International superstar Taylor Swift is set to visit Empower Field at Mile High in Denver July 14 and 15. This is Swift’s first tour in five years — since the 2018 smash-hit Reputation Stadium Tour, which saw Denver that May. Swift has made stops in Denver for all of her tours: for “Fearless” in 2010, “Speak Now” in 2011, “Red” in 2013, “1989” in 2015 and “Reputation” in 2018.

Swift’s tours didn’t reach Mile High until 2018, previously being played at Ball Arena for one night only. However, she has always drawn a crowd with her rousing performances in Denver, and when the Eras Tour was announced in November 2022, demand was high nationwide. Originally scheduled for only July 15, the July 14 show was added to meet abundant presale requests.

Demand for Swift’s tour was so great it caused an international slew of headlines and heartbreaks. The process on nationwide events ticketing platform Ticketmaster required interested concertgoers to register as a Verified Fan, a process they claimed would help safeguard against scalpers and bots trying to get tickets. If Swifties were selected as a Verified Fan, they received an email with a presale code to permit them to access tickets the next day during the Nov. 15 sale.

What sounded like a straightforward plan quickly turned into a nightmare when reports started flooding social media from the staggered presale across the country of website crashes, hourslong queues and waiting rooms and Ticketmaster even needing to pause the sales to meet demand. When the presale time came for the Denver shows, things were not any easier.

“It was actual hell,” said Max Allsop, a Colorado State University student attending both nights of the Eras Tour’s stint in Denver.

“Everything happened so fast,” Allsop said, recalling Ticketmaster queues of more than 2,000 other people, even with being selected for presale. “I had class at Clark and literally walked out with my computer open in my hands. I finally got in after the class, and when I tried to select tickets, the tickets kept disappearing and reappearing and saying they were sold out when they weren’t.”

Allsop has been a fan of Swift for five years and held tickets to Swift’s Lover Fest, her 2020 planned concert that got canceled due to COVID-19. Ticket holders for Lover Fest were supposed to receive priority to get Eras tickets, but for many, including Allsop, that was not the case.

Capitol One cardholders were given the opportunity to get presale codes for a separate sale Nov. 16, which is how Allsop ended up getting tickets through a friend’s mother for Denver night one. Allsop’s friends managed to get nosebleeds for the April 22 Houston show, and in a second-chance ticket sale for verified fans who weren’t able to get tickets during the initial ticket drop, Allsop managed to get tickets to night two in Denver as well.

“For my experience, it was lots of luck and good timing, but I know that wasn’t the case for everyone, and it breaks my heart that my fellow Swiftie friends weren’t able to get tickets for their shows,” Allsop said.

CSU student Ashley Jones-Sykes also managed to get tickets through the Capitol One presale after the general presale did not yield tickets for her.

“My lovely mother surprised me with tickets for Christmas after I was unable to get them on release day,” Jones-Sykes said. “She waited in the presale Capitol One line for hours while she was at work.”

Some fans were wait-listed for presale codes, including CSU graduate student Natalia Sperry, who had participated in the Verified Fan program for the “Reputation” tour in 2018 but wasn’t even given access to tickets for the Eras Tour.

“Luckily, my partner ended up being able to get tickets for Denver, and my mom surprised me with tickets to Las Vegas,” Sperry said. “If it wasn’t for their help, I wouldn’t have been able to go at all. I want to acknowledge the massive privilege of being able to go at all — let alone twice. I still can’t believe this is happening. It’s a dream come true.”

Sperry had never been to Las Vegas before the Eras Tour. Her mother had registered for presale in Las Vegas as a backup given geographical proximity, and through the luck of the draw, was selected for the Las Vegas presale.

“I had never been to Las Vegas, so it was really special to have the opportunity to explore a new city with my mom,” Sperry said. “Plus tourists and locals were coming from all over dressed up in Taylor Swift-themed costumes, and just about everywhere you went up and down the Vegas Strip, they were playing her entire catalogue. It was kind of a Swiftie’s paradise!”

Allsop had also never been to Houston before attending the Eras Tour with online friends.

“I live in Denver, so that’s a default for me,” Allsop said. “But for Houston, I had never been before. But I wanted to go with my online friends since we rarely see each other. It was worth it, though. Even though they were nosebleeds, it was still such an amazing view, and that technically the first time I had ever seen Taylor Swift live, so that was a religious experience in and of itself.”

Denver and surrounding areas are preparing for the wave of Swiftie mania to hit this weekend — a weekend expected to gross upwards of $200 million for the local economy through sold-out hotels, packed restaurants and expected clogged roadways. Ask any fan, and most wouldn’t bat any eyelash at the thought of doing things non-fans might consider absurd.

Traveling to other states to see her is part of that dedication, but so is lining up at 6 a.m. for show-exclusive merchandise on July 13. Some fans do not have tickets at all and are still planning to go to the shows to either see if dynamic pricing works in their favor and they can afford to get seats — or to simply experience this phenomenon from outside the stadium.

Following the initial ticket sale, prices for seats nearing the thousands even for obstructed view seats, leading to some fans attempting to score tickets through last minute price drops or to listen outside. Fans without tickets should be advised, however, that Empower Field strongly discourages gathering outside without tickets.

“Taylor Swift has a knack for capturing intense emotions and distilling them in her songs,” Sperry said. “I admire her craft as a song writer and storyteller, but I also really appreciate the relationship she’s cultivated with fans. As a longtime fan, you can basically chart your own life and all its changes through each of her musical “eras,” too. For fans who have been with her all along, the Eras Tour is more than a trip down memory lane — it’s a celebration of everything we’ve been through over the past decade.”

Each fan in attendance will undoubtedly have some bonding story over the Ticketmaster debacle, will find a friend based on sharing fun facts over their favorite album or will simply meet an army of likeminded Swifties when they trade friendship bracelets before the show.

“I’ve heard people are making upwards of 300 bracelets, but I’m only making seven,” said Jones-Sykes, who said that while her favorite album is “Folklore,” she is wearing an outfit inspired by “Lover” to night two in Denver.

What started as a nod to the “You’re On Your Own, Kid” lyric “So make the friendship bracelets/ Take the moment and taste it/ You’ve got no reason to be afraid” has merged into an event within the event and exploded on social media. Swifties have spent months stocking up on simple pony beads, letter beads, charms and cord to make Swift-inspired friendship bracelets to trade with fans at and before the show. Some are walking away from the shows with an entire bag full of bracelets and a stadium full of new friends.

“Taylor has been like a friend to me for years,” said Allsop, who revealed his favorite album from Swift is “1989,” followed by “Reputation.” “She’s even given me my own friends, who I still talk to daily to this day. She’s created a community on TikTok and Instagram where I connect with new Swifties every day. … The Eras Tour is amazing celebration of Taylor’s career, and I think it’s one of her best tours she’s ever done. It brings so many people together, and she’s so talented and so amazing at what she does that you can’t help but want to watch it repeatedly.”

For Sperry, who has been a fan of Swift’s music her entire life and said that her favorite album is the recently re-recorded “Speak Now,” she can track almost every big moment in her life to a musical era of Swift’s.

“Taylor hasn’t been on tour in five years — to put it in perspective, the last time she was in Denver, I had just finished my freshman year at CSU,” Sperry said. “Now, I’m going to Eras just a few weeks before starting my masters at CSU. Going to Eras is really cathartic for that reason: So much has happened since then. It’s a chance to get together and celebrate all we’ve been though and the music we’ve shared along the way.”

Reach Allie Seibel at news@collegian.com or on Twitter @allie_seibel_.