Magic, madness, heaven, sin (Image: Tina Tiller)

Pop CultureJune 29, 2023

A dispatch from Taylor Swift presale hell

Stewart Sowman-Lund

The Bulletin editor

Alex Casey

Senior writer

Magic, madness, heaven, sin (Image: Tina Tiller)

Two queues, two Swifties and 12 hours of torment. Stewart Sowman-Lund and Alex Casey report from the nightmare that was yesterday’s Eras Tour presale.

Stewart Sowman-Lund from the Sydney queue:

8am: The presale doesn’t start until lunchtime and we’ve been told slots would be randomly allocated at that time. Nevertheless, I’m in the queue already staring at a constantly refreshing page. Why? Maybe it will open early? Or we might be given a number? Is this what it felt like to queue and see the Queen lying in state? It has begun. I’m not ready for it.

11.45am: Literally nothing has changed, because the presale hasn’t even started. I am already becoming mesmerised by the countdown. “Your turn to purchase tickets is coming soon,” the website gaslights me. “Next update in 10, 9, 8, 7…” I make myself yet another coffee, because why not. Maybe I need to be just a little bit more on edge. My girlfriend has written our credit card details down on large pieces of paper just in case they’re not saved on our Ticketek account. There’s six of us on Zoom all trying for the same show.

12.00pm: The presale is starting. Surely, we’ll know our fate in a few minutes. I got Adele tickets in five minutes, maybe this will be just as easy. “Your turn to purchase tickets is coming soon.”

How I imagine it feels to buy Eras Tour tickets (Photo by Scott Legato/TAS23/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management)

12.07pm: “How’s it going,” The Spinoff’s Jane Yee asks me. “None of us have even made it past the queue,” I say, still feeling optimistic. I’m glued to the screen. 10, 9, 8, 7… “Your turn to purchase tickets is coming soon.”

12.55pm: “And now,” asks Jane again. “Literally no change.”

1.07pm: I’m wondering why I didn’t have lunch. I make a sad bowl of porridge; the lowest effort meal for the best reward. My laptop, with the never-ending, constantly refreshing queue stares up at me from the kitchen bench as the microwave whirs. I’m considering making another coffee. Or maybe I need a beer? The porridge does its best to satisfy me but I know there’s only one thing that could possibly bring me happiness today.

1.25pm: The queue refreshes are starting to take just a little bit longer. I must be close.

1.39pm: “You guys ok?” a friend messages. “Thinking of you.” They receive no response. I do not have the mental capacity to answer.

2.00pm: We’re now two hours in. I’ve gone back to work, the never-ending loading bar mocking me from the corner of my laptop screen. I can still peek the words “…tickets is coming soon”. Soon? What is soon. I put my dressing gown on, a protective shield from the Ticketek wilderness. My screen refreshes slowly again, but my heart knows better than to skip a beat this time. I’ve needed to pee since breakfast.

3.00pm: I’m lying on my bed, the vision of the queue refreshing before my eyes when I hear a scream from the next room. My girlfriend’s screen has gone blank. The URL has changed. Have we made it past the queue? Show dates suddenly appear, but I’m too shell shocked to even blink. Is it a mirage? We enter the presale code.

“An unexpected error has occurred”. The queue appears again, silently mocking us from inside its pixelated home. “Your turn to purchase tickets is coming soon.”

3.25pm: My group of friends have been offered spare tickets by someone who made it past the queue. There’s only enough for three and… I am the fourth. I pour myself a beer and wonder whether buying flights and accommodation for Sydney before I even had a ticket had really been the wise idea it seemed last week. I’m a crumpled up piece of paper lying here. I remember it all, all, all too well.

3:43pm: “All general Frontier pre-sale tickets for Taylor Swift in Sydney are now sold out,” says Ticketek. “Your turn to purchase tickets is coming soon,” says the queue. “Next update in 10, 9, 8, 7…” I’m exhausted. Is this what it feels like to run a marathon? Probably, I reason to myself as I adjust my aching body on the couch like some sort of beached whale and grab a discarded throw pillow for back support. This has to be what it feels like to run a marathon.

Alex Casey from the Melbourne queue:

3.44pm One of many, many alarms on my phone goes off, warning that the Melbourne presale is imminent. I check the presale lounge page once more – I’ve been in the queue since 8.18am this morning. I have no idea how the internet works, but imagine that my cute little IP address wearing a top hat and tails, lining up politely eight hours before the party starts, might earn it some sort of respect and gratitude from the Ticketek gods.

3.51pm Another alarm. My nerves are jangling. The reports from Stewart have not been good. I have (flexi) flights booked already to see the Saturday night show in Melbourne which is adding to the high stakes of it all. All my eggs are in one concert’s basket. I check the piece of paper I have had taped above my head for days – SAT 17 MELBOURNE – to make sure I don’t accidentally buy tickets to Beervana or Matchbox 20.

