Claire Hedger | Writer & Chloe Gerhard | Writer
August 31, 2023
After Taylor Swift’s five-year break from touring, she has returned and is better than ever, carrying the economy on her back. In fact, Swift has generated almost $5 billion in global revenue in the United States alone.
Beginning in March, the Eras tour is a blend of all of Swift’s best hits. It follows the pop star’s various musical eras throughout her 17-year career, ranging all the way from her first album, Taylor Swift, to her latest, Midnights. The show spans over three hours, including 44 songs and two “surprise songs”, unique to each show. Junior Julia Sipelis, who attended the LA leg of the tour, described the show as “nothing like she’d ever seen before.”
“Every song had its own choreography. It was like watching 44 different shows back to back,” said Sipelis.
The complexity and sheer beauty of the show make the performance the biggest success of the summer. Yet, what makes the Swift’s tour unique from others is the fact that its success has reached farther than just Swift and her team. The Federal Reserve claims that Swift has boosted the economy and revived tourism in various cities. On opening night in Glendale, Arizona, the concert generated more revenue for local businesses than Super Bowl LVII, which was held in the same stadium earlier this year. Not only that, but the city of Chicago reported an all-time record of total hotel rooms occupied on the weekend Swift had three sold-out shows at Soldier Field.
The concert became a cultural phenomenon. Preparing for the concert, Swifties work tirelessly on their outfits and friendship bracelets for the big night. The trend of friendship bracelet making and trading stems from a lyric from a more recent song, Your On Your Own Kid in which she sings, “So make the friendship bracelets.” As a result of this phenomenon, friendships among fans skyrocketed as they traded bracelets and connected at the concert.
Senior Jordyn Banks expresses, “Not only did I get to see one of my favorite artists perform but I also had the chance to interact with other Swifties who were all so kind and welcoming.” She goes on to explain, “One of the most surprising things I witnessed was how many people gathered without tickets outside of the venue to listen.”
These ideals of friendship, kindness, and inclusiveness could be seen as the overarching theme of the tour. The concert environment connected fans through trading bracelets and sing-alongs. Some of Swift’s songs that were performed in the U.S. leg, like Mean and You Need to Calm Down, made inclusivity the anthem. These words were backed up with action as Taylor Swift generously gave her truck drivers $100,000 bonuses and donated money to the areas of need in each city she visited.
After taking a month break after the United States leg of the tour, the star has now gone international and is currently in Mexico City. Swift is set to take her Eras Tour to Latin America, Australia, Asia, and Europe in 2024. There is no telling what Taylor Swift has planned for us Swifties in the future, but if there’s one thing we know, anything is possible.
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