Now let me preface this by saying that I am a Taylor Swift fan, but as my Swiftie roommate dreadfully reminds me, there’s a difference between the two. I don’t know how closely I agree with her, I mean I’ve listened to every song on every album (unfortunately including “ME!”), so I think that gives me some credit. When it was announced that Taylor would be going on tour, we immediately jumped on prepping for registering for pre-sale verification for the chance to maybe receive a pre-sale code and then have to fight our way to get tickets. It was a lot of steps and I definitely was not prepared for all of them.
The Pre-sale Verification
Who knew that sitting in a purple-blue-pink ombre queue watching a little dude walk across my screen would’ve been the beginning of a painstaking process to get tickets in the great war of 2022. When I joined the queue like many, many other fans on November 1st, I was met with a beginning wait of two hours. Two hours without movement. As my little guy started to progress forward on my screen, I realized that I had to leave the comforts of my dorm, and more importantly the wifi of my dorm, for class. I wondered if the little dude would stay where he was or if I would be shot to the back of the queue as soon as I shut my laptop close. In any case, my education had to come first, so I shut the lid to my computer, stuffed it in my backpack, and walked across campus. Upon making it to class, I held my breath as I opened the lid to my computer, reconnected to the wifi, and refreshed the queue. I’d been sent to the back of the line. I of course sighed heavily along with many other students who’d just encountered the same dilemma. Together we sat in the classroom and the queue for two hours, with no movement. When the class ended, the cycle returned as I was to return to my dorm room again. This time ’round, there was more progress with the little guy who walks the screen, he’d moved all the way across the bar in the queue and now I was just waiting to be redirected to the website. My roommate, the swiftie, was able to complete her verified fan registration during this time and laughed as, traumatically, I was sent back to the back of the queue after a “timed out request” on Ticketmaster’s website. I was tired, broken down, and didn’t feel like getting back in that queue again, I mean I’d made it so far only to be sent to the back of the queue for the third time! I took a break to grab some lunch and restore my sanity before heading off to my final class. This class also happens to be my least favorite class, so I decided that in order to keep me awake throughout the duration of the period, I was going to join the verification queue once more. Somehow, somewhere the swiftie gods placed favor upon me and I made it to the signup website. I typed in all my information and received the glorious confirmation page. Grammar class seemed to go a little better that day and as a reward for the day’s hard work, I picked myself up some Starbucks.
Code and Next Day Awaiting
I swear, waiting to see if I would get a pre-sale code or not, was probably the most nerve-wracking piece of this process, and I think that’s partially because I had absolutely no control over it! It was a wait-and-see game of chance. I received the illustrious code at 3:30 pm exactly. My text code came before my “you’ve been selected” email, but the fact that’d received a code at all was gratifying enough. My roommate, who I’d planned to see the show with, also received her code but much earlier in the day. We were extremely lucky and grateful to have both been given this chance. We’d signed up for different show locations so we had double the chance of snagging tickets. We anxiously slept through the night, not very well, but sleep is sleep as a college student.
Ticket Taking
Alarms went off and woke us up at 9:25 am, we prepped to jump into the waiting room at 9:30 am and then into the queue at 10:00 am. With parents on speakerphone and frequent updates of “I’m at 1136” and “Mine dropped to 876!” We awaited the screen that would open up with our arena lit up in blue. We were lucky to make it to that window before Ticketmaster crashed. Around 11:00 am, we were able to check out with our lower bowl tickets in hand. I am now in severe debit card debt but was it worth it? Absolutely. Especially for the joy that graced my roommate’s face for the next couple of days as we lived off of the high of the truth…
We’re going to see Taylor Swift.