Don’t buy Beervana tickets don’t buy Beervana tickets

3.58pm Another alarm goes off. It’s actually fine, I tell myself. It’s actually a win-win. If I get tickets, I get to go to Taylor Swift. If I don’t, I can get the money for the flights back which is basically making money, and that’s the circular economy in action.

4.00pm By all accounts, the presale has begun but nothing new is happening. The little biatch of a blue loading bar glides across the screen tauntingly. “Your turn to purchase tickets is coming soon.” I take a happy photo doing a peace sign in front of the laptop, feeling confident that my polite and punctual IP address will soon be let through the line quick smart.

4.05pm I’m fucking panicking already and immediately add my iPad into the line-up. I read somewhere on the dark web that you should stay calm and only use one device, but fuck that. My IP address just removed his top hat to reveal a gremlin wearing a top hat. Who knows where that gremlin goes in the line? Will it upset the Ticketek gods? I don’t care. It’s been FIVE MINUTES.

4.15pm Need to do a nervous pee. Now have Ticketek open on my phone, iPad and laptop. I have no choice but to bring them all into the toilet with me. This is possibly my lowest ebb. “This is a hell unlike I have ever known” I message my colleagues Jane and Isaiah, who are both in the Melbourne queue too. “This is the bad place”, Isaiah confirms.

4.19pm Still nothing. I remember I’m supposed to be having a phone call with a dear old friend in London at 6.30pm tonight. We’ve been trying to make a time for ages, but I realise that I might still be in ticket hell. I message her: “An advanced warning I may have to bail on this call if I am still stuck in the Taylor Swift line #stressed.” No time for discussing why I used a hashtag in a Facebook message. Look what you made me do, Taylor.

4.26pm I set up a Taylor Swift vinyl shrine and start playing Midnights for good luck, and an extremely scary thing happens. We have a dicky speaker that will sometimes fade out randomly, and this time it decides to cark it just as Taylor coos “and every single one of your friends was making fun of you.” She’s laughing up at me from hell.

You threw your head back laughing etc etc

4.49pm “See this is why you should never fall in love,” messages Jane, who is now by all accounts in the recovery position, “because then you can get hurt.”

5.15pm This is where things start to turn. I’ve gone from excited, to bored, to incandescent with rage. I’m also about to get my period. I’ve been so distracted by the blue bar that the fire has nearly gone out, and I try not to cry while desperately blowing on the embers. As a wise woman once said, this could end in burning flames or paradise.

5.28pm Me, a genius, decide to move my laptop, iPad and phone into the lounge so I can properly tend to the fire. Unfortunately, while tending to said fire, my now unplugged laptop goes into power saving mode which disrupts the connection. The Ticketek tab now reads “your connection has been interrupted” and I want to vomit. The fire is dead, the internet is dead, and I am dead. I imagine by top hat IP sir being kicked to the very end of the line.

5.39pm “Ticketek AU says Taylor Swift tickets for Melbourne are still available, but warns some price categories are close to selling out.”

5.50pm I am made aware of two casual contacts that nabbed four seats each. One bought from Spain, the other from Singapore. Again, I don’t know how the internet works, but could they have escaped the bottleneck by lining up from distant lands? Maybe I should have booked flights to an exotic location just to book tickets? The fire is out again.

A friend asked “do you work at NASA” and maybe I do

6.00pm I’ve dusted off my shitty old laptop and also hacked into my partner’s laptop in a final gasp attempt to digitally ram raid Ticketek. There are now four screens in front of me and two different browsers open on my phone. Jane tells me she has bought a Powerball ticket because why not, and pitches two possible headlines for The Spinoff tomorrow:

Auckland mum of three takes out Powerball after missing out on Taylor Swift tickets

Auckland mum spends $165 to not go to Taylor Swift and then a further $20 to not win Lotto

I take a photo of my four screen set up and send it to some group chats for moral support. I realise my poor old neglected cat Link is lurking in the background of the stressful scene. I forgot to feed him his dinner. I’ve truly become the worst version of myself and it’s all because of Taylor Alison Swift.

6.17pm All four screens reveal the message I’d been dreading: “All general Frontier Pre-sale tickets for Taylor Swift The Eras Tour in Melbourne have now sold out.

6.19pm I message my friend in London and say we can still talk. I don’t have Taylor Swift tickets but, as a wise woman once said, it’s nice to have a friend.

Stewart Sowman-Lund (again) from an unexpected evening queue:

8.05pm: I head to the Lotto website to see if I’ve won the Powerball. “You’re in the queue to log into MyLotto”. I shut my laptop immediately. I’ve had enough queues for one day. My phone buzzes and I see my Taylor Swift group chat has started a new video call. Not prepared to be mocked again for being the only one without a ticket, I don’t answer. But wait. In a moment of group hysteria, they’ve got a single VIP ticket in the cart ready to go. Am I prepared to spend $400 for one E-reserve ticket and a bunch of tatty merch? Absolutely not. But am I prepared to convince my friends to pay the price difference so I’m not left out? Yes.

