The night before tickets for Taylor Swift’s Eras tour went on sale, Head of Upper Division Dr. Jessica Levenstein P ‘23 ’26 did not sleep — she stayed up thinking about her strategy. 

The next morning, Levenstein logged onto Ticketmaster at 9:30 a.m. in hopes of buying tickets for her daughters and got stuck in the queue, with 2,000 people in front of her. “I had advisory and I told my advisees they could come in as long as they don’t go on their phones because it was going to mess with my bandwidth for the website,” she said. After waiting for four hours, the queue opened up and Levenstein got six tickets for her family. 

Last Tuesday at 10 a.m., presale tickets for Swift’s tour were released. Panic and anxiety among both students and teachers ensued.

A small number of people who had signed up for the Verified Fan presale received codes last Monday night, which allowed them to secure tickets for the tour three days before the general public could. However, due to unprecedented numbers, Ticketmaster canceled the general sale and left hopeful fans in the dust. 

Amelia Resnick (12) joined the queue at 9:30 a.m. and was not able to get tickets until 12:45 p.m. “The whole process was very stressful. In those few hours that I did not have tickets, I was very anxious,” she said. 

Others were not that lucky. Rizaa Fazal (11) depended on her friend, who had a code, to get tickets for her. Her dad even moved his doctor’s appointment to get tickets, but he was kicked out of the queue and the code was useless. Later in the day, the line reopened — but no luck. “We tried clicking for seats, everything said sold out,” she said.

Assistant Director of Admissions Emily Perelman also did not secure tickets during the Verified Fan sale, but decided to make use of her sister’s Capital One card for the Capital One presale. Perelman’s queue had 2,000 people in front of her. Only after two hours did the numbers begin to descend. “It went from 831, to 29, to 1,” she said. “Then my screen said error, and everything went away.”

Because Perelman runs the Student Ambassador Program, she could not wait by her laptop for another queue, she said. That day, she saw students coming to ask if they could tour families with their laptops open so they could track their spot in the queue. Although she still does not have tickets, Perelman is staying positive and hopes that Ticketmaster comes around soon.

History teacher Dr. Alicia DeMaio also experienced glitches while trying to get seats, and when she was finally able to pick her seats, they disappeared in front of her eyes within seconds. After continuous failed attempts to secure the May 13 show in Philadelphia, DeMaio eventually got tickets for the show in Metlife Stadium with the help of another teacher. 

While she was able to get tickets for one show, Ryan Nikitiadis (11) is trying to get tickets for another day as well, she said. “As of now I only have tickets for one day and it’s going to be hard to get them for another day because I want floor, which are the seats right in front of Taylor,” she said. But the struggle was worth it. “The tickets I got were amazing and I’ve been waiting years for this concert, so I am very happy with the result.”

Malcolm Furman (12) does not understand the craze for tickets. “Why do people walk around the cafeteria with their laptops open waiting to see something that they can just watch a YouTube video of online?”