Welcome back, Eras Tour (and a frosty hello to Ticketmaster)! I’m trying a bit of a new format for debriefing what happened with tickets this weekend in Miami. The character limits and quick-paced nature of Discord and Twitter are losing a lot of nuance, so let’s see if this is an improvement!

Ticketmaster Drops

We came into this weekend not really knowing what to expect, but planning for it as if it was going to be the same as how it worked for the last U.S. shows in Summer 2023. I think overall, we got something pretty similar but with enough changes to keep us on our toes. 

Our first major change was the lack of a code drop. During 2023, we consistently had opportunities for tickets in which Ticketmaster would text a code to a handful of fans who were either waitlisted or verified but unable to purchase tickets. These drops lasted a few hours, and generally fans were very successful. We didn’t see that for Miami or New Orleans, so I think it’s safe to say that those days are done. I believe that inventory went to the Capital One Venture X cardholder sale, which happened in September 2024. The inventory from that sale is roughly what we saw last summer with the second chance sales.

In a somewhat anticipated move, Ticketmaster did release a few thousand tickets in what I’m now calling the “Stage Drop” on Wednesday, 10/16. Its timing is tied to the stage setup, because the extra inventory comes from extra chairs they can squeeze onto the floor and obstructed view sections that are able to see just enough to be sold. During 2023, this drop almost always happened on a Thursday night, the day before Night 1, but we have specific signs we look for during setup to figure out when to prepare for an impending drop. Photos and videos of the stage setup process help us look for production elements (ie screens and speakers, not the physical stage blocks) and progress setting up chairs. 

For Miami, the drop was one day earlier than the previous pattern, but we knew this was likely because the stage had plenty of time to arrive in Miami – there was no previous city or event in the stadium. The queues opened at 8:34 pm, making this one of the latest stage drops ever. In 2023, we generally saw drops between 5-8pm venue time. In terms of inventory, Nights 1 and 3 had about 3700 and 3600 tickets respectively. Night 2 had more, with about 4800 tickets. It’s difficult to put an exact number on these without doing some very detailed analysis because each night had multiple restocks, and our inventory tracking tools (Notify Que) give a high-level picture of tickets available at a given time. Most tickets sell before the next wave releases, but there’s always a handful of tickets released back to the map after cart timers run out. We saw lots of floor, lower bowl, and obstructed view seats. 

Overall, driving the Miami Stage Drop was a bit of a mixed bag. The accounts that got in had a pretty easy time in the map, but not that many accounts got in. I personally took 3 accounts for the Stage Drop, 2 verified and 1 waitlisted, and only 1 got into the drop. However, I was able to cart tickets and run out the timer multiple times while waiting for my account holder to get back to me. Roughly half of the accounts that the driving team used made it into the queue. Right now, we don’t see any patterns as to who is considered an Invited Fan – our best guess is that it’s a truly random subset of all verified fans. 

I am surprised that we didn’t see a queued Production Drop for Night 3 based on the inventory numbers. Night 1 over both drops had roughly the same inventory as Night 2 over only the Stage Drop, but Night 3 was under by about 1400 tickets. It’s likely that this inventory just wasn’t available to sell, but we don’t have any great explanations for it.

Sales & Resale

Despite our challenges with driving, we were able to successfully buy 16 tickets while driving accounts, which were split between account holders, sales for the server, and giveaways. We sold 13 tickets, from driving, moderator accounts, and server members selling their extra tickets with us. These tickets were all very popular, with an average of more than 900 entries per listing and over 9000 entries total. Thank you to our Miami buyers for being so easy to work with and for responding quickly! We were also able to crowdfund the price of three tickets to give away to server members!

Overall, resale trends are roughly as expected. Night 1 saw the most inventory and the cheapest prices, and prices rose after N1 for the remaining shows. Night 1 had pretty low prices compared to Summer 2023, with the median N1 ticket price on show day at $412. Nights 2 and 3 stayed high, with median prices at $2062 and $1500 respectively. The data we have from last summer is imperfect, but average prices hovered between $1200-$1600 around the same time frame. All three nights briefly benefitted from a spike in inventory following the Stage drop on 10/16.

Looking Ahead to NOLA

Moving forward, we’re assuming New Orleans will run similarly to Miami. We have a handful of accounts to drive through the last-minute drops, which we’ll start looking for on Wednesday, 10/23. I’m not expecting it until Thursday evening, but it never hurts to be prepared. As always, we’ll post stage updates and queues on our socials!

In terms of resale, I expect similar patterns to Miami as well, but I think the drop in Night 1 prices will be an outlier. As FOMO increases and the tour dates dwindle, I think we’ll see more desperation and general willingness to pay higher prices. Like with summer 2023, the cheapest tickets were for Night 1, and I think this pattern is here to stay. However, I doubt prices will be as cheap as Miami for future cities. We still recommend purchasing resale on N1 no matter what show you want to attend, since N2 and N3 will likely go back up in price.

We’re excited to be on this crazy journey with you all! On a personal note, it’s been amazing to see so much growth in our Discord server over the last week. Thank you so much to my co-admins and moderators, who have handled an overwhelming influx of members with incredible expertise and patience. 

If you’re not already in our server, I invite you to join us, both for information and a Swiftie community. The tour may be entering the home stretch, but we have some tricks up our sleeve beyond that!