No luck for some Manitoba Swifties trying to score tickets to final shows of the Eras Tour

Some Taylor Swift fans in Manitoba are Down Bad after their efforts to score last minute tickets to any of her final three shows of the Eras Tour in Vancouver have been unsuccessful. 

The American singer-songwriter announced the Canadian dates of the international tour in August and November last year, sending thousands of Swifties scouring for affordable tickets between her Vancouver and Toronto shows. 

The Eras Tour will end when the clock strikes Midnights at the last show on Dec. 8, leaving superfans like Kira Lang heartbroken about not being able to snag tickets. 

"I did everything that you're supposed to do as a concertgoer. I signed up for the presales, I had all my friends and family and probably close to like 25 to 30 people who signed up for the presale for Toronto and Vancouver, and through all of that, I got absolutely nothing. Nobody I knew got a code," said Lang, who lives in Lockport, Man. 

Lang has been listening to the global icon's albums since she was nine years old — her favourite era being Speak Now. The last time she saw Swift perform live was during her stop in Winnipeg for the Fearless Tour in 2009. 

Swift hasn't returned to Winnipeg since her Red Tour in 2013. 

She said the 14-time Grammy award winner is a symbol of growing up, from going through an awkward teenage phase and break-ups to gaining confidence and becoming who you are. 

Lang said she's frustrated to hear people have been scammed out of hundreds of dollars when attempting to buy resale tickets online. She's also upset that people like herself are left to rewatch the Eras Tour movie or a livestream of the concerts to mark their experience after scalpers swoop up multiple seats to make a profit. 

"I think it's just ridiculous that this has become the state of like concerts and concert tickets. I feel like it's all about people trying to make a quick buck instead of people trying to see their favourite artists and support their favourite artists," she said.

"If you're lucky enough to get tickets, you're probably going to pay an arm and a leg."

She said the government needs to step in and regulate ticket prices, so corporations such as Ticketmaster can improve the buyers' experience and help eliminate scalpers. 

Scalping at the Eras Tour is what led an Ontario couple to launch a petition asking the federal government for new rules around the way tickets are resold in Canada. They say in other countries, like Portugal and Denmark, tickets cannot be resold for more than their original price.

Kira Watson said Ticketmaster released a bunch of listening-only tickets on Monday starting at $16 for seats behind the stage in B.C., but they sold out immediately and are now being resold — some for over $1,000. 

"It is really frustrating that there's a lot of people who have been fans for a long time who aren't able to see it or like can't afford it," said Watson, who grew up in Winnipeg and now lives in B.C.

Watson saw the Eras Tour in Chicago in June last year before her 11th studio album The Tortured Poets Department was added to the tour. Since then she's been trying to get tickets to see her again, which even meant flying to Austria to catch one of her shows before it was cancelled due to government officials confirming a planned terrorist attack. 

"We had tickets for the first night of Vienna, so we were like laying out our outfits when they were like, 'oh, it's actually cancelled,'" she said.

She said she finds the resale issue "very frustrating" and wants Swift to do more to mitigate it as other stars have, like Ed Sheeran, who doesn't allow his tickets to be resold above "face value" — that is, what they originally cost. 

"I feel like she's famous enough that when the original Ticketmaster debacle happened, she should've stepped in and done something," Watson said. 

Overwhelming demand for tickets at the beginning of the Eras Tour in November of 2022 caused Ticketmaster to crash, leaving thousands of ticket-hungry fans in limbo. When the site was back up, ticket prices had jumped from hundreds to thousands of dollars.

Watson also tried to get tickets while she was in Toronto last weekend, but came up empty-handed, similar to another fan, Nikki Van Achte, who's also had bad luck trying to obtain tickets in Toronto. 

Van Achte, who grew up in Winnipeg and now lives in Toronto, was also "seconds away" from completing her purchase for tickets to the first night of the Eras Tour in Austria while she was travelling in Europe before it was cancelled.

Now she's thrilled to be attending the final show at BC Place after someone she knows got a code to make a purchase on Ticketmaster. 

She said Swift releasing her Vancouver dates was "the last glimmer of hope" that she'd be able to attend, and ended up paying roughly $1,000 for a VIP ticket. 

"I just want to kind of enjoy my time there while it's happening and then when it's over, it's kind of over for everyone, which I think is going to be really sad," Van Achte said.

"I'm probably going to feel like really like lost and empty after because this has really consumed so much of my life for the last few years."

Van Achte said she is putting the final touches on her Speak Now-era themed outfit, which includes dyeing a dress purple, bedazzling cowboy boots and making almost 200 friendship bracelets.