It’s been a long time. Two years after Lover Fest was canceled due to the pandemic, her planned tour to promote her 2019 album DearAnd five years after the Reputation Tour embarrassed skeptics by becoming the highest-grossing tour in U.S. history, Taylor Swift is now leading the smashing Eras Tour from city to city, slicing through a cultural space the likes of which have rarely, if ever, been seen. seen before
That’s no exaggeration: Swift concerts have long been costume-heavy, dance-packed events set as many as a Broadway production. The Eras Tour elevates the competition a few notches, boasting a three-hour set list and tons of nifty stage numbers. The ardent anticipation of the post-pandemic combined with the chaos caused by Ticketmaster and a post-pandemic ballooning music catalogue.Dear With an enormous amount of new and re-recorded material, Eras Tour has proven that it cannot be limited to something as small as a state-of-the-art football stadium.
No, this thing is a city eater.
So far, the Eras Tour has hit seven different cities in the US, setting attendance records at Arlington, Texas’ AT&T Stadium and Nashville’s Nissan Stadium.
“Swift broke the record for single event and weekend attendance at Nissan Stadium, with Sunday’s concert reaching roughly 71,000 visitors and eclipsing the three-night total by almost 212,000,” Nashville Convention & Visitor Corp told The Daily Beast. “He’s the first artist in Nashville history to play three lead roles in so many nights at Nissan Stadium.”
Along the way, the tour made its mark on local tourism. Tourism levels in the city rose again to pre-COVID levels by the weekend the tour ended in March, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority – the weekend’s hotel occupancy rate reached 94.5 percent, the highest level since February 2020. reached 8. percentage.
NCVC told The Daily Beast that occupancy rate for hotels in downtown Nashville last weekend was 97 percent, with 12,482 rooms sold. On Saturday, occupancy was 98 percent and 12,614 rooms were sold.
Apart from these events, the images and videos shared by the crowd are frightening. TikTok is full of images of both vehicular and pedestrian traffic jams caused by Swift; Outside of Nashville, two Swifties passed bracelets from one stopped car to another. And it’s not just the actual ticket holders who get caught up in the Eras Tour spree: People who fail to get tickets already end up outside the stadiums, only to the back door. Some even line up at product stands for the chance to purchase custom concert hoodies, t-shirts, tote bags, for up to eight or nine hours at a time – you don’t need a concert ticket to access it. , and the like.
After the April 29 demonstration in Atlanta, fleeing Swifties were caught in a sudden downpour, and a TikToker captured the chaos ensuing on the downtown MARTA train line. “Oh, no, no,” the locals exclaimed as the train pulled up to the platform and dozens of rain-drenched youths dressed in bright dresses and cowboy boots emerged.
Fans, especially those determined to see Swift, aren’t deterred by the venue either, meaning the Eras Tour is causing overlapping migrations between countries and increasing travel prices. On the Eras weekend in Tampa, hotel rooms typically cost between $200 and $400 on a typical April weekend, costing upwards of $1,000. Tampa Bay Times. Amtrak trains from Washington DC to Philadelphia, the venue of the Eras performances this weekend, are selling out. from Washington, and the same goes for airline flights.
And then there’s another seemingly essential budget item a fan of Eras Tour has to reckon with: clothes.
“We definitely had more business back then,” Alex, a cashier at The Junkman’s Daughter, an alternative clothing store in Atlanta’s Little Five Points neighborhood, told The Daily Beast for the April 28-30 Eras Tour weekend. “We had a group of people going to the concert, and I assume most of those people bought clothes because we have a huge womenswear aisle.”
“Most people travel around Little Five Points because it’s touristy,” Alex said. “So anyone from outside of Atlanta tends to visit that area.” (Like the confluence of Weekend Warrior Swifties, for example, walking from NYC to Atlanta and desperate to buy last-minute outfits.)
Before Swift stepped onto the confines of a downtown district for her big show, local government members took steps to publicly promote her takeover.
The mayor of Tampa, Florida, made the pop star Mayor of Tampa for the day and gave him the key to the city; Nashville Mayor John Cooper dedicated him a bench in Centennial Park, referring to his song “Invisible String”; and several other lawmakers named streets and even calendar days after Swift, leaving a lasting mark on the cities that hosted her tour.
It has never been seen so much in Glendale, Arizona, where the Eras Tour kicked off on March 17. A few days ago, on March 13 (13 is Swift’s lucky number), Mayor Jerry Weiers announced that the city of Glendale will close temporarily. Change the name to “Swift City” to celebrate the tour’s launch, or even with an Easter egg-filled phrase “We know. all are very good HE [Swift is] He is one of the most influential artists of his generation and we are writing our own. love story for him.”
Sue Breding, communications director for the city of Glendale and a Swift fan and who once interviewed the pop star in 2006, told The Daily Beast that the entire, elaborate, Taylor-centric campaign was her idea.
“On March 17 and 18, we symbolically changed the name of our city to Swift City,” Breding told The Daily Beast. “It went viral and other cities are doing similar things, and it’s caused a lot of excitement for the 70,000 Swifties that have arrived. [to Eras in Glendale]”
“I became a trendsetter and, in Swiftie terms, I never thought in my wildest dreams that I would be the mastermind behind something this fun for my city and other cities,” he added. “From the moment he became the first player in history to sell two shows in a single tour at State Farm Stadium – and the icing on the cake was that he started the tour here – it’s the deafeningly exciting buzz that goes all the way to concerts.”
And when that opening night finally arrived in Glendale, Breding recalls: “Starting so early in the afternoon, the whole district was lively. It was just buzzing. We have a sports and entertainment district and these restaurants serve Taylor Swift themed cocktails – one called Lover, one called Midnight Rain. All the bars were ahead of each other with their themed drinks. This is not normal. The hotel rooms are full and full and they were able to charge the highest prices. We had so many bars and businesses celebrating, I’d say they rivaled the Super Bowl over the weekend. [which was held in Glendale in February]. Buzz, traffic, hotels; all of which rivaled the Super Bowl.
While the Eras Tour isn’t even halfway through its US stadium run—it will hit major cities like Chicago, Denver, and Los Angeles over the summer—we’ve yet to see coverage of Swift’s city-eating trails.