Taylor Swift Eras Tour has dominated our household as far back as early spring of this year when my to-be teenager wished Taylor Swift concert on or around her birthday in June. I spent the next few months looking for tickets and quickly gave up notion of seeing her concert in USA because of insane resale value of her tickets. After much searching, a seller found me on reddit and sold me his tickets because his girlfriend was pregnant. Vienna is one of my favorite cities and it was too tempting to go back to Vienna to see the show, so we jumped on it. We in fact planned our entire summer trip around this concert (& olympics) only for it to be cancelled due to a terrorist threat. In her 100s of shows across the world, her show has cancelled only twice, and one of them was due to the terrorist attack threat in Vienna. To say my kid was heartbroken is an understatement, and she really was feeling the blues.

We were feeling the blues too; the concert meant everything to her. Initially we decided to not pursue tickets in USA anymore because of the cost, but as weeks went by, I decided I was going to try my darn best to get tickets to one of the remaining 18 shows spanning 5 cities US/Canada. At first the search seemed too easy. Just like before, I found a seller on reddit with whom I was able to get all details, and knowing the best practices of game (always verify tickets, use PayPal goods & services only), I paid the guy a very significant amount only to find out later in the day that I had been scammed! Thankfully the Paypal Goods & Services buyer protection kicked in and I was returned back my money within a week. I knew that I had to be doubly sure to get the tickets again.

So in the process I ended up joining a lot of Facebook groups - some scammy and some run by wonderful people who are really doing their best to get tickets for swifities who were not able to secure one. The scalper industry has really taken off with Taylor’s concert and pretty much a good chunk of tickets are basically resale. It does not help that Taylor did not ban transfer or resale in USA/Canada which has made things way worse. Anyhow, even within these groups I dealt with so many scammers almost on a daily basis that i was just disheartened about it all.

Until one day I found a good deal on a tickets to the Miami show on 18th in a good section of the house. I immediately dropped the moolah and got it from a third party resale site, with backing of the tickets being covered for refund if they didnt materialize (I had decided by then that going to individual sales was risky and a third party, however expensive their charges might be gave a peace of mind). The cost was significant enough that I booked only two tickets instead of three and A gave up her chance to catch her live. For the next weeks though all was well - the tickets were in my Ticketmaster account, and we started making plans for Miami!

Until sometime mid September, I wake up to find out that I was locked out of my Ticketmaster account! Frantically I started a support call with Ticketmaster who arguably has the ABSOLUTE WORST customer support in history. It took 10 days of back and forth to get access to my account back. Once logged in, I see that my tickets that I had purchased are not showing me the bar code any more (which is a way to confirm that the tickets are valid). What began from then on was one of the most painful experiences with Ticketmaster ever. After upteen number of calls, chats and emails Ticketmaster finally started a “fraud” investigation. The investigation took 4 weeks for them to come back and tell me that I was “hacked” and my tickets had be resold. I was confirmed that my tickets were “valid” and I would have them back within the next 2 days. All this literally happening 10 days before the actual concert. I did get back the tickets, but it gave me stressful days of checking every day and rotating my Ticketmaster password. Ticketmaster was hacked way back in May, and there are tons of stolen tickets on market so I was not an isolated case.

Anyhoo while this nonsense was going on, I managed to get backup tickets for the show in Indianapolis if the Miami ones didnt work out. I was secretly hoping Miami didn’t work out coz the Indianapolis ones were far cheaper. But you know how this story goes right? Literally last Monday, turns out those tickets were fucking stolen too! This time Ticketmaster had no issues telling us that I indeed tickets stolen from someone else and they immediately took them out of our account. The resale website promptly refunded our money so it was not an issue - however it did mean we had to make sure that Miami tickets were solid. Ticketmaster confirmed so, and I and R again were excited about making the trip to Miami to see Taylor live!

Fast forward to day of the concert. I and R get to the stadium; R is decked in her Taylor gear and so am I. We try to scan our tickets at entry. No luck. We try another stand. No luck. The error we kept seeing is our tickets had been scanned already. We were directed to the Ticketmaster booth next door where three helpful folks decided to deep dive. After another 30 minutes of back and forth, where at one point the guy told me my tickets were invalid, came back and said, oops, no, they are valid and it was Ticketmaster at fault. In those 30 minutes, R had tears in her eyes thinking about missing another opportunity. I was ready to pull trigger on yet another set of tickets because I was determined that we were not fucking going back from stadium without actually seeing the concert. The Ticketmaster guy told us no need and instead said, they needed to manually walk us to stadium. A lady in their group bypassed us through all the gates and we were finally IN THE STADIUM! Finally!

