Swifties desperate to get their hands on tickets to shows in Melbourne and Sydney will get another chance this Friday when more go on sale.

The Grammy award-winning star will become the first artist since Madonna to perform three consecutive concerts at the Melbourne Cricket Ground when she takes the stage in February next year, and the first ever to play a fourth straight show at Sydney’s Accor Stadium.

It follows an overwhelming response to pre-sale tickets for the initial three Sydney concerts, which sold out at 2pm on Wednesday.

Pre-sale seats for the two Melbourne shows were gone just after 4pm, a Ticketek spokesman confirmed.

Demand demand led Victoria to declare Swift’s concerts major events on Tuesday in an effort to limit ticket scalping, a move quickly followed in NSW.

Victorian Major Events Minister Steve Dimopoulos confirmed tickets bought and resold before the declaration are not covered by the state’s anti-scalping rules.

Swift announced last week she was bringing her tour to Australia, but Dimopoulos insisted the Victorian government had acted quickly to guard against ticket gouging and had to follow a process.

“We worked with the promoter, so Frontier in this case, and to be honest we did it as soon as they asked,” said.

Tickets range from $79 to $379 and are available from Friday.

-with AAP