When Taylor Swift announced what will be her first tour in five years, demand for tickets was always going to be high.
But following reports of service failures and delays on the Ticketmaster website, the general sale was called off.
Ticketmaster handled ticket sales for most of the shows on Swift‘s 20-city, 52-date US leg of the tour, although SeatGeek sold tickets for a few performances in Texas and Arizona.
Many fans have been left disappointed. But this is more than just a tale of frustrated Swifties – now the US Senate is involved.
Here’s a look at what happened.
The release of Midnights
Back in August, Swift revealed details of a new album, titled Midnights, telling the stories of “13 sleepless nights” from throughout her life.
The album, her tenth, was released on 21 October and immediately broke streaming records, with Spotify announcing it had become the most-streamed album in a single day – after users reported a huge spike in outages apparently caused by the surge in demand.
Following its release, Swift, 32, became the first artist to claim all top 10 slots in the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, and the album and its lead single Anti-Hero also charted at number one in the UK.
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Midnights followed Folklore and Evermore, Swift’s forays into indie and folk which came out just five months apart in 2020 as the world was in various states of lockdown during the pandemic.
Having not toured since 2018, it seemed inevitable an announcement was coming…
The Eras Tour arrives in 2023
Swift announced The Eras Tour on 1 November, telling fans it would be “a journey through the musical eras of my career (past & present!)”.
Dates for the US leg of the tour were announced, kicking off on 18 March 2023 in Glendale, Arizona, with international shows set to follow, the star said.
Swift also confirmed she will be joined by a number of artists during the tour, including bands Paramore and Haim, and solo artists Phoebe Bridgers and Gracie Abrams.
She also shared a verification link for a presale, which meant fans had to register first to be able to buy tickets.
‘Extraordinarily high demands’
On Thursday 17 November, the day before general tickets were due to be made available, Ticketmaster cancelled the sale – citing “insufficient ticket inventory” to meet “extraordinarily high demands”.
It came after the presale two days earlier caused the site to crash, leaving many fans frustrated and unable to get tickets.
The ticket company had previously asked fans on Twitter to be patient as “millions” tried to buy tickets in the presale, causing “historically unprecedented demand”.
Swift’s fans, known as Swifties, criticised the firm on social media after encountering long wait times and site outages during the presales. Some reported waiting in online queues for up to eight hours, with many finding they were too late to purchase tickets, which cost between $49 (£41) and $449 (£377) each.
‘Staggering number of bot attacks’
In a statement, Ticketmaster said it had anticipated heavy demand for tickets, but it was clearly even greater than they had predicted.
A record 3.5 million people registered as verified fans, the company said.
The plan was to invite 1.5 million of those to participate in the sale for all 52 show dates, including the 47 sold by Ticketmaster, with the other 2 million placed on a waiting list.
But this plan, Ticketmaster said, was undermined by attacks by “bots” – automated software requests – as well as demand from those who had not registered beforehand.
“The staggering number of bot attacks as well as fans who didn’t have invite codes drove unprecedented traffic on our site, resulting in 3.5 billion total system requests – 4x our previous peak,” Ticketmaster said.
“Never before has a Verified Fan on sale sparked so much attention – or uninvited volume.”
What did Swift say?
Image: Pic: Evan Agostini/Invision/AP
Following the debacle,Swift criticised Ticketmaster, saying she and her team had been assured they could handle the expected surge in demand.
“It’s really difficult for me to trust an outside entity with these relationships and loyalties, and excruciating for me to just watch mistakes happen with no recourse,” she wrote in a statement on Instagram.
“There are a multitude of reasons why people had such a hard time trying to get tickets and I’m trying to figure out how this situation can be improved moving forward.
“I’m not going to make excuses for anyone because we asked them, multiple times, if they could handle this kind of demand and we were assured they could.”
The star said that 2.4 million fans had been able to purchase tickets, which was “truly amazing… but it really p***** me off that a lot of them feel like they went through several bear attacks to get them”.
To those who missed out, she said she hoped to put on more shows.
Why is the US Senate involved?
