When we think of summer 2023, many of us think of Taylor Swift traveling from state to state to perform her The Eras Tour. Not only did Swift perform a 44-song, 10 Era, 3-hour concert, but she and her fans single-handedly boosted the economy, changed the lives of many and brought joy to millions.
Tickets and the Tour
When Taylor Swift first announced her tour, she announced 27 tour dates, but the demand for the concert was so high she had to expand that to 56 tour dates.
Even with the expansion of the tour, buying tickets was no easy task for Swifties .
Many fans knew they would have to fight for tickets, so they prepared.
This was the case for sophomore Sami Stimpert and her mother.
“My mom bought them. I had her log into my account while I was at school,” she added “She took the day off of work to wait in the queue.”
Ticketmaster was the online seller who sold retail tickets for the tour.
Ticketmaster was not able to keep up with the heavy traffic on the site during presale and the website crashed.
However, many fans had a positive experience with Ticketmaster before the website crashed.
“My experience before buying tickets was fine,” Junior Kelsey Cohen wrote in an email. “Everything went as it should, easily, but after it was awful.”
Ticketmaster faced lots of backlash for this issue, and this issue brought to light other issues people had with Ticketmaster.
One Taylor Swift fan sued Ticketmaster for engaging in monopolistic practices.
Ticketmaster is one of the only providers who sells tickets retail. Yes, there are other ticket distributors, but most of these sell resale tickets.
Cohen looked for tickets on resale sites after being unable to buy tickets during presale.
“I have tried to look for resale tickets, but I was scared of being scammed, so I hesitated,” she said. “I looked on sites like StubHub, but even with the tickets being resale, they are outrageously priced some way higher than the original prices.”
Some ticket prices on resale sites reached over $50,000, and some desperate fans actually bought them at ridiculously inflated prices.
Although Stimpert got tickets, it was not an easy task.
“It took hours,” she said. “Luckily [her mom] did not get kicked [off the Ticketmaster website] like many people did, but it took forever.”
But to Stimpert the whole process was completely worth it.
“It’s hard to put it into words,” she said. “It was like the best week of my life knowing that at the end of the week I would get to see Taylor Swift…The day was like a fever dream.”
Swift’s Contributions to the Economy:
According to reporting by CBS News, Swift’s tour may have added as much as $5 billion to the world economy.
Tourism increased in the cities she visited. Fans stayed in hotels, went shopping, ate at restaurants, and overall surplus spending by people in the cities she visited contributed to the economy.
Swift’s The Eras Tour is currently the highest grossing tour ever, and is predicted to earn over $2.2 billion.
In Chicago, Swift’s concert brought the highest wave of tourism in a single weekend in the city’s history.
Nearly 44,000 hotel rooms were occupied the weekend of her concert. This generated $39 million in hotel revenue from a single weekend in Chicago.
Stimpert attended the concert at Paycor Stadium in Cincinnati.
“We stayed in a hotel that was 30 minutes away from downtown,” Stimpert added. “We spent three days in the city and definitely went around downtown a lot.”
As many fans spent hundreds or even thousands of dollars on their tickets to the tour, they also spent hundreds of dollars on hotels, outfits, food, parking and more.
Swift’s Generosity:
Swift had 50 truck drivers who drove her set around the country her entire tour. At the end of her first U.S. leg of her tour she reportedly gave a $100,000 bonus to each of the truck drivers. In total, she gave her truck drivers $5 million in bonuses. As Swift earned a large amount of her money during her tour, she not only kept the money for herself, she made sure to share her earnings with others who deserved it.
How I Got Tickets, by Rachel Kanterovich
I had a slightly different experience while attempting to buy tickets. I signed up and got picked randomly by Ticketmaster for a presale code and also signed up for the Capital One presale as well. On Nov. 15, 2022, I anxiously waited in the presale queue for 17 hours. I recall being frustrated with my situation because I truly believed that I would be able to get easy and fast access to tickets with not one, but two presale codes. After spending two days in line for tickets, I completely quit trying.
