After 152 planned shows, and 150 actual performances, Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour officially ended just about one year ago. This tour lasted 632 days (21 months), beginning on March 17, 2023, in Glendale, Ariz., and concluding on Dec. 8, 2024, in Vancouver, British Columbia.
History Made by The Eras Tour
With a tour that lasted almost two years, with at least of the 150 shows lasting roughly three and a half hours, records are destined to be broken. Starting off with arguably the biggest record broken, and that is that this was the highest grossing tour of all time! Often being compared to Elton John’s farewell tour, which lasted five years and made $929 million, after 328 shows, The Eras Tour managed to make a stunning $2 billion! The show attendance was even one of the highest of all time, with the highest attendance being in the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Australia, with roughly 96,000 people at each of the three nights. So many Swifties who did not get tickets still attended the show by “Taygating” – large groups of Swifties gathered outside the stadiums and sung along with each song, along with trading friendship bracelets.
In addition, the “Eras Tour” movie became the highest-grossing concert film ever, making $250 million in ticket sales worldwide, despite Swift playing by her own rules and bypassing Hollywood, investing up to $20 million herself to partner directly with AMC. This movie even caused AMC to reach the highest single-day ticket sales record at $26 million in 24 hours!
This tour also broke social media, with around 30,000 people tuning into each show, with numbers reaching higher during the surprise songs/acoustic sets. Social media platforms were flooded with about 1.9 million videos, with early ones going viral by doing the “Bejeweled” dance, which was originally created by Mikael Arellano as part of the choreography on tour. And, there are so many more niche records that this tour broke.
Economic Impact of The Eras Tour
The way this tour boosted the economy is simply unfathomable. It raised nearly $10 billion by the time it wrapped up. It was estimated that the average attendee spent about $1,300 on travel, food and merchandise for the tour. So many traditions become a vital part of this tour, with the most common being the friendship bracelets, which all started because of the lyric, “So make the friendship bracelets/Take the moment and taste it” from the song “You’re on Your Own, Kid” (from the “Midnights” album), which caused a 40 percent chainwide increase in jewelry sales at Michael’s craft stores alone. F1 drivers and professional soccer players even started handing out friendship bracelets, and because of all this, there was a 300 percent increase in beads and jewelry leading up to the concerts!
Cities also got ready, with each city trying to top the last. In Glendale, Ariz., where the tour started, the mayor said, “And now therefore, I, Jerry P. Weiers, mayor of the city of Glendale, on behalf of our city council, do hereby proclaim that on March 17 and 18, 2023, the city of Glendale will be renamed Swift City,” then in Las Vegas, they lit up their Gateway Arches the colors of Swift’s albums on March 24-25. After that, Arlington, Texas, went a step further on March 31 to April 2, when they named a street “Taylor Swift Way,” and even gave Swift a key to the city. But then, on April 13-15, in Tampa, Fla., their mayor said, “We know Glendale changed its name, Arlington made a street sign and Vegas illuminated their Gateway Arches, but here in Tampa, we’ve got a reputation to uphold,” then pronounced Swift as mayor and referred to Tampa as “Tampa (Taylor’s Version).” City after city kept doing tributes to Swift, such as in Nashville, Tenn., where they dedicated a bench to her. Even businesses released statements to employees, adjusting their policies on missing work to attend shows, and of course, these statements were filled with song titles or references. Some pop-up shops traveled alongside the tour, although not officially affiliated with it. Some cities had Taylor Swift-only radio stations, some cities even cut messages into fields for Swift to see when flying in, some made citywide scavenger hunts for Swifties and so much more!
Events during The Eras Tour
“Hey, Stop!” is seen as one of the most iconic parts of this tour. It happened on May 13, 2023, when Swift yelled at a stadium security member to leave one of her fans alone during the song “Bad Blood.” Swift said, “She’s fine!” pointing at the fan, “She wasn’t doing anything!” The next day on May 14, the fan posted a TikTok story, giving her side of the story on her friend’s account under the user @caityg33. “Basically the guard had been harassing our group all night,” she said. “He just kept telling us not to touch the rail and any time we did anything, he was on top of us. Taylor noticed that I was having fun and that he didn’t like it and she didn’t like it, and he basically got escorted out and they got us all free tickets for the night.” That was just one iconic moment out of many on the tour.
