Taylor Swift Ticketmaster: Fans fume as thousands unable to access virtual queue for tour

Fans hoping to secure tickets for Taylor Swift's next US concert tour have hit out at Tickmaster after many were unable to even join a virtual queue as site issues plagued the sale of tickets.

Ticketmaster has said the problems are down to "historically unprecedented demand" for the singer, with thousands attempting to gain access to her US tour following the success of her latest album, Midnights, which topped charts around the world.

The company said that the pre-sale system is intended to help prevent ticket touts, scalpers and bots from securing seats had been effective, but were hit with a number of glitches as fans attempted to get tickets.

The ticket selling site has become something of a hot potato in US politics after it purchased Live Nation in 2010, with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez this week tweeting: “Daily reminder that Ticketmaster is a monopoly, it’s merger with LiveNation should never have been approved, and they need to be reigned in. Break them up.”

David Cicilline, who oversees the House committee on competition and anti-trust also took to social media writing: “"Ticketmaster's excessive wait times and fees are completely unacceptable, as seen with today's @taylorswift13 tickets, and are a symptom of a larger problem. It's no secret that Live Nation-Ticketmaster is an unchecked monopoly."

Many artists have in the past hit out at the ticket selling site, with Pearl Jam criticising the service fees and refusing to use the site as part of their tour. The Foo Fighters also demanded that their tickets could not be resold above face value on Ticketmaster in the past.

Swift, who has added 25 shows to her tour in response to the huge demand and has sometimes picked fights with corporate behemoths, has not commented on the matter, but she faced criticism for her work with Ticketmaster before, after she employed their “dynamic pricing” model which saw ticket prices fluctuating based on demand, but this is enforced by the artists, with Ticketmaster confirming “The promoters and artist representatives determine the specific pricing for their shows. When there are far more people who want to attend an event than there are tickets available, prices go up."