The Taylorpalooza era is here and it’s unstoppable, even for the world’s largest ticket marketplace, Ticketmaster.
With 3.5 million individuals pre-registering to acquire Eras Tour tickets, Ticketmaster’s site collapsed during the presale back in December, and the corporation paused sales and subsequently canceled the scheduled general sale after hours of waiting and oversold tickets.
After not going on tour since 2018, Swift’s fan army managed to make a significant economic impact on businesses near concert venues. Local organizations, like Houston First, recorded an 87% hotel occupancy rate during the weekend of Swift’s performance, resulting in the highest hotel revenue week ever recorded. Concertgoers also boosted business for nearby parking lots and restaurants, according to Houston First.
The Eras Tour, which began with 52 dates, was eventually expanded to 146 across five continents. The record-breaking tour was filmed during six nights of concerts at Los Angeles’ SoFi Stadium, which will be turned into a 165-minute documentary-style film that will be released in theaters in October.
As the URI community recovers from pandemic restrictions, the institution restored the facility capacities and event sizes to normal capacity in July of last year. This implies that the live music industry is also reviving in a similar manner. Global data platform “Statista,” expects online ticket sales for music-related events to reach $33.8 billion this year, up 65% from 2022 and 49% from 2019, the last pre-pandemic year.
With over 120 student organizations at URI, it’s set up so getting involved and finding individuals with similar interests is tailored to the student’s appeal. One interest that is widely shared at URI is listening to Taylor Swift. The search for swifties was short-lived as there’s Taylor Swift fans all over our Kingston campus.
Some shared highlights from the Eras tour included Taylor’s surprise songs, which she played specifically for each night and wouldn’t be repeated again on tour.
“My absolute favorite part of the whole show was definitely the surprise songs, this is the part of her show where she plays two different songs that are not on the set list and the songs I got were ‘Better Man,’ and ‘Should’ve Said No,”’ Hannah Brodeur, second-year student at URI said.
Taylor additionally switched outfits 16 times throughout the show, which students responded enthusiastically to.
“During all the different eras she would come out with a whole new outfit and sometimes even change twice during the same era,” Brodeur said.
Adding to the unforgettable experience, students felt an emotional connection to Taylor’s performance. “The energy in the stadium was insane. My favorite part was probably how personal she made the concert feel with the many ways she interacted with the audience,” said Jasmine Babbitt, a third-year student here at URI.
“I had a really great experience, it was awesome seeing how many people were there and the culture was insane,” Babbitt said. “Everyone was dressed up to match a different ‘era’ of her music.”
Taylor Swift’s fan following is fervent, and one study claims that an Eras Tour concert in Seattle rocked the ground with the force of a 2.3-magnitude earthquake. You haven’t yet had the Taylor Swift experience if that doesn’t shake you up sufficiently.
These two URI students, along with many others, can attest to the universal experience that is attending a Taylor Swift concert. The atmosphere of these concerts is said to be unmatched and nothing like you’ve ever seen before.
“Everyone was just talking to each other about the past shows they’ve seen, swapping friendship bracelets, and dancing and singing together,” Brodeur said.
Taylor’s “Eras” tour has continued to highlight the singer’s star power around the world by closing down ticket marketplaces, and altering the course of local businesses for the rest of the year in just one night. For example, During Swift’s April performance weekend, a Houston Drybar hair salon witnessed a large surge in reservations. The salon’s manager, Jaimie James, reported roughly 100 more customers than normal as admirers sought haircuts inspired by Taylor Swift’s many periods. Today, with A-list celebs attending every show, no Swift news has gone unnoticed. Every show has become a news event.
Whether you identify as a Swiftie or not, according to Ben Sesario from the New York Times, there was a ferocious demand for Taylor Swift’s “Eras Tour” that had not been witnessed since the 1980s. An authority that the 21st century’s fragmented entertainment business has generally regarded as being exceedingly hard to recreate anytime soon.