose parent is Live Nation Entertainment Inc, did issue a statement acknowledging the difficulties encountered by fans.

Ticketmaster said a record 3.5 million people had registered as verified fans, the largest number ever. Ticketmaster said it had planned to invite 1.5 million of those to participate in the sale for all 52 show dates, including the 47 sold by Ticketmaster, with the other 2 million placed on a waiting list.