Second round of train tickets to Taylor Swift concerts sell out in minutes

Taylor Swift fans flocked to the MBTA Commuter Rail’s mTicket app Friday morning in the hope of buying train tickets to the star’s upcoming concerts at Gillette Stadium, but only a lucky few were able to snag a ride.

MBTA Commuter Rail and Keolis announced Tuesday that they would release a second round of train ticket sales from Boston to Gillette Stadium to meet the high demand of Taylor Swift fans attending shows on May 20 and 21. The decision to add more trains came after thousands of Commuter Rail tickets to Swift’s concerts sold out on May 5.

Additional $20 round-trip train tickets for the special event train service went for sale at 11 a.m. Friday exclusively through the mTicket app. However, once 11 a.m. rolled around, a whopping 3,230 train tickets sold out in just eight minutes, according to a WCVB report. Of those, more than 2,000 sold within the first two minutes, with the Commuter Rail ticketing app reaching a peak of 20,000 requests per minute.

Later Friday, transit officials said no more tickets would be available.

“The concert trains will operate at maximum capacity. The total number of tickets possible have been sold,” officials tweeted on the MBTA Commuter Rail account. “We are pleased to be able to provide this service in partnership with Gillette and hope that everyone enjoys their concert experience.”

The news was met with frustration from Swift fans, including those who made numerous attempts to buy their train tickets promptly when they went on sale.

“Tried [to] buy @MBTA_CR tickets to Taylor Swift’s Sunday show and every time I’d go to process the payment there’d be an error. I tried every card I had over and over but within 8 minutes they were sold out. This is so incredibly frustrating. Swifties, what was your experience like?” tweeted 7 News anchor Juliana Mazza.

Commuter Rail officials apologized to disappointed fans on social media, saying the app worked as intended and that the checkout issues were due to how quickly tickets sold.

By Friday afternoon, several concertgoers were pleading with transit officials to run more trains to accommodate the thousands of people still seeking train tickets to the shows. 

“Add a other train if there were more than 20,000 requests? Clearly you could add three more sold out trains easily,” tweeted one person.

Swift’s concerts will run on May 19, 20, and 21 at Gillette Stadium. The shows will kick off at 6:30 p.m. and feature performances by Phoebe Briders, GAYLE and Gracie Abrams. Commuter Rail officials have not said whether they plan to add more special event trains to next weekend’s schedule.