Taylor, I’ll see you in February. Sitting alone in the VIP. Happy, sad, confused and lonely at the same time.

Keep going!

Fallen Leaves (Photo: Supplied/NZIFF)

Pop CultureJune 28, 2023

Ten must-see films at the 2023 NZ International Film Festival

Thomas Giblin

Guest writer

Fallen Leaves (Photo: Supplied/NZIFF)

A fresh film festival programme is coming to a coffee table near you, featuring 129 films that all sound really good in their write-up. Here are 10 worth paying particularly close attention to.

Whānau Mārama: New Zealand International Film Festival has once again rolled around, and with it comes a kaleidoscope of exciting global cinema. This year, the festival’s 54th edition begins in Auckland, opening with Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or winning Anatomy of a Fall on the 19th of July. The following two months will see the festival tour Aotearoa visiting 16 towns and cities.

After a tumultuous few years, which included Covid-19 disruptions, the death of long-time director Bill Gosden and the resignation of Marten Rabarts after only two years at the helm, Whānau Mārama: New Zealand International Film Festival will also return to its regular format, running across three weekends in all major centres.

From melancholic love stories to gripping thrillers and beguiling comedies, there’s something for everyone in this year’s jam-packed programme of 129 buzzworthy films. To help you decide which ones are worth seeking out, I’ve scoured it from cover-to-cover to bring you this, my top 10 must-sees.

Fallen Leaves

Director: Aki Kaurismäki

After a brief-retirement, Finland’s most-renowned filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki returns to cinema with Fallen Leaves, a charming deadpan comedy about two lost souls. Awarded the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, the film sees lonely supermarket worker Ansa meet the equally lonely Holappa, an alcoholic security guard – their romance blossoms and stumbles, evoking a rare sense of play that is sure to delight. Often preoccupied with those marginalised or estranged from society, Kaurismäki fuses the aesthetics of social realism with ironic devices, showcasing a wonderfully singular and non-serious approach to filmmaking. At a brief 81 minutes, Fallen Leaves promises to be a gentle crowd-pleaser that will warm your heart despite its ice-cold Helsinki setting.

Past Lives

Director: Celine Song

Playwright Celine Song makes her film debut with Past Lives, an achingly beautiful story of childhood sweethearts reconnecting after decades apart. The film, already being labelled “The Best of 2023” by some, has a steadily growing fandom – a TikTok trend has appeared of fans recording themselves before and after Past Lives. Tears are aplenty as Nora and Hae Sung, classmates drawn to each other but torn apart, enter each other’s lives again. Evoking “In Yun”, a Korean concept of fate and predestination, this decades-spanning romance reconfigures what an American film is. Think Before Sunrise or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, framed by the experience of a Korean-American immigrant who asks, “What if I stayed?”

The New Boy

Director: Warwick Thornton

Since his 2009 feature debut Samson and Delilah, Thornton has emerged as one of Australia’s foremost indigenous filmmakers. His first film in six years, The New Boy, sees the Kaytetye director tell a story of religious colonisation in rural 1940s Australia – a young aboriginal boy arrives at a monastery run by a renegade nun in the dead of night. The nun, played by the ever spellbinding Cate Blanchett, marks the first time the two titans of Australian cinema have worked together. Despite Blanchett’s maverick status, the extraordinary Aswan Reid, in his debut role, steals the show as a boy with magical faith-healing abilities. Inspired by Thornton’s experience at a monastic boarding school and his rejection of Christianity, The New Boy is set to be an illuminating vision of the tension that denotes the Indigenous Australian experience.

Bread and Roses

Director: Gaylene Preston

To mark 100 years of women’s suffrage in Aotearoa, Gaylene Preston directed the 3-hour epic Bread and Roses, a stunning tribute to the activist Sonja Davies. Released in 1993 in both television form and as a film, Bread and Roses is a landmark film that stands alongside Jane Campion’s An Angel at My Table, Peter Jacksons Heavenly Creatures and Lee Tamahori’s Once Were Warriors as shining examples of Aotearoa cinema from the 90s. Remastered ahead of its 30th anniversary for this year’s Whānau Mārama: New Zealand International Film Festival, Bread and Roses was described by Bill Gosden as “a richly developed, highly detailed and beautifully realised piece of work” upon its initial festival release. Now remastered, the film and Davies are ready to crystallise and capture the attention of the next generation of filmmakers, activists, unionists and visionaries.

