The BeyHive Has Had Enough After Ticketmaster Fumbles Beyoncé’s “Cowboy Carter Tour” Presale
BY Malcolm Trapp / 2.11.2025
The presale for Beyoncé’s "Cowboy Carter and the Rodeo Chitlin’ Circuit Tour” went live on Tuesday (Feb. 11), and, as to be expected, the BeyHive is dealing with the usual headache: ridiculously long wait times, sky-high service fees and Ticketmaster crashing left and right.
“We need to rally like the Swifties and sue Ticketmaster because this is actually insane,” one user wrote on X. The process has become so broken that even getting through the queue feels like winning the lottery for longtime fans of the “CUFF IT” singer. Another person vented about the endless CAPTCHA tests to combat bots: “Me: Doing their dumb puzzle. Ticketmaster: Tickets no longer available.”
The BeyHive’s ticketing struggles are not just a Beyoncé problem — or even limited to pop and country artists. J. Cole’s one-night-only show at Madison Square Garden saw a presale queue of 150,000 people for a venue that can only hold 19,500. Kendrick Lamar and SZA fans ran into the same mess when "Grand National Tour" tickets went live in December 2024. Unfortunately, with Live Nation and Ticketmaster’s near monopoly on the industry, there does not seem to be much that can be done.
In defense of Ticketmaster, the demand does not seem to be exactly their fault this time. After all, Bey is only hitting eight cities on her COWBOY CARTER run, compared to the “RENAISSANCE WORLD TOUR,” which had 56 shows all spread across different locations.
Beyoncé and Live Nation seemingly tried to ease the overwhelming demand, as shown by Monday’s (Feb. 10) announcement. They added more stops, including a third night at Chicago’s Soldier Field on May 18, a fifth and sixth show at London’s Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on June 14 and 16, and additional dates at Paris’ Stade de France and Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
The BeyHive presale is just one of three Ticketmaster is rolling out for the iconic superstar’s upcoming tour. Another for Verizon members and Citi cardholders is set to go live on Wednesday (Feb. 12) at 12 p.m. ET, with the third and final presale following on Thursday (Feb. 13) at the same time.
At the end of the day, if you were lucky enough to grab tickets during any of the presales, congrats. For those who were not, the options are not great: either deal with the reseller market, which can sometimes get out of hand, gamble on the general sale, or hold out hope for an Act III tour, if that ever becomes a reality.