What does it mean if you were waitlisted for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour tickets?

Taylor Swift will return to the stage in North America in 2024 and fans are already virtually lining up to score tickets.

Ticketmaster asked fans to register online by Aug. 5 for the chance to purchase tickets at face value in the Eras Tour Verified Onsale. On Aug. 8, Swifties learned via email whether or not they were selected to participate in the sale, which begins Aug. 11.

Taylor Swift performs at Lumen Field on July 22, 2023 in Seattle. Mat Hayward/TAS23 / Getty Images for TAS Rights Management

In an email to those lucky enough to get the pre-sale code, Ticketmaster said they would be receiving that code via text message before the sale begins. But to a large amount of other hopeful buyers, they received an email saying they were on the waitlist for the Eras Tour Verified Onsale.

Here’s what it means to be on the Ticketmaster waitlist

On Friday, Aug. 8, those with a code to participate in the Eras Tour Verified Onsale will have a chance to purchase tickets in cities they pre-selected. Ticketmaster emphasized in their emails that having a code does not guarantee you will get a ticket, and that “due to the high demand, we expect all tickets to be purchased during the Verified Fan Onsale.”

However, if any tickets do remain after the initial sale is complete, Ticketmaster said it will begin notifying those on the waitlist that they can enter the sale for a chance to buy tickets.

TODAY.com reached out Ticketmaster for further comment on the waitlist but did not hear back by the time of this story’s publication.

What happened last time Ticketmaster held a sale for Taylor Swift tickets in the United States

Ticketmaster famously fumbled the initial ticket sales of Swift’s U.S. tour, with many waiting in a virtual queue for the early sale for hours, sometimes to end up with nothing.

In a post on Nov. 19, 2022, the company said that the initial Verified Fan pre-sale had been plagued by a “staggering number of bot attacks as well as fans who didn’t have codes.” The result was an “unprecedented” 3.5 billion total system requests, Ticketmaster reported — four times the company’s previous peak.

“We want to apologize to Taylor and all of her fans — especially those who had a terrible experience trying to purchase tickets,” the seller said in a statement at the time.

The company seems to be trying to prevent more subterfuge this time around, saying in the waitlisted email that the unique access codes cannot be purchased or transferred and will only work with the account to which it was assigned.

Fans have banded together since the first round of ticket sales to try to help other Swifties secure tickets and avoid the steep prices secondary market. (For context, tickets to Swift’s Aug. 9 show in Los Angeles are going for a minimum of $864 each for essentially behind the stage and as high as $3,386 for floor seats on StubHub, as of the evening of Aug. 8.)

A woman who founded the TS Fandom Fund, a Tumblr collective that seeks to address economic inequality among the Swift fandom, told the New York Times in March that those working to help other fans get tickets were fueled by altruistic enthusiasm.

“We want Taylor to look out and see people who actually know the words to these songs, and we want to be surrounded by the people who make up our community, not just randoms,” she told the newspaper.

Swift will wrap up the first U.S. leg of her tour this week in Los Angeles after performing a total of six sold-out shows at Sofi Stadium in Inglewood.

She then will head to Mexico to begin a set of international dates that will take her to South America, Asia, Australia and Europe through 2024 before she returns to North America.