A father spent $21,000 on his daughter and her friends to attend the sold-out Taylor Swift concert this weekend – after saying their initial tickets never arrived.
Anthony Silva forked out the King’s ransom last week after tickets he bought in November for Swift’s Friday stoppage at Gillette Stadium still haven’t arrived in the post – leaving him to rush to another venue for make sure her adult daughter can still attend.
Compounding costs were the fact that the pop star’s show – part of his astronomically priced Era tour – was sold out, and the detail that Silva paid not only for his daughter Katlyn, 19, but also for his three friends. They were transported to the event by limousine.
In November, the doting dad said he was one of more than 14 million flocking to third-party sites to buy seats for Swift’s show, crashing one due to what Variety called at the time a “historically unprecedented demand”.
Fortunately, he was able to secure four seats – for the modest sum of $1,800. However, after six months he was left without tickets, he now insists the third-party seller forced his hand and must issue a refund.
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Anthony Silva forked out the King’s ransom last week after tickets he bought in November for Swift’s Friday stoppage at Gillette Stadium – leaving him to rush to another venue to ensure his adult daughter can still attend it.
Compounding the costs were the fact that the pop star’s show – part of his astronomically priced Era tour – sold out, and the detail that Silva paid not only for his daughter Katlyn, seen right, but also for the three friends of the 19-year-old girl. They were transported to the event by limousine.
“It’s just not right,” the Massachusetts dad told WCVB in a video interview outside his Foxborough home on Friday, as Katlyn and her companions excitedly prepared for the show.
Slamming the platform where he bought the first four tickets, Stubhub, he sniped: “In my opinion, they shouldn’t wait until the day before for the tickets to be sent out.”
Speaking to the outlet, Silva claimed that on the day the show was due to take place, he still did not have the initial four tickets.
He said that only the day before, when he contacted the company to ask where his tickets were, he was told that his purchase for the notoriously difficult-to-book event had failed, leaving him to ponder a last-ditch plan. minute.
Alternative tickets to the show, Stubhub reportedly said, were not an option.
“I came home slamming stuff, I was so angry, so disappointed because I had been looking forward to this for nine months,” Katlyn Friday recalled being hit with the reality that she could miss the Foxborough leg of Swift’s seventh tour – the singer’s first since she canceled one in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
In typical dad fashion, Silva said he used the revelation as an opportunity to prank his daughter — one in which he pretended to accept his fate without Swift and that of his friends.
“We played a joke on them telling them yesterday, telling them the tickets were really gone,” Silva recalled with a wry smile as Katlyn and her team got dressed for the limo’s arrival.
“And the look on their faces – I never want to see them again. One girl had her lip quivering,” he added. “It was tough. It was tough.
The girls got to see Swift for the Foxborough leg of Swift’s seventh tour which took place on Friday – part of the singer’s first tour since she canceled one in 2020 due to the pandemic
After that scare, Silva said he broke the good news that he was footing the bill for the four young women – leaving the band ecstatic as WCVB film crews recorded them getting ready.
The limo, also paid for by Silva as part of his now gargantuan Christmas present, then ferried the four to the scene, where they were among some 60,000 people in attendance.
Swift would go on to put on a rousing show — and Kaylyn and her friends were quick to show their appreciation.
“We had almost no tickets for an event we were looking forward to. [to] since Christmas,’ Alyssa Camara said, visibly grateful, as she and the other three enthusiastically put on their makeup and hair for the show.
“We haven’t stopped talking about the event since the day we found out.”
She recalled how Silva surprised them with the tickets – which were actually better than the ones he had bought in the beginning at Stubhub – “I was so excited. I was, like, freaked out.
As for Silva, he said despite “about $21,000,” it was worth seeing his daughter and her friends happy. He added that StubHub is supposed to refund his original purchase price of $1,800 within 10 days, but he’s still furious with how the seller handled the ordeal.
“I think it’s only for no reason for incompetence through the third party or through StubHub,” he said Friday as Katyln and her friends buzzed in the background.
Economists say the astronomical prices commanded by the tour – billed as a journey through the 33-year-old singer’s different ‘musical eras’ – were partly triggered by the pandemic, which gave fans a new appreciation for the concerts and live experiences
Stubhub’s alleged scheduling oversight comes amid a slew of scheduling conflicts for Swift’s hallowed Era’s Tour, which caused competitor Ticketmaster to crash in November.
The chaos of more than 14 million Swifties – when just 4 million had been anticipated by the website – has led to an out of control resale market that has seen concert passes sell for tens of thousands of dollars.
At the time, Stubhub was offering tickets to a show in Florida ranging from $500 to $42,000 each — while initial tickets, by comparison, initially cost between $73 and $666.
Some 320 fans then filed a lawsuit against the ticketing giant and its parent company, Live Nation, for “intentionally” charging “exorbitant fees” and selling the “tickets to resellers”.
The planned tour also recently made headlines thanks to an ozealous security guard who found himself at the center of the drama at Taylor Swift‘s concert in Philadelphia, prompting Swift to speak out and stop filming.
Economists say the popularity of the tour – billed as a journey through the 33-year-old singer’s different ‘musical eras’ – was partly sparked by the pandemic which gave fans a new appreciation for the gigs and experiences live.
When tickets first went on sale last November, economics professor Melissa Kearney of the University of Maryland said Bloomberg: “The pandemic in general has changed the way people think about what is really important to them and what brings them joy.”
Other outlets have reported the extreme length of time fans will go to save for a ticket.
In November, 27-year-old super fan Lindsey Morris said News Feed that she had a separate savings account dedicated to saving for Taylor Swift tickets.
