The Staggering Economic Impact of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour

Author: Editors Desk Source: Time Magazine:

August 24, 2023 at 06:37

Taylor Swift onstage during the Eras Tour's final night in Los Angeles on Aug. 09, 2023. Kevin Winter/TAS23—Getty Images

The reasons behind the Eras Tour's unmatched success are many.

You don’t have to be a Swiftie to have been touched in some way by Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, a stadium arena experience that kicked off in March. The tour, which pays homage to every era of the artist’s illustrious 17-year career, is set to become the biggest tour of all time only a third of the way through its run.

If you live in one of the 20 locales Swift, 33, performed at in the last five months, your city has likely seen a boost in revenue from the hundreds of thousands of attendees who traveled from near and far. If you don’t—or simply couldn’t snag tickets due to the cost or the now infamous Ticketmaster snafu—chances are you’ve seen clips of the three-and-a-half hour show from celebrities’ Instagram stories

While there’s much to say about the music, costumes, and production, the impact of the Eras Tour is starkly reflected in the numbers: a projected gross of $2.2 billion in North American ticket sales alone, and hundreds of millions of streams, reaching a nearly 80% spike in those listening to her music catalog in the weeks after the tour kicked off.

After 53 shows, the first U.S. leg of the tour came to a close on Aug. 9. Swift originally announced 27 shows and has since extended the tour, adding new dates in cities like New Orleans, Indianapolis, and Toronto, which are all now anticipating a local economic boost. Eras is set to go international this month, starting with four shows in Mexico City, continuing its five-continent run through November 2024.

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