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I joined the pre-sale for Taylor Swift's 'The Eras Tour' concerts in Singapore — here is my account of 'The Great War'

I joined the pre-sale for Taylor Swift's 'The Eras Tour' concerts in Singapore — here is my account of 'The Great War'

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You may know 'The Great War' as the title of one of the tracks from Taylor Swift's Midnights album, but it has also recently become known as the nickname of the fierce competition for tickets to the The Eras Tour.

Before tickets to the American singer-songwriter's six concerts in Singapore went on sale, I saw The Great War as nothing more than an exaggerated way of describing the process of securing them. "She's playing six nights at the Singapore National Stadium. I should be fine," I thought to myself.

Then came the news that 22 million people from across Southeast Asia had reportedly registered to purchase tickets to see Swift in Singapore, which will be her only stop in the region next March. The figure may have been unverified, but it was concerning to me nonetheless, and it was at this moment that my hopes of seeing Swift — whose music has been a part of my life for 15 years — began to waver. 

With cautious optimism, I prepared myself for war by registering for the general on-sale on 7 July and ensuring that I was armed with a United Overseas Bank (UOB) card for the UOB pre-sale on 5 July. Once those things were done, all that was left to do was rest before the battle that lay ahead. 

As Murphy's Law goes: "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong." The emotional rollercoaster that awaited me on the day of the UOB pre-sale was nothing that I (or any other Swiftie) was prepared for, and it was an experience that the famous adage perfectly sums up.

Before I could even set foot on the battlefield, I was hit with a huge setback in the form of an error that I encountered when I tried to log in to my Ticketmaster account at 11 AM SGT, an hour before the pre-sale window opened. I was greeted with a message that read: "Error: rate exceeded". The error persisted even after repeated attempts to sign in to my account, leading me to think that the outcome I had feared so much might actually become a reality.

Not knowing what to do, I decided to turn to Twitter to see how everyone else was faring. While it was somewhat comforting to know that I was not the only one experiencing the problem, seeing tweets from Swifties who had been struck down before The Great War could even begin made me wonder how many of us would end up surviving it.

After 40 minutes of trying and failing to sign in to my account, the thought of conceding defeat early crossed my mind. But before I could do that, I was taken to a page where I had to verify that I was not a bot before being transferred to the holding area. 

"Finally, a glimmer of hope," I said to myself.

As I observed the countdown timer at the bottom of the page, I was reminded of the tense duel scenes from famous Western films such as A Fistful of Dollars and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. I was fully aware that once I was taken to the seat selection page, the purchase would have to be made swiftly (pun intended) and that there would be no time for hesitation at all. 

At 12 PM, The Great War finally began, and even though I could not see them, I could sense scores of Swifties charging into the biggest battle of their lives. But before many of us could make much progress, we were stopped in our tracks by the long line to enter the page to purchase our tickets.  

The queue number that was issued to me, 304,245, was not what I wanted to see, but after remembering that there were poor souls who had queue numbers larger than 1,000,000 for Coldplay's Music of the Spheres shows in Singapore, I told myself to hold on to hope.

"Let's just wait and see what happens. There's still a chance," I said to myself.

Minutes began to feel like hours as I observed the progress meter, which featured a walking man that seemed to be frozen in place for the longest time. Despite this, I soldiered on and turned to memes about The Great War to distract myself from negative thoughts because humour based on one's pain is often the best kind of entertainment.

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