Image: Senators Amy Klobuchar and Mike Lee. Pic: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/AP
Ticketmaster, which overwhelmingly dominates the ticketing industry, has for years left fans and artists frustrated by hidden fees, rising costs, and limited tickets availability due to presales.
And when these sorts of problems affect Swift, arguably the biggest pop star in the world, it attracts global attention. Which means US politicians are now looking into Ticketmaster’s dominance in the industry.
Senators Amy Klobuchar and Mike Lee – chairwoman and ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on competition policy, antitrust, and consumer rights, respectively – have announced plans for a hearing.
“The competition problem in ticketing markets was made painfully obvious when Ticketmaster’s website failed hundreds of thousands of fans hoping to purchase concert tickets,” Ms Klobuchar said.
“The high fees, site disruptions and cancellations that customers experienced shows how Ticketmaster’s dominant market position means the company does not face any pressure to continually innovate and improve…
“When there is no competition to incentivise better services and fair prices, we all suffer the consequences.”
The issue goes “way beyond Taylor Swift”, she later added on Twitter.
The hearing date and witnesses will be announced at a later date.
What does Ticketmaster say?
The company has posted a lengthy explainer on its Ticketmaster Business website, saying it was aware that a record number of fans would want to buy tickets for Swift’s shows.
“First, we want to apologise to Taylor and all of her fans – especially those who had a terrible experience trying to purchase tickets,” it said. “Next, we feel we owe it to everyone to share some information to help explain what happened.”
The company went on to say the verified fan registration was designed to help manage high demand – “identifying real humans and weeding out bots”.
However, the demand broke records, with 3.5 million system requests, it said – four times its previous peak. This unprecedented traffic “disrupted the predictability and reliability” of the verified fan registration.
‘Swift would need to perform a stadium show every night for 2.5 years to meet demand’
Ticketmaster said that despite the problems, some 2.4 million tickets have been sold – with two million on Ticketmaster making it the most tickets ever sold for an artist in a single day.
It also said that less than 5% of the tickets for the tour “have been sold or posted for resale on the secondary market”, while sales without the verification process “typically see 20-30% of inventory end up on secondary markets”.
The company is now working “to shore up our tech for the new bar that has been set by demand” for Swift’s tour.
It also said that even when online sales go “flawlessly from a tech perspective”, there are often fans who are left disappointed when they miss out.
“For example: based on the volume of traffic to our site, Taylor would need to perform over 900 stadium shows (almost 20x the number of shows she is doing)… that’s a stadium show every single night for the next 2.5 years.
“While it’s impossible for everyone to get tickets to these shows, we know we can do more to improve the experience and that’s what we’re focused on.”
Swifties in the UK and other countries outside the US are still waiting for details of international dates – and hoping their ticket-buying process will be a little smoother.
In October 2016, Kim Kardashian was robbed at gunpoint – with jewellery worth millions of dollars stolen during the audacious heist in Paris.
It was the biggest robbery of an individual in France for more than 20 years – and made front pages around the world.
Now, almost a decade on, the case is finally coming to court.
Why has it taken so long? Will Kardashian give evidence? And who exactly are the “grandpa robbers” facing trial?
Here’s everything you need to know.
Image: Kardashian at the Siran Presentation on the day of the robbery. Pic: Rex Features
What happened?
Two years after Kardashian and rapper Kanye West tied the knot in an ostentatious week-long celebration spanning Paris and Florence, the Kardashian-West clan were back in the French capital for Paris Fashion Week.
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Her then husband had returned to the US to pick up his Saint Pablo tour – but Kardashian, along with her sister Kourtney and various members of their entourage, remained in Paris, staying in an exclusive set of apartments so discreet they’ve been dubbed the No Address Hotel.
Nestled on Tronchet Street, just a stone’s throw from Place de l’Opéra, and close to the fashionable Avenue Montaigne, the Hotel de Pourtalès is popular with A-list stars staying in the French capital.
A stay in the Sky Penthouse, the suite occupied by Kardashian, will currently set you back about £13,000 a night.