Another moment was the Swift Quake in Seattle, Wash., on July 22-23, 2023. This was a 2.3 magnitude earthquake that occurred both nights, according to seismologist Jackie Caplan-Auerbach, and it actually was caused by the 72,000 fans dancing, jumping and singing. “I grabbed the data from both nights of the concert and quickly noticed they were clearly the same pattern of signals,” Caplan-Auerbach said, adding, “If I overlay them on top of each other, they’re nearly identical.” When comparing to the “Beast Quake” that was 0.3 magnitude, caused by football fans in 2011 at the same stadium, this was undoubtably more than twice the size.
Aside from those two iconic moments, the one that takes the win has to be the entire first night. No one knew what to expect, no one knew what would happen after the clock, no one knew the setlist and no one knew that the show would last three and a half hours! After that night, “Cruel Summer” became The Eras Tour song, essentially. After that night in Glendale, Ariz., the Swiftball timer became a thing, with Swifties guessing how long Swift’s standing ovation would be each night after her final “Champagne Problems” performance. Right before the first U.S. leg of the tour ended in the six-night run in Los Angeles, Swift received an eight-minute standing ovation from her fans, and it is important to note that this standing ovation was never just clapping or cheering; it was screaming from the fans to show their support to Swift.
As the tour continued, Swift gave Swifties even more surprises, but one of the more subtle ones was when Swift kept a note change in “And Take Her Home” from the song “the 1”, while performing the tour, and it got to a point where some Swifties began to expect it while listening to the actual song. Then, during one of her Nashville shows, it rained, and then rain shows became a part of the tour, where many Swifties hoped to get rain .
On June 24, 2023, in Minneapolis, Minn., Swift performed “Dear John” for the first time live in 11 years! “Long Live” even got added to the setlist on July 7, 2023 and stayed on the setlist until March 9, 2024, with the original koi fish guitar from her “Speak Now” era in 2010. In Los Angeles on Aug. 3, Swift gave the “22” hat to Bianka Bryant, Kobe and Vanessa Bryant’s daughter. In Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Nov. 10, 2023, Swift changed the lyric from “Karma” to “Karma is the guy on the Chiefs” from “Karma is the guy on the screen,” and this instantly went viral, and each show after that, fans listened closely to hear if she changed it for their show.
For the Super Bowl in 2023, Swift defied all odds to see her now-fiancé Travis Kelce play for the Kansas City Chiefs, by flying 12 hours to Japan afterwards and dealing with the seven-hour time change to perform her show that night. At Wembley Stadium on the first night to celebrate his 42nd birthday, the Prince of Wales attended with his children, and Swift then posted a selfie with all of them on her social media. After 131 shows with the same “Reputation” bodysuit, Swift came out in a new one on Night 1 of Miami on Oct. 18, 2024. In Swift’s second-to-last night in Toronto, she gave Swifties one of the most unhinged mashups with “Cassandra” x “Mad Woman” x “I Did Something Bad.” On April 22, 2023, at some point between the quick outfit change for “Anti Hero” from the “Midnights” era, and “Tolerate It,” the last song in the “Evermore” section of the set list, Swift cut her hand and had a pretty noticeable gash and still performed with it. Then on Nov. 20, 2023, during the “Lover” era, Swift’s Louboutin boot heel broke, and Swift momentarily stopped the performance to tear the heel part off and threw it to a fan in the crowd; after that Swift keep her heel in the position as if she still was wearing the heel and finished out the era set. Even with all of these iconic moments, there are still so many left, not to mention The Errors Tour. Because of all these, it has been common among Swifties, to know that every show is really famous for something.
Announcements:
Speak Now:
Swift really made Swifties remember moments in the back of our minds when she announced “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)” and “1989 (Taylor’s Version).” “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)” was annnounced on May 5, 2023, in Nashville, Tenn., with Swift saying, “I’ve been planning something for a while, It’s my love language with you. I plot. I scheme. I plan. And then I get to tell you about it.” Then, the announcement started flashing on the main screen, and her saying, “I think, rather than me speaking about it … I’d rather just show you.”
This was a major point in the tour. Oo July 7, 2023, the album released with the “I Can See You” music video premiere during the acoustic set, so that way the Swifties in attendance would get to see it first. With this, she also brought out her co-stars from the video including Taylor Lautner, who backflipped down the catwalk, and Joey King and Presley Cash to join her on stage.
