Swifties secure tickets for Eras tour
Taylor Swift walks fans through decades of nostalgia and karma.
May 18, 2023
Are you ready for it? Taylor Swift kicked off her highly anticipated Eras Tour, culminating songs from almost every album she has put out, into a three hour-long concert.
With two openers, 44 songs, and additional surprise songs for her fans, Swift puts on a performance that brings you through decades of nostalgia, with a hint of karma. Her setlist is a whopping three hours long, ranging from about 2-6 songs from each album. The showcasing of Swift’s previous stages with this tour not only celebrates her re-recordings, but also unveils the live versions of songs from the albums she released in quarantine: Folklore and Evermore.
Throughout her career, Taylor Swift has undergone many transformations when releasing albums. From her early self-titled debut to her most recent release of Midnights, Swift’s style, production, aesthetic, and sound have changed and arguably improved. Since her early country days, her swift rise to fame has yet to halt and she has weaved her invisible string through genres of country, pop, alternative, indie, and even folk.
“Taylor Swift is an artist who diversifies her music through multiple genres. As a fan, you can really see the growth of her writing and styles from the release of her first album to Midnights,” commented Haley Hang ‘25.
These albums not only impact listeners’ lives, but they bring people together. Audiences from all walks of life come together to enjoy Taylor Swift’s music, and have given money and time just to witness a glimpse of Miss Americana herself.
Fiona Mulderig ‘25 spoke about Swift’s impact saying, “Taylor Swift has changed the music industry by being one of the first, and most influential, artists to ever switch from country to pop. I’m glad that she hasn’t forgotten her old music even with her newer albums doing so well.”
While the Eras Tour has yielded wide success, the preparations for the tour were nothing short of rocky. Tickets were first available to purchase through Ticketmaster on Nov. 15, 2022 but only for 1.5 million lucky fans who received Verified Fan codes.
As many were disappointed in not receiving pre-sale, chaos occurred when fans who had codes started reporting technical glitches including site crashes and extremely long waits; millions of fans were locked out.
Subsequently, Ticketmaster canceled the general sale planned for Nov. 18. A tweet from the office Ticketmaster account read, “Due to extraordinarily high demands on ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet that demand, tomorrow’s public on-sale for Taylor Swift | The Era’s Tour has been canceled.”
Swift spoke out about the fiasco, posting on her Instagram story, “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. It’s truly amazing that 2.4 million people got tickets, but it really pisses me off that a lot of them felt like they had to go through several bear attacks to get them.”
Even with all the pandemonium surrounding Ticketmaster, Swift’s Eras Tour has been and continues to be a huge success for the record books. Along with the multitude of awards and many records Swift has gathered, her tour also kicked off by beating the record for the most attended female concert in US history, previously held by Madonna. The final ticket count revealed that Swift’s opening night held an audience of over 69,000 in a stadium with a 72,200 people capacity.
A trailblazer in a multitude of ways, Taylor Swift has undoubtedly crowned herself the title of one of the greatest artists of all time with her fearlessness to call out a past lover, sexism within the music industry, and other social movements that call for change.
“The raw authenticity she exudes when communicating to her audience is a quality few performers have. […] knowing her worth is a powerful aspect– a tool she fluidly harnesses as a businesswoman,” remarked Hang. “She is a role model to all aspiring singers, adolescents, women, and anyone who has a dream because of this.”
She is constantly setting a precedent for future artists, so much so that fans wonder what else does the star have in store?