Image: Kardashian was staying at the Hotel de Pourtales
On the evening of 3 October, after attending a fashion show with her sister, Kardashian remained in the apartment alone while the rest of her convoy – including her bodyguard Pascal Duvier – went out for the night.
At about 2.30am, three armed men wearing ski masks and dressed as police forced their way into the apartment block – and according to investigators, they threatened the concierge at gunpoint.
Two of them are alleged to have forced the concierge to lead them to Kardashian’s suite. He later told police they yelled at him: “Where’s the rapper’s wife?”
Kardashian said she had been “dozing” on her bed when the men then entered her room.
She has said she believes her social media posts provided the alleged robbers with “a window of opportunity”.
“I was Snapchatting that I was home, and that everyone was going out,” she said in the months after the incident.
The Keeping Up With The Kardashians star vividly described the attack in a police report, as reported in the French weekly paper Le Journal du Dimanche.
“They grabbed me and took me into the hallway. They tied me up with plastic cables and taped my hands, then they put tape over my mouth and my legs.”
She said they pointed a gun at her, asking specifically for her ring and also for money.
Image: Police guard the entrance to the Hotel de Pourtalès the day after the robbery
Kardashian says they carried her into the bathroom and put her in the bathtub. She said she was wearing only a bathrobe at the time.
She had initially thought the robbers “were terrorists who had come to kidnap me”, according to a French police report taken in New York three months after the robbery.
Kardashian told officers: “I thought I was going to die.”
According to police, the robbers – who left the room after grabbing their haul, escaped on bicycles with items estimated to be worth about $10m (£7.5m), including a $4m (£3m) 18.88-carat diamond engagement ring from West.
After they had left, Kardashian said she escaped her restraints and went to find help. After speaking to detectives, she immediately returned to the US on a private jet and later hired a completely new security team.
Image: Kardashian shows off her $4m ring on Instagram
What was stolen?
As well as her engagement ring, Kardashian said the thieves took her large Louis Vuitton jewellery box, which she said contained “everything I owned”.
In police reports given to the French authorities at about 4.30am on the night of the alleged robbery, Kardashian listed these items as having been stolen:
• Two diamond Cartier bracelets • A gold and diamond Jacob necklace • Diamond earrings by Lauren Schwartz • Yanina earrings • Three gold Jacob necklaces • Little bracelets, jewels and rings • A Lauren Schwartz diamond necklace • A necklace with six little diamonds • A necklace with Saint spelt out in diamonds • A cross-shaped diamond-encrusted Jacob cross • A yellow gold Rolex watch • Two yellow gold rings • An iPhone 6 and a BlackBerry
Police recovered only the diamond-encrusted cross that was dropped by the robbers while leaving.
It’s likely the gold in the haul was melted down and resold, while the diamond engagement ring that is now so associated with the robbery would be far too recognisable to sell on the open market.
Image: Kardashian at the Siran Presentation on the day of the robbery. Pic: Rex Features
What will happen in court?
The hearing will begin at the Court of Appeal of Paris – the largest appeals court in France – on 28 April and is scheduled to last a month.
It will consist of a presiding judge, two professional assessors, and six main jurors.
The hearing involves more than 2,000 documents and there are four civil parties.
Image: Kardashian at the Balenciaga show on the day of the robbery. Pic: Rex Features
Who is being tried?
There were initially 12 defendants in the case, but one person has died and another has a medical condition that prevents their involvement. This means 10 people – nine men and one woman – are standing trial.
Five of them, who were all aged between 60 and 72 at the time of the incident, face armed robbery and kidnapping charges. They are:
• Yunice Abbas • Aomar Ait Khedache • Harminv Ait Khedache • Didier Dubreucq • Marc-Alexandre Boyer
Abbas, 72, has admitted his participation in the robbery. In 2021, he published a book about the robbery, titled I Kidnapped Kim Kardashian. In 2021, a court ruled he would not benefit financially from the book.
Aomar Ait Khedache, 69, known to French crime reporters as “Old Omar”, has also admitted participating in the heist but denies the prosecution’s accusation that he was the ringleader.