We get to our seats, and lo and behold a couple is already sitting there. We say these are our seats, but naturally so do they say. They were genuinely nice folks who told us they were victims of hack and their tickets had been stolen and Ticketmaster had given them back. Well, now we had two sets of people with exact same row and seat numbers. The next thing to do was to get to guest services of Ticketmaster, who asked for both parties to show up. After hearing both of our cases (and in between R having another tearful episode), the agent at guest services asked the original seat holders to keep their seats and casually said, oh I am going to get you another pair of tickets - and it turns out these tickets were much better with a even better view. We couldn’t have imagined it was going to end this way.

In the end, we did end up with great seats and had the time of our lives last night!

But what fun would it be if the drama didnt continue? So we had booked a bus service (Rally, a well known bus service that does these concert bus services all over USA) to take us from the hotel to the stadium. It seemed like the best thing to do without having to rent a car and pay exorbitant hotel parking charges. The journey from hotel to stadium was uneventful until the driver got to the stadium and then started circling the stadium because he had no idea where to park. After 45 minutes of circling the stadium, he randomly let us off telling us watch for an email from Rally on pickup spot. Just before the concert got ended Rally told us the pickup spot was from the stadium, only to revert that information back 5 minutes later. After the concert ended and we are on the street, we get a message to go to Walmart which is quite nearby where all the Rally buses are. We had two buses to pick from there to head back to hotel.

Except when we get to Walmart, there are no signs of the buses. There are lots of buses, just not ours. Eventually after 30 minutes I find one of them, and I go ask the driver and he just says he is headed home with an empty bus and nobody told him that he was supposed to pick up. A Rally help man was in the parking lot and eventually after another 15 minutes he found the bus we were supposed to get on. We finally were glad to get on the bus - except now two buses worth of people were on this bus because remember the other guy just left off. Eventually our bus driver said only those folks who came with him would be allowed while others would need for another bus to come by. Many stepped out and decided to wait out.

Except, this infuriated a woman with 2 young children to no end. She was not on the original bus but she made it her life mission to get on it. She simply took her kids and stood in front of the bus, Tiananmen style and told the driver he’d have to drive over her and kids to leave. The driver simply stopped. After that was ensued was another 1 hour of annoyance where this woman created a major scene. People in the bus got down to have arguments with her (me included) and eventually cops came in. The cops took another half hour and eventually moved her aside so our bus could live. Of course it was not ironic that it was a white woman with kids so everyone tolerated her. A black woman on bus even quipped if she had been in her place the cops would’ve been there an hour earlier (and she was right!). Anyhow, after much drama, the bus that was suppose to have left at around 12-12.30 left at 2.15. We reached our hotel at 3am in the morning and got a decent amount of sleep in before flying out today morning. I was glad that the 24 hours were done and it left us just exhausted.

So that was the story of how our Taylor Swift concert actually came to be. How was the concert you may ask for reading all this till now?. It was simply amazing. I am in awe of the stamina and energy of this woman. Get this, this is a legit 3 and half hour concert - no other artist in world puts on a 3.30 hour concert. None. She sings nearly 45 songs without a break. 45! You will be lucky to hear an artist getting to 25 these days in concert. The entertainment was top notch, but goodness Taylor’s cult is something else. How do you explain a 45 song concert to people that the entire stadium dances and sings to? There was NOT a song that audience did not sing to. I knew Taylor mania was real, but this was just something else – this is Beatles level or Jackson level popularity right there. This was a night to remember and I am so so glad that R got to experience it finally! I would definitely love to do this concert again but given the exhaustion behind it all, I am not sure. That said, if anyone does get an opportunity to see Taylor live they should. She is in her absolute peak of her prowess and it is on display in full glory. What an absolute fucking legend Taylor Swift is! This concert was absolutely within the top 3 concerts we’ve done ever. I wish A could experience it, but oh well, I am the more swiftie one anyway.

And to add cherry on top. I immediately pinged the third party where I had picked the tickets from originally at a substantial cost. I told them at the end of the day, their tickets didnt work and Ticketmaster put us in different seats. I told them I was concerned about my money now going to an actual thief. The result? The third party refunded back our money and it turns out we ended up watching Taylor Swift concert for free! Talk about a fairy tale ending :)

So yeah, after months and months of unending drama, this is how our Taylor Swift concert came to be!