Pre Sale
Many Taylor Swift fans, also known as Swifties, survived the great war that was the Ticketmaster presale. The devoted fans filed lawsuits against Ticketmaster for “unlawful conduct.” Our fellow Falcons were among millions of lucky fans to score tickets despite this hardship. Lucky fan senior Jenna Elmore said she scored her tickets in a swift 13 minutes.
“I got [my tickets] with the verified fan presale. It took me 13 minutes from start to finish, I had no issues whatsoever getting my tickets. I skipped my first hour class that day just in case but I ended up being back in time from the end of that class,” Elmore said.
However other fans such as language arts teacher Jennifer Perone did not have it as easy; Perone said her determined husband dedicated his 9-5 to scoring tickets for their family.
“I got a presale code and my husband tried for eight hours while he was at home working, then we finally ended up getting in the system at 5 o’clock that night and got tickets,” Perone said.
Fans who were unsuccessful at gaining tickets during the pre-sale looked for different ways to acquire tickets. Junior Sienna Walton bought her tickets from a third party source the same day as her concert.
“I got [my tickets] actually the day of. My mom found them on some random website and we drove there the day of as well,” Walton said.
Merch
Purchasing tickets was only half the battle of the Taylor Swift concert. The merchandise line was another obstacle that some Swifties chose to overcome. There were many fans who waited in these lines for multiple hours just to obtain something concrete they could have to remember the concert.
PE Coach Jill Grimshaw said immediately hopped in the hour long line to purchase a hoodie.
“I got in the merch line right when I got there. I waited for about an hour and I got a black hoodie with a picture of all the eras on the back,” Grimshaw said.
Others opted out of the hour long lines to purchase merch and found loopholes to snatch merch in creative ways.
Elmore said she bought a similar dupe to the internet famous navy blue crewneck on Etsy for a price she could not resist.
“I didn’t get merch at the concert but I did get the navy blue crewneck from Etsy because it was way cheaper and it looks the exact same,” Elmore said.
Senior Paige Lehman said her aunt was sacrificed to the lengthy merch line so she wouldn’t miss out on the show.
“My aunt got merchandise for my cousin and I because when we first got there the line was wrapped all the way from the bottom floor to the top, so she went during the show,” Lehman said.
Perone said that she received a VIP Box which came along with her tickets, it contained a multitude of different merch items which she later sold on EBay.
“They send you a box when you get floor tickets. It was like a VIP Package, but it was a box with a canvas tote bag, four posters, four postcards, and a light up lanyard and I sold four of them on EBay,” Perone said.
Surprise Songs
At each show, Taylor Swift has an acoustic section of her show where she performs two different songs that are not on the setlist. This is one of the most looked forward to events of the show, fans from all over the world will even tune into live streams just to hear what songs she plays.
Elmore said her show was adjusted due to weather conditions leading to openers being cut; however, during Taylor’s surprise song segment she brought out the planned opener Gracie Abrams to sing with her as well as performing solo songs.
“[Taylor Swift] had to move the showtime up to 7 [p.m.]instead of 8 p.m.because there was going to be some weather around the end of her show, because of that they had to cut Gracie Abrams as the opener. So we got ‘Ivy’ with Aaron Desner, which was my surprise song, then we got ‘i miss you, i’m sorry’ with Gracie Abrams, and we got ‘Call It What You Want,’” Elmore said.
Junior Anna Mckinney said she was pleased with her surprise songs because ‘I Wish You Would’ has resonated with her since she was young.
“My surprise songs were ‘the lakes’ and ‘I Wish You Would,’ I love that song. ‘I Wish You Would’ is like my favorite song since I was young, and my favorite song from 1989,” Mckinney said.
Favorite Part of the Show
Perone said that her favorite performance of the night was the song ‘Tolerate It’ because of the emotional skit that accompanied the song.
“After watching it on stage I am obsessed with the song ‘Tolerate It’ just because I thought it was a total lyrical moment where she acted it out,” Perone said.
Mckinney said that her favorite song of the night was ‘Style’ because ironically there was a firework show happening at the same time.
“My favorite song she performed was ‘Style.’ It was the coolest thing because there were fireworks going off during it because there was another display doing fireworks and it just felt so cool and the vibes were so good and the lights were flashing, it was such a memorable moment,” Mckinney.
Senior Margaret Schnieders said her most anticipated song was ‘All Too Well (Ten Minute Version)’ because she has all of the lyrics memorized.
“The song I was most excited to hear was the ten minute version of ‘All Too Well’ because that is one of my favorite songs ever and I know every single word, so hearing it live was like an out of body experience,” Schnieders said.