However, my older cousin also had a code for the Capital One presale. She signed up for the Los Angeles shows while I signed up for the Cincinnati shows. The main difference with the two dates was not only the location of the cities, but the number of show dates that you could sign up for. Los Angeles initially had five show dates, which later turned into six, while Cincinnati had two.
Although California is a bigger state with more demand, she had an easier process of getting tickets for a venue that had more shows. In addition, Taylor also performed in Santa Clara, which is a few hours north of Los Angeles. This made the process easier as well because that meant not all of California and other surrounding states would be signing up for the Los Angeles dates.
There are many factors involved with getting tickets, one being the number of people in one ticket bundle. For example, there were five people in total in my group that went to the concert, but I know that some people were planning on going with one or two other people.
Another factor may seem risky but can be worth it. For example, my cousin recalls the only tickets that would show up for her were the VIP tickets. She said that she didn’t even think about the price and just bought the tickets with the idea of selling the others if needed. She knew that this would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and it’s perfectly fine to indulge on something like this.
The Long Wait in the Cue by Madeleine Mehler
In November 2022 I signed up for Ticketmaster presale on two different accounts. Not everyone who signed up for presale was approved to buy tickets, and some were placed on the waiting list.
Very few people who were put on the waiting list were actually able to get off of the waiting list, and even those who did get off the waiting list were not taken off until the middle of the pre-sale when it was too late to get tickets.
I first signed up on two different accounts and was approved for both of them during the first pre-sale in November. My dad tried to secure tickets on one account, and I attempted on the other. My dad was able to get into the portal to buy a ticket while I was waiting in the queue. My dad got in within 45 minutes and clicked on tickets to put them in his cart, and that’s when Ticketmaster crashed due to the traffic on the site.
As he attempted multiple times to secure tickets, my account was still stuck in the queue for hours. After trying for multiple hours, tickets eventually sold out, and I was not able to secure any. I was extremely bummed and saddened that I wasn’t able to get tickets because some resale tickets were selling for thousands of dollars, so I knew my chances of going to the concert were very slim.
My last hope was when Swift announced her international dates. I hoped she would come to Toronto, Canada, as it is only a few hours north of us.
When Swift announced International dates on June 20, 2023 there were no Canada dates. Many fans were defeated and had basically no hope left of being able to experience her show.
That was until Aug. 3, when Swift announced that she would be going on a second leg of the U.S. tour and added dates in Toronto, Canada.
I knew this would be my last chance of getting tickets, so I took every measure possible. I signed up with six different accounts for presale, for a total of 12 different dates. I was trying to get tickets for both her Toronto and Indianapolis shows.
When emails were sent out letting fans know if they were selected as a verified fan or put on the waiting list, I felt defeated. I was waitlisted on five accounts and had very minimal hope left for the last email, until I opened the email and read that I was selected as a verified fan.
I researched tips for waiting in the queue, the best browser to use, and what to do when let in to the ticket purchasing portal.
When the long awaited day came, and it was time to buy tickets, I made sure I had already linked my credit card information to my account. I used Microsoft Edge as my browser because I read online that it would be less busy than other browsers. Additionally, once I was in the waiting room, I did not refresh when I was entering the queue. I had read online that you DO NOT refresh when entering the queue or while in the queue because if you do, you will be placed very high in line. Due to not refreshing, I was placed at about 2500 in line, which was a very good spot because most people past 10000 in line were not able to secure tickets.
I was let into the portal to buy tickets only after about seven minutes of waiting in line. Once I entered the portal, I clicked on the first tickets I saw and was able to check out in only three minutes.
I felt such relief after getting tickets. I battled jealousy of missing out on the concert for months because my social media was filled with content from her tour. I spent hours on glitchy livestreams from fans streaming the concert. I was so thrilled to finally know that I will be experiencing the concert one day in person.