1989:
For the “1989 (Taylor’s Version)” announcement, fans were speculating for a while, especially now that they knew announcements during the tour were on the table. There had been glimpses of the “1989” blue, with blue outfits and more. Swift decided to do the announcement on the final night in L.A., saying, “Here we are on the last night of the U.S. leg of the Eras tour in the eighth month of the year on the ninth day. You might have noticed there are some new outfits in the show. There’s something that I’ve been planning for a really, really, really ridiculously, embarrassingly long time, and instead of telling you about it, I think I’ll just sort of show you,” with “1989 (Taylor’s Version)” shining across the screen and Swift going straight into performing “New Romantics.”
With “The Tortured Poets Department,” while it was not necessarily a special announcement, Swift wrote the album during the tour and announced its release when she won a Grammy for Best Pop Vocal Album for “Midnights” on Feb. 4, 2024. The album was set to release on April 19, 2024, and many easter eggs surrounded this album. The album was released during a break in the tour, and when the tour returned, the choreography and the setlist changed to now include “TTPD.”
Now, let us look back at all the special guests who took the stage with Swift during this tour, in no particular order.
On July 1, 2023, Gracie Abrams sang “I miss you I’m sorry” with Swift during the acoustic set, and on June 23, 2024 and Nov. 16, 2024, Abrams sung “us.” On June 23, 2024, Travis Kelce took the stage for a comedic bit before the “I Can Do It With A Broken Heart” performance. On June 3, 2023, Maren Morris sang “You All Over Me” during the acoustic set, marking it the first time the two have performed the song live together. During the “evermore” set on July 22, 2023, July 28, 2023, and August 9, 2023, Swift swapped “Tis the Damn Season” for “No body, No Crime” to perform the song with HAIM, with this being the first time they opened for the tour. Then on the July 28, they went all out, dressing up in the same dresses from the “Bejeweled” music video (except Swift). On May 5, 2023, Swift performed “Nothing New” with Phoebe Bridgers. On June 22, 2024, Hayley Williams performed “Castles Crumbling” from “Speak Now,” as she is featured on that song. On Feb. 23, 2024 and Oct. 26, 2024, Sabrina Carpenter preformed a mashup of “White Horse” from “Fearless” and Coney Island from “Evermore” on Feb. 23, and then on the Oct. 26, they performed “Espresso” and “Please Please Please” form Carpenter’s “Short n’ Sweet” album. On April 14, 2023, and May 7, 2023, Aaron Dessner performed “The Great War” from “Midnights” on April 14, and then on May 7, performed “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve” from the “Midnights” album. The two even performed another two times on June 17, 2023, preforming “seven” from “Folklore,” and on July 1, 2023 performing “Ivy” from “Evermore.” On May 27, 2023, Ice Spice performed her “Karma” remix with Swift from the “Midnights” album. On March 25, 2023, Marcus Mumford performed “Cowboy Like Me” from “Evermore.”
Chants and Traditions in The Eras Tour
“1, 2, 3, let’s go bitch” straight into the chants and traditions. The Swiftie community made this tour more special than any tour ever from dressing up for Swift’s concerts starting in her original “Fearless” era, the tradition has grown. Swifties dress up in outfits relating to Swift. Another tradition was the friendship bracelets.
Chanting during Swift’s shows has been around for a while, but it really shined during this tour. After “Band-aids don’t fix bullet holes, you say sorry just for show, if you live like that, you live with ghosts” during “Bad Blood,” Swifties would chant, “You forgive, you forget, but you never let it [pause] go!” quoting one of Kendrick Lamar’s lines from the feature on that song.
One of the most famous chants was “1, 2, 3, let’s go bitch” from the “Reputation” era after the first verse of “Delicate” and before “We can’t make any promises, now can we, babe? But you can make me a drink.”
Starting first in 2009 during the “Fearless” tour, during the song “Fearless” bridge, “It’s the first kiss, it’s flawless, really something / It’s fearless,” Swifties put their hands above their head and make hand hearts along with Swift.
Another long-standing chant is during “You Belong With Me” from the “Fearless” era, where Swifties clap twice during the bridge, “I’m the one that makes you laugh, when you know you’re ’bout to cry.”
From the “Red” era, there are technically two chants from “All Too Well,” the first one being before the line “and that made me want to die,” Swifties would yell, “How did that make you feel?” The second chant was in the third verse, “And you were tossing me the car keys, “Fuck the patriarchy” Keychain on the ground,” Swifties would yell as loud as they could, “Fuck the patriarchy!”
