When Bridget Saric sat down at her computer before sunrise on Wednesday, all the preparations for battle were in place.

She had taken the day off work as a disability support worker and had three screens at the ready to log on to the Ticketek website at staggered times throughout the day.

Hotels had already been booked in Sydney and Melbourne when Taylor Swift announced the 2024 Australian leg of her Eras Tour, in the hopes that the Mackay resident would land tickets to at least one of the few Australian shows.

"I did lots of manifesting," the 20-year-old, self-described lifelong Swiftie says. "My idea was whatever I get, I'm going to go."

At 3pm — 10 hours after Bridget first opened the website, hoping that joining early would bump her up the queue for pre-sale tickets — optimism was waning. "One of my friends rang up and said she got straight through, and I just started crying. It was the biggest meltdown."

With only five Australian shows across Sydney and Melbourne announced at the time (another two were added on Thursday due to "unprecedented demand"), competition for tickets was always going to be fierce. 

By the end of Wednesday, more than 4 million people had tried their luck for pre-sale tickets — ranging in price from $79.90 to $1,249.90 — breaking the Australian record. 

After calculating the capacity of the venues, the bureau of statistics has estimated only 2.4 per cent of Australians will be able to nab tickets. As of Wednesday, Bridget was not one of them.

"It was just the loading page for 16 hours — I was losing my mind," she says. "I cried myself to sleep."

A long time coming for 4 million Australian fans

For months Australian Swifties have watched through screens as the 33-year-old pop star has ping-ponged her way across the US to sell-out crowds.

A new genre of social media posts was born: Era outfit vlogs featuring elaborate costumes months in the making, posts documenting the creation and trading of friendship bracelets at shows (a custom born out of lyrics within You're on Your Own, Kid from the Midnights album), and of course clips of screaming fans from the concerts themselves.

Swift's last Australian tour was in 2018, and after the release of four new albums in four years, her star was burning brighter than ever. But amid the excitement, there were also warning signs of the trouble to come at the ticket gates.

Late last year, Ticketmaster was forced to cancel the general sales for the US tour after the number of people registered for pre-sale exceeded the total number available. The palaver ended up being the subject of a congressional hearing.

That did not deter Australian fans from putting their lives on hold this week in the hope of a miracle.

Georgia Carroll, a PhD candidate who has spent the past five years researching Swift's fandom, waited six hours on Wednesday to secure pre-sale tickets to the Sydney show, surrounded by colleagues doing the same. "It felt like we were living the day in 10-second intervals," she says.

"The anxiety levels were so high, especially for the first little bit, then it went from the excited, 'Oh my gosh, it's going to be my turn soon,' to increasing amounts of despair."

The 29-year-old, who grew up listening to Swift, never got past the loading screen but eventually managed to secure one ticket, via her parents who jumped in the waiting room on her behalf.

"It was definitely shock and disbelief," she says.

"I didn't even believe it until I logged into the Ticketek app and took a million screenshots.

"It was a very surreal feeling. It took a little longer for it to sink in because I didn't do the actual purchasing myself."

While Georgia says it was ultimately "every man for themselves" at the check-out screen, the scarcity of tickets has also given birth to a new form of camaraderie among an already tight fandom.

Reddit threads, Facebook groups, and messenger chats have become support networks for desperate fans, with advice on navigating the system eagerly offered alongside commiserations for the unlucky and celebrations for the chosen.

"It felt like everyone in Australia, and a lot of people were, going through this traumatic experience together," Georgia says.

"I guess that's why the word unprecedented has been used so much in the past 24 hours — I'm not sure we've ever seen something on this scale, especially in the digital era where the whole country kind of feels like it's gone through it together."

Manifesting and miracles

As part of her research, Georgia interviewed Swifties to get a sense of why they felt so connected to the pop star.

She believes part of the obsession stems from the feeling that fans have grown up alongside Swift.

"For fans, especially in their late 20s and early 30s, we were teenagers when she was releasing her albums talking about being a teenager," she says.

"When she released Fearless, she has a song called 15 on it. When she released Red, that has 22. Everyone kind of went through the life stages with her — and she really encourages this idea of seeing her as an inspiration, as a big sister, as a best friend."

The love fans have for Swift at times verges on a sort-of religious devotion. "One of my participants said to me, 'Just the thought of one day being able to meet her, when she's the most important person in your life, when she's been there for you through so much, I can't think of anything better than having the opportunity to say thank you to her,'" Georgia says.

"There are a lot of parallels between religious devotion and fandom, in a good way … it's that feeling of something bigger than yourself, and finding community and a sense of meaning and identity in your life."

Vince Phan, a 30-year-old from the NSW Central Coast, says Swift's music helped "keep him alive" when he moved to Australia from Vietnam.

He first saw Swift perform when she visited Australia during her Reputation tour five years ago. "That was the moment when it changed, something made me fall in love with her," he says.

So when the pre-sale rolled around, the stakes were high: "I couldn't have brekkie, I couldn't have coffee, I had to keep my eye on my laptop and phone." He waited all day and was about to give up before his dedication was rewarded after 5pm — he was able to buy four It's a Love Story package tickets at $399 a pop.

"Finally I can survive," he says. "I need to meet her, I need to go to the show. I don't want to watch it on Netflix or something like that. I want to experience this era."

One of Vince's tickets will be going to his friend who is flying over from Vietnam to attend (they're already planning their themed outfits). And Vince's friend is not the only one making an international pilgrimage.

Bianca Wru, 27, successfully bought a ticket to the Sydney show from the Philippines after a nailbiting wait with patchy internet. Since the international tour dates were announced, she says she's been up all night researching seat locations, figuring out what country would be best to travel to, and "just having general anxiety over the big 'what if I don't get a ticket?'"

"I'm just glad I can finally sleep like a baby again and won't have to spend another day waking up at 5:30am just to get on the motorbike for at least 45 minutes to go to the beach with the strongest data [connection] to book my ticket," she says. "I have been waiting for this moment since I was 13."

Karen New, a mother of two from Brisbane and the self-proclaimed Swiftie of the family, was also able to secure four tickets — but now she's dealing with a different set of hurdles. "Accessibility for disabled people, it's just not there," she says.