The remaining five defendants are charged with complicity in the heist or the unauthorised possession of a weapon. They are:
• Florus Heroui • Gary Mader • Christiane Glotin • François Delaporte • Marc Boyer
Among those, Mader was a VIP greeter who worked for the car company Kardashian used in Paris, and Heroui was a bar manager who allegedly passed on information about Kardashian’s movements.
With many of the accused now ageing and with various serious health conditions, and some having spent time in jail following their arrest, all are currently free under judicial supervision.
If found guilty, those accused of the more serious crimes could face 10 years to life imprisonment.
Image: Kardashian at the Off-White show three days before the robbery. Pic: Rex Features
Will Kardashian give evidence?
Yes.
Lawyer Michael Rhodes said Kardashian has “tremendous appreciation and admiration for the French judicial system” and “wishes for the trial to proceed in an orderly fashion in accordance with French law and with respect for all parties to the case”.
A trainee lawyer herself, Kardashian has become a high-profile criminal justice advocate in the US in recent years.
Image: (R-L) Kanye West, Kim Kardashian, Kourtney Kardashian, Kris Jenner in the front row three days before the robbery. Pic: Rex Features
Why has it taken so long to come to court?
There was initially a manhunt after the robbery, with French police under pressure to prove that Paris’s security was not in question.
Just the year before in 2015, the capital had been shaken by terrorist attacks by Islamic militants, in which 130 people were killed, including 90 at a music event at the Bataclan theatre.
French police initially arrested 17 people in the Kardashian case in January 2017 – three months after the robbery – assisted by DNA traces found on plastic bands used to tie her wrists. Twelve people were later charged.
It was ordered to be sent to trial in 2021 – at a time when limited court proceedings were happening due to multiple COVID lockdowns, and France was holding its largest ever criminal trial over the November 2015 terror attacks.
Image: Kardashian at the Givenchy show on the day of the robbery. Pic: Rex Features
What has Kardashian said about the incident?
Kardashian has described the robbery as a “life-changing” moment. She took three weeks away from filming her reality TV show Keeping Up With the Kardashians, and took a three-month break from social media.
In a March 2017 episode titled Paris, Kardashian first spoke publicly about her ordeal.
She described first hearing a noise in her apartment, and calling out, thinking it was her sister and assistant: “At that moment when there wasn’t an answer, my heart started to get really tense. Like, you know, your stomach just kind of like, knots up and you’re like, ‘OK, what’s going on?’ I knew something wasn’t quite right.”
She went on: “They asked for money. I said, ‘I don’t have any money’. They dragged me out to the hallway on top of the stairs. That’s when I saw the gun, clear as day. I was looking at the gun, looking down back at the stairs. I was like, I have a split second in my mind to make this quick decision.
“Either they’re going to shoot me in the back or if I make it [down the stairs] and the elevator does not open in time or the stairs are locked, there’s no way out.”
Three months later, she told a Forbes Power Women’s Summit she had changed her approach to posting on social media: “They had followed my moves on social media, and they knew my every move and what I had.”
She added: “It was definitely a huge, huge, huge lesson for me to not show off some of the things that I have. It was a huge lesson to me to not show off where I go.
“It’s just changed my whole life, but I think for the better.”
Image: West and Kardashian at the Off-White show three days before the robbery. Pic: Rex Features
In October 2020, Kardashian told US interviewer David Letterman she feared she would be raped and murdered during the heist, and that her sister had been at the forefront of her mind during the incident.
Speaking on My Next Guest Needs No Introduction, Kardashian said: “I kept on thinking about Kourtney, I kept on thinking she’s going to come home and I’m going to be dead in the room and she’s going to be traumatised for the rest of her life if she sees me… I thought that was my fate.”
When speaking to French police about the impact the robbery had had on her three months after it, Kardashian said: “I think that my perception of jewellery now is that I am not as attached to it as I used to be. I don’t have the same feeling about it. In fact, I even think that it has become a bit of a burden to have the responsibility of such expensive jewels.