“It’s me, hi” the “Anti-Hero” chant (from the “Midnights” era), after Swift sings, “Did you hear my covert narcissism I disguise as altruism like some kind of congressman?” Swifties would chant, “Taylor, you’ll be fine.”
Another chant from the “Midnights” era was during “Bejeweled” where Swifties would chant, “Where are you going, Taylor?” before she sung, “I’m going out tonight.”
During the “Evermore” era when Swift sung “Marjorie,” (the song wrote as a tribute to Swift’s late grandmother, who was an opera singer that died when Swift was only 13), fans would hold up their phones with their flashlights on and sway back-and-forth.
From “You Need to Calm Down” during the “Lover” era, fans made sure to sing, “’Cause shade never made anybody less gay!” as loud as possible. Another chant from the “Reputation” era, was from “Don’t Blame Me;” right before Swift would sing, “Lord, save me, my drug is my baby,” Swifties would chant, “Take us to church” or “Take us to church, Taylor.” From the “1989” era, right before Swift starts the song “Style,” fans would chant, “Hey Taylor, what time is it?” to which Swift would say, “Midnight” by starting the song. From the same era, during “Blank Space” when Swift would sing, “But I’ve got a blank space, baby / And I’ll write your name,” Swifties either would chant, “Sydney!” or whatever city their show was at, by this starting in Sydney from Taylor’s Australian leg of her “1989 World Tour.”
Another huge part of the tour was the app Swift Alert. This had a feature called Mastermind where Swifties could guess what outfits Swift was going to wear for the show that night. You would get so many points for guessing each outfit or each part of an outfit, and you could also guess what surprise songs she was going to play. It became a joke after the REP bodysuit stayed the same for way over half of the tour, and since it was the only variation for that era, it was an almost guarantee that you would get the two points.
Media from The Eras Tour
From concerts to videos to streams to theaters and finally at home, The Eras Tour was the tour of all time. The official movie was announced on Aug. 31, 2023, on “Good Morning America” on ABC, and then, it was announced to be worldwide on Sept. 26, 2023.
Then on Swift’s social media, Oct.13, 2023, was set as the theater release date.
With this movie, Swift skipped working with Hollywood studios, invested her own money and partnered directly with AMC Theaters. This was something almost unheard of, and it caused her to get hate, but that was quickly covered with the amount of support around the film. On Oct. 4, 2023, AMC said in a press release that “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” had sold more than $100 million tickets on presale globally.
On Oct. 11, 2023, the film premiered, with Swift making an appearance at The Grove in Los Angeles, wearing a blue strapless gown from Oscar de la Renta.
Swift even went around to each theater, starting in Theater 14 and ending at Theater 1 IMAX. She gave a speech at each theater, with Theater 2 getting to watch the film with her after she said, “You’re stuck with me, because I’m gonna, like, sit with you and watch this thing.” Meanwhile, when Swift was watching in Theater 2, with some Swifties, other Swifties watched with the dancers in Theater 1. This debuted in more than 8,500 theaters in more than 100 countries on that Friday, also being played at every ODEON Cinemas in Europe.
Swifties were surprised to find out the total run time was 2 hours and 49 minutes, meaning some parts of the show were cut out. Only “Fearless” and “Midnights” were not cut at all; otherwise “The Archer” from “Lover,” “No Body No Crime” from “Evermore,” “Long Live” from “Speak Now,” “Cardigan” from “Folklore” and “Wildest Dreams” from “1989” were all cut from the film. The filming for this movie was the first three nights at SoFi Stadium in L.A. Swifties knew that the acoustic set would be limited, but Swift made excellent choices and chose songs that most everyone was happy with. She played “Our Song” from her self-titled debut era on guitar and “You’re On Your Own, Kid” from her “Midnights” era (and the song that started the friendship bracelets tradition) on piano. Songs that were recorded but did not make the final cut were “I Can See You” from “Speak Now” and “Maroon” from “Midnights,” both played on Night 1; “You Are in Love” from “1989” on Night 2; and “Death by a Thousand Cuts” from “Lover” on Night 3. While “Long Live” was cut, it soundtracked the closing credits, where Swift said, “Thank you to the most generous, thoughtful, loving fans on the planet. This is all because of you, and for you.” After the film was in theaters, it went to stream on Disney+ as “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (Extended Version),” having a total runtime of 3 hours and 30 minutes. This now included “Wildest Dreams” (“1989”), “The Archer” (“Lover”) and “Long Live” (“Speak Now”). Swift decided to release this for her 34th birthday on Dec. 13, 2023.
