Hayden Payne automated the process of earning boosts in Taylor Swift's "Taylor Swift Tix" verified fan program portal to get a better spot in the virtual ticket queue. He used the Cucumber testing framework with Ruby and WATIR to write automated tests that played Taylor Swift videos 10 times each, earning boosts without having to manually watch them. However, he ran into complications when Ticketmaster detected his automation as a bot and began failing logins inconsistently. He overcame this by adding error handling to his automation.

1. CUTTING
IN LINE
FOR
TAYLOR
SWIFT TIX
BY: HAYDEN
PAYNE

2. ABOUT ME
• My name is Hayden Payne
• Bachelor of Science in CIS from DeVry University
• Consultant (test engineer) at Centric Consulting –
2 years

3. WHERE IT ALL BEGAN
• Dedicated “Swiftie” since 2008
• Attended 5 Taylor Swift concerts
• Quick to buy new albums the moment they are released
• Every song, every lyric = memorized

4. REPUTATION STADIUM TOUR
• First Taylor Swift stadium tour ever
• First tour in 3 years
• I had to be there!

5. PAST TAYLOR TICKET SALES
• Taylor Swift tickets sell out in minutes
• Many tickets sold immediately to scalpers and bots
• Many true Swifties have been left ticketless
• Taylor wanted this to change!

6. TAYLOR’S SOLUTION
• Deter scalpers and bots
• Only give true fans first access to tickets
• Fan verification is required to access ticket sales

7. THE “TAYLOR SWIFT TIX” VERIFIED FAN
PROGRAM
• “Taylor Swift Tix” portal via Ticketmaster
• Fans had 3 months to participate in several boost activities to
compete for their spot in the virtual ticket line
• Fans were given unique presale codes to buy tickets at their
slotted times

8. EARNING BOOSTS IN THE PORTAL
High Boosts Medium Boosts Low Boosts
Purchase albums Watch Taylor’s music videos
Follow Taylor on social
media
Purchase merchandise Watch Taylor’s commercials
Make posts with
#TaylorSwiftTix

9. WHY DID I NEED TO DO
SOMETHING DIFFERENT?

10. OPTION 1: PURCHASE MERCHANDISE AND
ALBUMS
• Earn boosts for up to 13
album purchases
• Purchase merchandise
• $45 tshirts
• $60 rings
• $65 - $125 hoodies

11. OPTION 2: POST ALL ABOUT TAYLOR
• Make a post with
#TaylorSwiftTix every 24
hours
• Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr

12. OPTION 3: WATCH VIDEOS
• 6 videos ranging from 30 sec. - 8 min.
• Earn boosts for 10 views per day, per video
• Daily Time Spent: 3 hours, 1 minute, 20
seconds

13. THE BEST OPTION?

14. AUTOMATION!
WATCH ALL VIDEOS 10X EACH WITH THE CLICK OF A BUTTON

16. TOOLS USED FOR AUTOMATION
• Cucumber framework
• WATIR
• Ruby
• Internet tutorials

17. CUCUMBER
• Testing framework that can read code written in plain English
text (Gherkin syntax)
• Components:
• Feature file – your tests, written in English, go here
• Step definition file – your code goes here

18. THE FEATURE FILE
• Consists of tests written in plain English text with Gherkin
syntax
• Each test is a “scenario” in the .feature file
• Example:

19. GIVEN, WHEN, THEN STEPS
• Given: puts the browser in a known state before you interact
with it
• Given I go to https://tickets.taylorswift.com
• When: an action that the user is performing
• When I click on the "Look What You Made Me Do" video
• Then: the outcome you are testing/expecting to happen
• Then the video plays successfully 10 times

20. THE STEP DEFINITION FILE
• Each step’s code goes in the Step Definition file (.rb)
• Step = Given, When, Then lines in the feature file
• Step logic is written in Ruby
• Steps use WATIR to interact with the web browser

21. • WATIR = Web Application Testing In Ruby
• Open source Ruby library for test automation
• Drives web browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, and Internet
Explorer

22. WATIR USAGE EXAMPLES
Create a new instance of Chrome:
@browser = Watir::Browser.new :chrome
Navigate to the ticket portal:
@browser.goto('https://tickets.taylorswift.com’)
Check the terms & conditions checkbox:
@browser.checkbox(value: 'tc_approval').set(true)
Click on the “Sign In with Ticketmaster” button:
@browser.button(id: 'tm-signup').click
Type my email into the textbox:
@browser.text_field(id: 'login-input').set ‘haydensemail@gmail.com’

23. COMPLICATIONS
• Unable to directly access login text boxes
• Video playback
• Portal login failed after so many frequent logins
• Ticketmaster sensed there was a bot

24. LOGIN TEXTBOXES INACCESSIBLE

25. WHY COULDN’T I ACCESS THE LOGIN
FIELDS?
• The login pop-up was a link to Ticketmaster’s site within
Taylor’s portal
• Ticketmaster’s login box was nested in an HTML element called
an iframe

26. And(/^I type "([^"]*)" in the email field$/) do |email|
@email = email
@browser.iframe(id: 'loginFrame').text_field(id: 'login-input').set @email
end
The solution that actually
worked:
And(/^I type "([^"]*)" in the email field$/) do |email|
@email = email
@browser.text_field(id: 'login-input').set @email
end
The solution I expected to
work:

27. VIDEO PLAYBACK

28. Then(/^I click "(.*)" and play it (d+) times$/) do |video, number_of_times|
i = 0
loop do
i += 1
@browser.div(class: 'card__title___Z4KpT', text: video).wait_until_present.click
@browser.div(class: %w(watch__frameWrapper___C0yO9 common__media___2ZNk9)).wait_until_present.click
sleep 45 if video.include?("glimpse")
sleep 275 unless video.include?("AT&T") || video.include?("glimpse")
sleep 125 if video.include?("AT&T")
sleep 160 if video.include?("Mountain")
@browser.button(class: %w(linkButton modal__close___1Hdd8)).click
break if i == number_of_times.to_i
end
puts "#{video} has been watched #{i} times."
end
MY SOLUTION

29. TICKETMASTER DETECTED A BOT
• Login failing inconsistently
• No way to predict error

30. When(/^I am successfully signed in$/) do
begin
@browser.div(class: 'topNav__navInner___3sF_O').wait_until_present
rescue
@browser.refresh unless @browser.url == 'https://tickets.taylorswift.com/entry'
steps %Q{And I check the box to accept the terms and conditions
And I click sign in with ticketmaster
And I type "#{@email}" in the email field
And I type my super secret password "#{@my_password}" into the password field
And I click sign in} unless @browser.url ==
'https://tickets.taylorswift.com/entry'
end
expect(@browser.div(class: 'topNav__navInner___3sF_O').wait_until_present.exists?)
end
MY SOLUTION

31. BONUS COMPLICATION
• Needed a way to walk others through the code without
revealing my Ticketmaster password

33. MY SOLUTION
def password_decode(password)
count = password.chars.count
i = 0
password_array = []
loop do
password_character = password.chars.values_at(i).join
password_array << password_character
i += 4
break if i == count
end
password_array.join.reverse
end

34. THE TAKEAWAY
• Automation = easy to learn
• No expertise required to get started!
• Use automation to fit your needs and make life easier

35. IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING…

36. QUESTIONS?