On December 8, 2024, Taylor Swift took her final bow of the Eras Tour show in Vancouver. After over a year of touring, Swift’s impact on the music industry and families is more abundant than ever. Her tour is the highest grossing of all time with a revenue of $2 billion with 149 shows across five continents and was attended by over 10 million fans. However, some fans can recall the bumpy road to all this success; starting with the ticket frenzy.
On November 1, 2022 (a week after new release, ‘Midnights’), Swift announced what she described as a, “journey through the musical eras of [her] career,” on Good Morning America. This immediately created a buzz within her fanbase who call themselves “Swifties.” Pre-sale tickets were set to be open two weeks after the announcement but didn’t open to the public until November 15. Thousands of fans attempted to use the presale access codes but the Ticketmaster website crashed simultaneously.
Because of these issues, the main sale was cancelled which caused an uproar amongst fans. One group even started a lawsuit against the company, accusing them of fraud and anti-trust violations. In response, the president of Ticketmaster’s parent company, Live Nation told fans “we need to do better and we will.” However, many fans still missed out on opportunities to go see Swift, causing controversy and backlash from “Swifties.” Despite fans who missed a chance to experience the tour, millions of others were able to and raved about their experiences.
Bayside High School sophomore, Ashlee Kelsen, has been a Swift fan since 2020. She was close to losing her tickets for the tour but luckily, came out on top of the ticket dilemma; despite her tickets being changed from Florida to Philadelphia. “I was just grateful we even got tickets,” Kelsen said, reflecting on the difficult process to acquire her Taylor experience. In spite of whatever challenges she faced, she described the experience as “magical” and expressed the community of fans that helped make the concert feel like a safe space. “I love being in the environment of people, overall every aspect made it really fun.”
Princess Anne sophomore, Valeria Martinez, said that finally receiving her tickets was “relieving.” She explained how many different shows she attempted to get tickets to before finally securing some, including countries like Mexico and Argentina saying, “My mom surprised me with the Liverpool tickets and I just sobbed. I was, oh my gosh, I don’t even have words.” From Swift’s grand entrance with “Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince,” to her closing with “Karma,” the concert was “magical” to Martinez; a familiar adjective to describe three hours and 15 minutes of the performance.
Not only did Swift provide an intensive concert experience, she made some of the biggest business moves in her career. Swift’s first surprise announcement was during Nashville’s first night, in which she told her fans about the release of her newest album; ‘Speak Now (Taylor’s Version).’ For those who don’t know, Swift is in the process of re-recording her first six studio albums due to loss of copyright after leaving her record company in 2018. She adds the title, “(Taylor’s Version)” on each re-recorded album to emphasize her ownership while also adding new songs “from the vault” on each re-record.
After ‘Speak Now’s’ release, Swift brought out movie star, Taylor Lautner, to preview their new music video of the song “I Can See You.” A month after that album’s release, Swift announced the release date of her album, ‘1989 (Taylor’s Version)’; which was set to release October 27, 2023 with five new “from the vault” tracks along with a deluxe track with Kendrick Lamar. While still amidst her success from both the tour and her re-records, she announced the Eras Tour movie which came out two weeks before ‘1989’s’ set date. She then decided to make the tour international, her first stop being Mexico.
Swift visited Australia, France, Brazil, and many more countries across five continents. However, Brazil’s shows were some of the least successful legs of the tour. During Swift’s stay in Rio de Janeiro, an extreme heat wave had passed over the city. Temperatures were as high as 138.74 degrees fahrenheit and shows were recommended to be cancelled, but they in fact weren’t.
One particular family suffered from the lack of precaution taken in this instance and were faced with an unfortunate heat exhaustion which led to the death of fan, Ana Clara Benevides Machado. Swift responded with an Instagram post expressing her sorrow and grief for the incident calling Machado, “incredibly beautiful and far too young.” Clips on social media went around of Swift’s actions during the concert like throwing water bottles into the crowd or ushering security to help pass out water: videos were also posted of Taylor trying to catch her breath and struggling not to pass out during her performance.
In spite of many trials throughout the tour, Swift remained with her strong social image and continued to prove to be a businesswoman as well as a musical artist. By the end of her tour, she wasn’t the only person on the stage who became financially prosperous. Swift reportedly gave 197 million in benefits to every employee that worked on the tour; including truck drivers, dancers, makeup artists, and instrument technicians. The Eras Tour represented both her past and present life, as she involved new chapters of her life such as new albums and even love interests, becoming one of the most impactful and successful musical tours of all time.