To end the tour, Swift announced the official Eras Tour book, along with “The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology” vinyl and CD, both as Target Exclusives, on Oct. 15, 2024. These had a store release date of Nov. 29, 2024, and then, they were available online. These sold out almost instantly online, and on Nov. 29, with that being Black Friday, Target opened earlier than usual just for the book, vinyl and CD. This had people waiting in line for hours just to get one, with many even camping outside overnight.
With the final shows, many Swifties think that a documentary was in the works, and this has been consistent throughout most of the tour. Theories only strengthened after Swift dropped the “I Can Do It With A Broken Heart” official music video, as it showcased clips behind the scenes of the tour.
Now, the final show of the tour film is out, along with a six-episode documentary series.
Ticketmaster War with The Eras Tour
Thousands of Swifties survived the great Ticketmaster war, but many soldiers fell along the way. The tour was announced on Nov. 1, 2022, with the presale starting on Nov. 15, 2022, at 10 a.m. with only the original 27 dates. Because this was Swift’s first tour in five years, the tickets were basically like gold! On Nov. 11, 2022, Swift added 17 dates to the original 27, making this tour bigger than the Reputation Stadium Tour. Ticketmaster experienced mass outages and vast delays during sales. Ticketmaster said the site was working normally and that people were actively buying tickets. But, many fans waited hours in a virtual queue, just to come out empty handed. This even made Swift get hate, as people started to blame her, despite Ticketmaster assuring her that the site would be fine. “There are a multitude of reasons why people had such a hard time trying to get tickets and I’m trying to figure out how this situation can be improved moving forward. I’m not going to make excuses for anyone because we asked them, multiple times, if they could handle this kind of demand and we were assured they could,” Swift said in an interview with Variety, “It’s truly amazing that 2.4 million people got tickets, but it really pisses me off that a lot of them feel like they went through several bear attacks to get them.” Despite all of this, Swifties tried to make the best of it, making jokes all around social media, with some being memes and some being relatable to other Swifties.
“REP TV” during The Eras Tour
The amount of times that Swifties clowned for “REP TV” during this tour deserves space here. This was so prevalent that it became almost an inside joke among Swifties surrounding the tour. Even when “The Tortured Poets Department” was ready to release, people made many connections to “REP,” especially when Target had a code name for it as “Serpentine,” which is similar to “snake.” Many theories arose throughout the tour, and despite some of them being convincing, “REP TV” never was announced during the tour. Theories even arose for it not being released since “Reputation” has the catchphrase, “There will be no explanation. There will be just reputation.” Some Swifties think Swift will announce or even just drop the album. Some Swifties still think this even after the letter of Swift buying back her masters and saying that she could not bring back those feelings.
Because of all of the theories, many jokes arose, with people dressing as clowns for shows, wearing clown wigs for the “Reputation” set and editing clown wigs on themselves. Swift even started playing along with the theories, giving easter eggs, but no one knows if they are real or just her playing into the joke. For instance, she put in the Eras Tour movie premiere day post a caption on Oct. 11, 2023, ending it with, “Getting in the car now…” referencing “Getaway Car” from “Reputation.” Some theories even included her debut, her self-titled album, with some Swifties saying that she would announce or drop both at the same time. This became a popular topic to the point that the theorized announcement or release got the name “debutation.” Click here to dive into the theories
Content Creators with The Eras Tour
This tour meant so very much to so many people. Throughout the tour, Swifties turned to various content creators to watch their livestreams or to see their content related to the tour. Some of the creators known in the Swiftie community were @jonathanmillermusic, @swiftieinkc, @lysss117, @eurosweetheart, @bookbeedani,@kyle_andrew8, @nikkiking23, @audreymartha, @carols.corner4, @worthyenoughdesigns, @nicks.version, @creativechronicles, @repudaytion, @v_swiftie_, @bryanwesttv, @hannahmichelle13, @nikki.gough, @jessicalynnslocum, @jam_kjmiller, @13tywilson, @kristebm.13, @tessdear and so many more! Those creators mentioned have most of their following on TikTok and made this tour so much more special than it already was, and from those listed, that just skimmed the surface of the creators that made content around the tour, but those are some of the more well-known ones.
**This is all parts combined to a six story series
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