Ms. Information

Director: Gwen Isaac

For many, myself included, scientist Siouxsie Wiles and her pink hair were a comforting presence and a regular source of information during the hysteria of Covid-19. Her leadership during the pandemic, despite being targeted by various conspiracy groups, has Wiles, in this fly-on-the-wall documentary, candidly asking what “is the world’s problem with women like me?” In charting Wiles’s professional and personal life during the first two years of Covid-19, Ms. Information looks set to be an enlightening watch on a pivotal moment in Aotearoa’s history.

Loop Track

Director: Tom Sainsbury

If you’re familiar with the who’s who of Aotearoa television and cinema, you’ll know Tom Sainsbury. He garnered national fame in 2017 as the “Snapchat Dude” and has been a regular on the smash-hit Wellington Paranormal. Now Sainsbury and Chillbox Creative, frequent collaborators on the 48Hours film competition, are behind Loop Track, a low-budget horror comedy set in the isolated bush of Aotearoa. As the director, writer, producer and star of the film, Sainsbury describes its genesis as originating from a single image: “someone on an isolated bush walk seeing a figure in the far distance. They can’t make out exactly what they’re looking at, but the figure’s presence feels malevolent.” Self-cast as an anxious man named Ian, one fright away from another nervous breakdown, Sainsbury’s latest project is sure to terrify and tickle.

How to Have Sex

Director: Molly Manning Walker

If there was one film out of the Cannes Film Festival that my Twitter timeline wouldn’t shut up about, it was Molly Manning Walker’s debut feature How to Have Sex. Videos of the British director went viral as she charged in late to an award ceremony, having left the city not expecting to win anything. Greeted by thunderous applause, Walker ran down the aisle and onto the stage to claim the Un Certain Regard prize, the top award at the festival sidebar.

Set on the party island of Malia in Crete, three British teenage girls are embarking on their first unaccompanied holiday abroad, trying hard to forget the exams they’ve just taken. Tara and Sky aren’t virgins, but Em hopes this trip brings more than platonic encounters; she’s on a quest for sex. The neon-drenched aesthetic and the boundless displays of hedonism by drunken holidaymakers invites comparisons to Spring Breakers, but How to Have Sex has a different heart. It’s an unflinching look at the anxieties surrounding female sexual desire which makes this kinetic debut feature a must-watch.

How to Blow Up a Pipeline

Director: Daniel Goldhaber

This explosive thriller is partly inspired by Andreas Malm’s 2021 book of the same name, which argues that climate activists and the “commitment to absolute non-violence” should be abandoned. Protests, petitions and shared Instagram infographics have changed nothing; the agency to save our dying planet is slipping away. In How to Blow Up a Pipeline, an intriguing change of pace from Goldhaber’s previous feature Cam, a group of young activists plans to blow up a pipeline in West Texas.

The film’s content has drawn dozens of warnings from North American law enforcement agencies, with the FBI sending out a bulletin stating that How to Blow Up a Pipeline has the “potential to inspire threat actors to target oil and gas infrastructure with explosives or other destructive devices.” The film doesn’t actually provide a guide on how to commit such acts; rather, it serves as a razor-sharp battle cry for a generation of environmental activists enraged by the dawdling pace of change. Mix in thrilling genre elements from heist films such as Ocean’s Eleven, Reservoir Dogs, Thief and Rififi and you’ve now got the signs of an instant classic.

Orlando, My Political Biography

Director: Paul B. Preciado

Cinema that tells the varied stories of trans and non-binary people often focuses on tragedy. Paul B. Preciado’s reinterpretation of Virginia Woolf’s novel Orlando: A Biography, however, is a fun and inventive allegory for those who don’t fit within society’s construct of gender. Preciado organises a casting and brings together 26 contemporary trans and non-binary people, from 8 to 70 years old, who embody and play the part of Orlando. By blurring the lines between reality and fiction, this docudrama deconstructs the fiction of gender, powerfully speaking to Woolf herself to say, “Look! Here we are!”

Late Night with the Devil

Directors: Colin Cairnes, Cameron Cairnes

Each year Ant Timpson and his “Incredibly Strange” sidebar promises a delight of cinematic provocations. This year is no different, with Late Night with the Devil being a standout for those who love the unease of the supernatural. Australian genre titans Colin and Cameron Cairnes’ latest eerie endeavour breathes new life into the found-footage horror. A love letter to talk shows and 1970’s horror films, Late Night with the Devil sees a live television broadcast go disturbingly wrong when it unleashes evil into America’s living rooms. Harkening back to the satanic panic, this inventive horror has the chameleonic David Dastmalchian playing a Merv Griffin type talk show host. Struggling to garner more viewers, on Halloween 1997, he decides to put on a special hair-raising show inviting a psychic, a sceptic, and a girl possibly possessed by the devil. The tapes of what ensued had been lost… until now.