Taylor Swift has made her presence known on Wofford’s campus. Not in the form of a Spring Concert or organized fan club, but in her Eras Tour TaylorSwiftTix Presale.
“This is my first Taylor Swift concert, even though I have been a fan since she released the Fearless album,” said Anna Rush Schultz ’24.
Schultz will be joined in the Mercedes-Benz stadium by her two sorority littles.
“We had planned from the beginning of going together even before the tour was announced, since we are all Taylor Swift fans,” Schultz said.
On Nov. 15 at 10 a.m., registered fans were able to log on for the TaylorSwiftTix Presale, if they were approved for their respective tour date.
Margaret Chandler ’24 said that her 9:30 a.m. class has a strict no technology policy, so she had a friend from another school log on to her account and purchase the tickets.
“I skipped my 9:30 class to buy tickets, but this was my first absence from the class anyways,” another student shared.
Other students were stressed that their instructor would catch them purchasing tickets while in class.
One student said that the website crashed on her during a government class, when she was just 10 spots away from purchasing her tickets, taking her to the beginning of the queue.
“(My professor) definitely did not know (that I was buying Taylor Swift tickets), and I had to hold it together,” the student said. “I had a breakdown in the basement of the library later.”
Claire Taylor ’26 was in her religion class with Douglas Clark, visiting professor of religion, when she purchased her tickets.
“I had told him before class that my website crashed, and I couldn’t believe it because of how badly I wanted tickets,” Taylor said. “And he told me he was sorry but that I could keep trying.”
She had already been in line on her phone since 10 a.m., constantly tapping her phone screen through a meeting and the line at Boar’s Head to ensure she didn’t lose her spot.
“All I had to do was make sure my phone didn’t turn off, so I could do other things, I just had to tap the screen every minute or so,” Taylor said.
During Clark’s lecture, though, she was able to secure her tickets.
For Laurie Ann McGee ’26, this will be her second Taylor Swift concert, and she was in queue for six and a half hours before being able to purchase.
“It was such a relief,” McGee explained. “I felt like a weight was lifted off my chest.”
At 1:05 p.m., approximately three hours after presale started, Ticketmaster released a Tweet explaining why people were experiencing such unforeseen technical difficulties.
“There has been historically unprecedented demand with millions showing up to buy tickets for the TaylorSwiftTix Presale,” part of the Tweet read.
Because of this, it set back the planned West Coast onsales and the Capital One onsale times.
Brian Rawlinson, director of network services, said 236 unique users logged onto Ticketmaster through the Terrier network at 10 a.m.
There were also around a dozen other users logged into Ticketmaster through the faculty and staff’s network, showing the fandom reaching professors as well.
Wofford assures, though, that there were no problems on this side of the website that may have caused fans to be unable to purchase tickets.
“We clearly had some users access the Ticketmaster site during the time in question, but I don’t have any reason to believe that there were any issues or problems accessing the site related to Wofford’s network or internet connections,” Rawlinson explained.
