Casey James (left) celebrates with her friends after they managed to snag tickets after queuing since Wednesday at 5pm.- ST PHOTO: MARK CHEONG
SINGAPORE: Tickets for all six of American pop star Taylor Swift’s concerts in Singapore have sold out after two days of sales and hours of queues at SingPost outlets.
In a Facebook post on Friday night, organisers AEG Presents Asia said tickets to Swift’s The Eras Tour for March 2 to 4 and 7 to 9, 2024, at the National Stadium, have all been sold.
Ticketing website Ticketmaster said in a separate post that as the official ticketing partner for all of Swift’s Singapore shows, it cannot guarantee the legitimacy of tickets bought anywhere else.
Mr Leroy Ng and his girlfriend will not be worried.
After queueing for 17 hours at SingPost’s Woodlands Civic Centre outlet, they bought eight tickets worth about $6,200 on Friday.
The couple, who had been queueing since 5am on Thursday, were the first to get tickets at the branch. Each customer is allowed to buy only four tickets.
Looking visibly pleased, Mr Ng, 31, said: “I am just relieved. I am happy my partner and her friends can watch the concert.”
Leroy Ng, 31, was the first in line at SingPost's Woodlands branch. He and his partner managed to secure eight tickets in total. - ST PHOTO: DILLON LOH
He was not the only one struggling to contain his excitement. Fans across the country grappled with a range of emotions at various SingPost outlets on a day of high drama.
UOB pre-sale tickets sold out within three hours on Wednesday, and Friday saw UOB reserved sale tickets and general tickets go on sale from 12pm.
At 2.20pm, all tickets for the UOB reserved sale were sold out.
Only those with exclusive access codes could queue at SingPost outlets, and some at Serangoon Central were seen holding hands, comforting each other when outlets islandwide faced technical issues with ticketing site Ticketmaster.
All over the island, fans both online and offline could not complete buying their tickets after selecting them when the system crashed.
Tempers flared at the Bukit Timah Community Centre (CC) outlet when a woman dressed in pink shouted at two girls at the front of the queue.
She yelled: “Can you all hurry up? It has been 30 minutes already!”
One of the two girls, who was crying on the phone, turned and shouted back: “It is not our fault, it is the system.”
Others were receiving error messages that said “promo code exceeded” despite not having used their access codes, and faced blank screens on their phones.
Project executive Yasmine Diyana, 26, was 14th in line and had been queueing since noon on Thursday.
“I am so nervous. I have been peeling my nails to cope,” she said.
After failing to get an access code, she joined three friends and bought one for $400 via Carousell.
It worked. She managed to buy four $348 tickets two hours after general sales opened.
Student Bryan Lau, 22, was also successful after queueing for 36 hours at Serangoon Central.
He bought two $348 tickets and two $288 tickets.
Noting that even SingPost staff looked anxious, he said: “There were some difficulties inside, and tensions were very high. It was the system, could be due to the overwhelming number of users.”
He credited the staff for being attentive and helpful.
He said: “In the end, I got exactly what I wanted. I’m extremely excited to be able to go.”
Lucky fan Gabriel Boo, 18 who was at Hougang Mall, bought four tickets worth $1,400 in total.
But it almost did not happen.
He said: “I faced some issues at the counter when the staff told me they could not access my code and could not confirm I had received the tickets. They managed to resolve it as soon as they could.”
Some who had access codes were unsuccessful in their bid to buy tickets.
The last customer in line at Woodlands Civic Centre was full-time national serviceman Shaun Hoon, 21, who rushed there after booking out of camp.
He reached the counter at 5.30pm but left empty-handed as there were only single seats left. He and his girlfriend decided against buying.
He said: “Maybe we will try buying seats together on the resale market.”
As 5pm approached, SingPost employees at various outlets informed those queueing that the only tickets left were VIP and single seats.
Ms Sarah Wan, travel company Klook’s general manager for Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, said there were more than 600,000 fans from across the region who had waited online to buy packages, each comprising two concert tickets and a night’s stay at a hotel.
Packages sold by Klook, the official experience partner for The Eras Tour, cost between $542 for four-star and $4,977 for five-star hotels.
Mr Aniq Harith, 24, and Ms Eliisa Juntunen, 23, were at SingPost’s Downtown East outlet after the system crashed at noon on Friday.
Claudia Lim (right), 20, and Heather Tan, 19, managed to secure eight tickets between the two of them. - ST PHOTO: CHRISTINE SIOW
Mr Harith, a photographer, said he was not a big fan, but his partner grew up on Taylor Swift’s music. He bought two VIP tickets at $700 each.
He said with a laugh: “I am just glad to see her happy. After this, she had better marry me.”
Videos circulating in Taylor Swift group chats on messaging platform Telegram on Friday showed fans at Ion and Northpoint City at Yishun rushing in when the malls opened at 7am.
Fans at Ion crawled under shutters as they were raised, while those at Northpoint City ran up escalators. At Downtown East, a man accused of cutting the queue was forced out by some women.
The group had issued their own numbers to ensure order, but when asked, he could not produce his slip of paper.
One of those in the queue, who only wanted to be known as Ms Low, 17, had been in the queue overnight and did not recognise him.
She said: “The groups in front of him and behind him did not see him beforehand either. It’s like he just came out of nowhere.”
Generally, most fans queued in an orderly manner, some since Wednesday afternoon.
Fans who had been queueing at SingPost outlets inside malls were told on Thursday they had to leave when the premises closed.
On Friday, those queueing outside Woodlands Civic Centre and Hougang Mall remained in their positions as they were led in by staff in an orderly manner at around 6.45am.
Anti-scam posters were handed out by police officers at Bukit Timah CC. Other outlets had the posters shown to them by SingPost employees or pasted at the entrance of the outlet.
On Thursday, the police warned the public that with popular performers such as Swift and Coldplay coming here, there had been a resurgence of scams involving the sale of concert tickets.
At least 462 people have lost more than $480,000 since January.
Student Hannah Yoong Soong En, 23, was one of seven friends at Serangoon Central who managed to get tickets. She bought four $288 tickets.
Referring to one of Swift’s songs, called 22, she said: “On a scale of one to 10 on how happy I am? I am 22!”
• Additional reporting by Dillon Loh, Suzanne Chan, Christine Siow, Andrew Wong. - The Straits Times
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