When Dancing With the Stars Season 35 premiered on September 15, 2026, the influx of fans eager to support their favorite celebrities proved too much for ABC’s digital infrastructure. Just 26 minutes into the first night of the two-part premiere, the network’s online voting system collapsed under the weight of unprecedented traffic, leaving thousands of viewers staring at an “Error 503 Too Many Variants” message.
Among the Season 35 roster, Taylor Hanson has emerged as a likely suspect for the digital surge. The musician, who rose to fame in the late ’90s, is partnered with professional dancer Britt Stewart for Season 35, and the enthusiasm for his ballroom debut may have contributed to the technical difficulties.
The Night 1 Voting Pivot
The technical failure forced hosts Alfonso Ribeiro and Julianne Hough to make an immediate on-air adjustment. Because the online platform was non-functional for a significant portion of the audience, the show announced that all online votes for the first night would be discarded. To maintain the integrity of the competition, only text-based votes were counted for the Tuesday night performances.
Ribeiro later shared that the sheer volume of engagement was staggering, reporting that the show received more than twice as many votes as the previous year’s premiere. This surge aligns with the high-profile casting of Season 35, which features stars with massive, digitally active fanbases ranging from Bachelor Nation’s Tyler Cameron to the “Savannah Banana” following of Jackson Olson.
Taylor Hanson’s Ballroom Debut
Despite the digital chaos, Hanson’s performance with professional partner Britt Stewart successfully cut through the noise. The duo performed a Quickstep to Billy Joel’s “Tell Her About It,” a choice that leaned into the musician’s rhythmic roots. While technical glitches prevented some fans from casting their online ballots, Hanson secured enough support through text voting to survive the first round of eliminations.
According to Dance Spirit, the split-gender premiere format saw the men take the floor on Tuesday, followed by the women on Wednesday. This structure may have concentrated the voting power of Hanson’s nostalgic fanbase into a single window, creating a “perfect storm” for the ABC servers.
Hanson’s transition from the recording studio to the ballroom has been one of the most discussed storylines of the season. His current run on Dancing With the Stars suggests that the “Fanson” factor remains a potent force in the age of modern streaming and live voting.
As the competition moves into Week 2, production has not officially attributed the crash to any single celebrity’s followers, but the sheer volume of participation suggests a broader trend of high engagement. Hanson and Stewart are confirmed to return for the next round, where the singer will look to maintain his momentum.
