EXCLUSIVE: Mother who paid £1320 says her view was blocked

A furious mother has slammed ticketing companies after forking out £1,320 for two tickets to see Taylor Swift with her 15-year-old daughter, only for her view to be obstructed by a VIP tent and portaloo. 

Katrina Hutchinson O’Neill, from Brechin, Scotland, travelled two and a half hours to Edinburgh to see the pop megastar open the UK leg of her record-breaking Eras Tour on Friday.

She took her daughter Addison, 15, to the show, for which she paid £662 per ticket after opting for the It’s Been A Long Time Coming Package. The tickets, which were billed as part of the VIP-style package, was set to include a merchandise bundle and promised an ‘unforgettable seat’.

But on arrival at the 73,000-capacity Murrayfield Stadium Katrina discovered her seat was blocked by the ‘V-VIP’ tent – where celebrities and guests of the artist stand during the show.

Speaking to FEMAIL, Katrina explained: ‘I took the whole day off, my daughter had permission to have the day off school.

‘We left the house at 8am and drove two and half hours south to Edinburgh’.

‘Addison was so excited. She loves live music and I love going with her. I’m getting to relive my youth.

‘But it was super disappointing. We had the shine taken off it.

‘I wouldn’t be upset if I’d paid for an obstructed view, but I paid a lot.’

Katrina added that she was put on the waitlist but didn’t manage to get tickets initially, so her friend brought the expensive package for her.

When her friend purchased the super-pricey tickets, she also picked up two more tickets for just £57 each; which, while cheaper, came with a warning that there was an obstructed view.

However, according to the furious mother, the people who took the obstructed view tickets ‘had a better view than us’. 

When Katrina arrived at the stadium she quickly realised her seats did not have a clear view of the stage.

Other people with seats near her complained to stewards who were moved – but the other seats were also obstructed.   

‘I didn’t want to make a fuss in front of Addison and I was pretending it wasn’t an issue.

‘But we asked around and other people paid £180 for seats in our section.’

Those with the It’s Been A Long Time Coming Package were offered a reserved seated ticket, four prints, a tote bag, a pin, stick and postcard set as well as a souvenir ticket and lanyard.

But as the seats in the same section were offered without a VIP package for £180, Katrina was effectively paying £482 for a few pieces of merchandise.     

‘I didn’t want to make a fuss in front of Addison, so I pretended there was no issue,’ she said.

‘There were a lot of parents and kids, a lot of young people, a lot of teenagers in our section.

‘Hundreds of people paid a fortune and were excited and it ruined and two V-VIP tents housing 6-8 people who didn’t pay anything to go.

‘The cast of Outlander were in one on night. Our view was looking at private portaloo for guests.

‘The young kids in that section were going out into standing, but we couldn’t go into standing because our kids were too young.’.

Since getting back,  Katrina and others have contacted both Ticketmaster and AXS – who sold the tickets.

However, AXS told her that they it’s up to the buyer ‘to be beware’.

‘I’m not sure if Trading Standards would agree,’ Katrina added.

AXS and Ticketmaster have been contacted for comment.

It comes as Swifites took to social media to complain of the same issue.

While the show has been given five-star reviews across the board, some fans say they could hardly see the star, despite forking out for the most expensive tickets.

Taking to TikTok, many have said the seats were ‘behind a tent’ or ‘to the side’ meaning they struggled to see the Anti-Hero singer. 

One attendee said they complained about their seats – only to be moved to another restricted seat. 

Another complained they’re seat was ‘behind a pillar’ and he could ‘barely see Taylor’. 

A third added they paid £680 for a ‘lovely view of a tent’.

Holly Evans, 29,  took to TikTok to say is was a ‘great show’ but she couldn’t ‘see Taylor’.

She shared a video showing her seat behind the crowd and block by by barriers and tents.

Sinead Fitz said she was ‘scammed’ by Ticketmaster and given an obstructed view twice.

Taking to TikTok she said there was a ‘lot of back and forth’ with Murrayfield stadium, who said they would be moved in their seat was an obstructed view.

She added that she contacted TicketMaster in March over concerns her view may be obstructed, she said after she arrived she spoke to a member of staff who then moved her to another obstructed seat.

Another guest, called Michael, who splashed out on the It’s A Long Time Coming package, said he was ‘looking straight at a pillar’ which was blocking the stage.

‘I had an amazing time, but I could barely see Taylor,’ he explained, adding he could ‘just about see he torso’.

‘VIP seats, restricted view, how does that make sense? Can you please explain?’

‘I’ve spent a lot of money for a restricted view’.

