'Hello' Where Are My Adele Concert Tickets?

NEW YORK (CelebrityAccess) – Fifty-Six dates and over three quarters of a million seats and who knows how many frustrated Adele fans left without a ticket. Adele's North American tour sold out completely in hours. Most fans without seats turned to vent their wrath on social media and focused their anger towards Ticketmaster. Fans blamed the site for not being able to handle the volume and the site slowing or even crashing. To give some context to the extent, a source told Billboard that four million people in New York alone were in the digital line at the same time and those six shows at Madison Square Garden sold out in less than an hour according to Billboard.

Ticketmaster was berated through exasperated Adele fans. Unhappy fans took to social media blaming a slow Ticketmaster and even accusing the site of crashing. Jared Smith, Ticketmaster’s North American president, took a morale boosting approach towards the Ticketmaster staff after the event.

Team,

I know it must be frustrating to read or see in the news that we crashed during Adele’s onsale and that fans are upset with Tm because they couldn’t get tickets. I want you all to know that [Live Nation CEO] Michael [Rapino] and I, and more importantly our partners, know just how well the systems (and you all) performed yesterday. Thanks to your efforts — even with what I’m told was easily an all-time record of 10 million + fans rushing to our site — we delivered a good experience for as many fans as possible.

Unfortunately, when there is such a exceptional artist with unprecedented demand against short supply, there are inevitably going to be disappointed fans. As you know, artists are the center of Live Nation and we work side by side with them to meet their goals. In this case, we worked with Adele’s team to help achieve their goal of having a consistent set-up across all the different ticketing companies that were selling dates on her North American tour. Although that has clearly created confusion with fans and ultimately the media on what happened on which sites, we wanted to make sure you know just how much we appreciate your incredible preparation and that we are pleased with how we did.

As we reflect on another amazing year, please know that your progress in the area of site stability and abuse prevention are making an indelible mark on our company’s position as the global leader in live entertainment. I am appreciative and proud of your efforts.

Thanks as always for your dedication to our partners and fans!

Jared