Taylor Swift’s 21-month tour is a look back at the Eras era

What the Eras Tour has to Offer: Swift’s Unexpected Contribution to Local Economic Development in the U.S. and Beyond

Swift credited her fans on her final night on the tour, which she described as the most thrilling chapter of her life. Swifties started their own tradition like trading friendship bracelets in the crowd and chanting and clapping at specific cues with archer-like precision.

The tour, an autobiographical journey through Swift’s extensive discography, started in Arizona in March 2023. Swift performed more than 150 shows in over 50 cities over the next 630 days.

The 10 acts of the show are divided into eras ofSwift’s career and each has its own color scheme, costume and stage design.

A steady stream of surprises, setlist changes and special guests held fans’ attention for the duration of the tour, with many tuning into livestreams and following dedicated fan accounts on social media.

Much has been written about how the tour boosted local economies in the U.S. and around the world. Fans traveled hundreds or even thousands of miles, sometimes for more than one show, spending money on lodging, food and costumes along the way.

They don’t count the secondary market of online ticket sellers. According to StubHub, the Eras Tour was the biggest-selling tour in the platform’s two-decade history, and last year it outsold Beyoncé’s shows by a factor of five. Another ticketing company, Victory Live, said the average price for resold tickets to the Eras Tour’s three Vancouver dates was $2,952. Swift did not make any money from resold tickets.

The New York Times reported this week that the tour’s total ticket sales had brought in more than $2 billion, which was the first time that’s had been confirmed.

That’s not including the secondary market of ticket sellers (remember when a botched Ticketmaster rollout prompted a Senate hearing and class-action lawsuit against the company?).

The Kansas City Chiefs Tour of 2022, the Live Nation Tickets Fiasco, and an Antitrust Ticket Supremum: The Case against Live Nation

Then came the tour and the folkways that developed around it, like fans trading hand-assembled friendship bracelets. After the tour’s stop in Kansas City, Mo., a public flirtation between Swift and Travis Kelce, the star tight end of the Kansas City Chiefs, developed into a full-on romance, with the pop star and the football hunk sharing a field-level smooch after the Chiefs defeated the San Francisco 49ers at Super Bowl LVIII in February. The photographers didn’t miss it.

The tour seemed to contain its own eras as it took shape. First, in November 2022, came the ticket fiasco, when Ticketmaster was overwhelmed by what it said were 3.5 billion online requests for tickets, many from scalpers’ bots. The furor over those problems caused a Senate Judiciary hearing in which lawmakers called Live Nation a monopoly and openly discussed the problems with them. The Justice Department filed an antitrust suit against Live Nation, calling for a separation of the company.

The tour narrowly avoided a catastrophe when a terrorist bomb plot was discovered before three planned shows in Vienna. The events were never re-scheduled.