“There is nothing of sentimental value to compare with the act of going home and finding one’s children and one’s family.”
She went on to describe Paris as “not the right place” for her, and didn’t return to the French capital for two years following the robbery.
Kardashian has since said in a 2023 episode of Keeping Up With The Kardashians that she did not purchase any jewellery in the seven years following the robbery, kept no jewellery at her home and only wore items that are either borrowed or fake.
She said the realisation that material items don’t matter has made her “a completely different person in the best way”.
She told Sky News how returning feels like the society has “made good on something that was wrong”.
Image: Sophie Lloyd, who tricked the Magic Circle into believing she was a man
How did she infiltrate that exclusive group that nowadays counts the likes of David Copperfield and Dynamo as members?
In March of that year, she took her entry exam posing as a teenage boy, creating an alter-ego called Raymond Lloyd.
“I’d played a boy before,” she explained, but “it took months of preparation” to secretly infiltrate the Circle’s ranks half a year before it would officially vote to let women in.
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“Really, going back 30 years, men’s clubs were like, you know, just something you accepted.”
The men-only rule had been in place since the Circle was formed in 1905. The thinking behind it being that women just couldn’t keep secrets.
Aware of the frustration of female magicians at the time, Lloyd felt she was up for the challenge of proving women could be as good at magic as the men.
The idea was, in fact, born out of a double act, thought up by a successful magician called Jenny Winstanley who’d wanted to join herself but wasn’t allowed.
She recognised the hoax would probably only work with a much younger woman posing as a teenage boy, and met Lloyd through an acting class.
Image: Sophie Lloyd as teenage magician Raymond Lloyd. Pic: Sophie Lloyd
Lloyd said: “We had to have a wig made… the main thing was my face, I had plumpers made on a brace to bring his jawline down.”
To hide her feminine hands, she did the magic in gloves, which she says “was so hard to do, especially sleight of hand.”
The biggest test came when she was invited for a drink with her examiner, where she had to fake having laryngitis.
“After the exam, which was 20 minutes, he invited Jenny and I – she played my manager – and I sat there for one hour and three quarters and had to say ‘sorry, I’ve got a bad voice’.”
Raymond Lloyd passed the test, and his membership certificate was sent through to Sophie.
Then, in October of the same year, when whispers started circulating that the society was going to open its membership to both sexes, she and Jenny decided to reveal all. It didn’t go down well.
Rather than praise her performance, members were incandescent about the deception and, somewhat ironically, Raymond Lloyd was kicked out just before women members were let in.
Lloyd said: “We got a letter… Jenny was hurt… she was snubbed by people she actually knew, that was hurtful. However, things have really changed now…”
Three decades later the Magic Circle put out a nationwide appeal stating they wanted to apologise and Lloyd was recently tracked down in Spain.
While Jenny Winstanley died 20 years ago in a car crash, as well as Sophie receiving her certificate on Thursday, her mentor’s contribution to magic is being recognised at the special show that’s being held in both their honour at the Magic Circle.
Lloyd says: “Jenny was a wonderful, passionate person. She would have loved to be here. It’s for her really.”
Counter terror police are assessing a video reported to be from a concert by Irish rappers Kneecap.
A social media clip of the hip hop trio on stage appeared to show one member of the group shout “up Hamas, up Hezbollah”.
The footage was posted online by Danny Morris from the Jewish security charity, the Community Security Trust.
He said it was from a gig last November at London’s Kentish Town Forum.
A Metropolitan Police spokesperson said: “We have been made aware of the video and it has been referred to the counter terrorism internet referral unit for assessment and to determine whether any further police investigation may be required.”
Hamas and Hezbollah are both proscribed as terrorist groups in the UK. Under Section 12 of the Terrorism Act 2000, it is an offence to express “an opinion or belief that is supportive of a proscribed organisation”.
Sky News has contacted Kneecap’s management for comment.
It comes after TV personality Sharon Osbourne called for Kneecap’s US work visas to be revoked after accusing them of making “aggressive political statements” including “projections of anti-Israel messages and hate speech” at Coachella Music and Arts Festival.