FEMAIL have contacted Ticketmaster for comment.  

Last year, when the tickets first went on sale, Ticketmaster came under fire after early bird fans paid up to £662 for pricey VIP tickets, which come with exclusive merchandise alongside one of the best seats in the house.

But some of these same seats have now appeared without the VIP extras, and have been listed for the face value price of around £184.

Fans hoping to secure tickets revealed they were shocked by the price drop, which appears to be random, with some VIP packages still remaining on the site.

Some fans have revealed they have now bagged tickets for just 27 per cent of the original price, while others have been left fuming and saying they effectively paid nearly £500 for ‘a few posters’.

 

 

Ticketmaster has come under fire for repeatedly changing policies ahead of the highly-anticipated tour.

In the US, Swift herself said she was ‘p***** off’ at the website after bots bought up the majority of tickets.

In the UK, Cardiff MP Kevin Brennan said that he was ‘appalled’ to see tickets being advertised on reselling sites within an hour of them going on sale.

‘As a father of a Swiftie, and I know that my honourable friend, the deputy shadow leader of the house, is also the mother of a Swiftie, I was appalled to see that within an hour of tickets going on sale for the Taylor Swift Concert at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff, a ticket was on sale in the lower tier for £3,352,’ he said during business questions in the commons.

Fans have been left fuming at the changes, as at the time of the pre-sale Ticketmaster did not list the tour as a ‘lead booker’ event.

Tickets to Taylor’s UK shows appeared on platforms like Stubhub and viagogo within minutes of the general sale release, with one lower bowl seat to Blank Space singer’s concert at Wembley Stadium in London next year listed for more than £9,800.

Fans, pointed out how tickets with a face value of £170 were being sold for nearly £3,000, slammed the scalpers and so-called ‘vile’ fans for buying additional tickets and ‘selling them on for profit’.

The American megastar dazzled fans for three nights in Scotland this weekend – with each show consisting of 46 songs performed for more than three hours.

Swifties camped outside of Murrayfield stadium to secure the best spot in the venue and broke stadium attendance records – with around 73,000 attending each show.

The pop star made sure to begin her first night in Scotland for nearly ten years with an announcement thanking fans for breaking a stadium attendance record.

Swift went on to describe it as ‘the wildest way to welcome a lass’ – making sure to add a Scottish reference which brought out a cheer from the packed stadium. 

A video posted on TikTok shows Swift addressing the crowd, she said: ‘I have not gotten to be in Scotland for almost a decade now. 

‘The last time I was here was almost ten years ago and I was wondering what’s it going to be like when we go back to visit them?

‘How are they going to be as a crowd, and you know what, you kinda answered me before I even got on stage because I had someone pull me aside and say hey, we’ve checked this 20 times and we swear it’s accurate.

‘Tonight’s concert is the most highly attended stadium show in Scottish history.’

She added: ‘Thank you Edinburgh, that’s absolutely the wildest way to welcome a lass to your city, I cannot believe it.’

The megastar went on to break the record again on her final night in Edinburgh.

Last night she exclaimed to the cheering crowd: ‘I thought there’s no way they could possibly fit more people in the stadium and yet, they told me tonight that this show has broken the record.’

Perhaps the most special moment of the first night came when the pop icon witnessed a live proposal in the audience. 

Footage posted online shows the two women hugging and kissing each other with beaming smiles after the proposal while Swift performs her song ‘Cardigan’.

After finishing the song, Swift says to the audience: ‘I love performing this entire show in the sunlight, because I’m pretty sure I just, like, saw somebody getting engaged over here,’ as the crowd cheered.

She then asked the couple, ‘Did it happen?’ and said, ‘Yes!’ as she balled her fists in the air in excitement after it was apparently confirmed that the proposal had indeed taken place.

‘You have no idea, I never get to see that, right? Because it’s, like, dark usually at night,’ she explained to the crowd.

‘But it’s not right now so congratulations. Wow, I just saw that whole thing! Uh, man, that’s amazing. Thanks for doing that at my concert, that’s a big moment — huge!’

The music from Swift’s first night reached much further than Murrayfield stadium.

Someone posted a video online and the sound of ‘who’s afraid of little old me’ being sang by thousands of Swifties can be heard in the background.

It was captioned with, ‘Who’s afraid of little old me from literally miles away… I’m speechless. Taylor is taking over Edinburgh’.

Other people could also hear the roaring fans, with one commenting, ‘I’m about 2 kilometres away from the stadium, I can hear it all perfectly. The crowd is INSANE.’