Taylor Swift ended The Eras Tour on Dec. 8, 2024 in Vancouver, Canada, after touring for almost two years beginning on March 17, 2023 in Glendale, Arizona. Within these two years she played 149 shows total. Over the course of this tour, she made $2 billion in ticket sales alone and reportedly earned about $10 – $13 million per show. Around 10 million people attended in total; the highest attendance being Wembley Stadium with over 700,000 people attending across all eight nights.
The tour included many special guests. The North American leg included various artists, most notably Paramore, Phoebe Bridgers, HAIM and Gracie Abrams. Bridgers joined Swift on stage during the time she opened to play their song “Nothing New,” which is a vault track from the album “Red.” The HAIM sisters also joined Swift on stage to sing the song “No Body, No Crime.” Although not an opener, Ice Spice made an appearance during the song “Karma” where she is featured in the remix “Karma (feat. Ice Spice)” during the shows at MetLife. Later in the tour, Florence Welch joined Swift on stage during the Tortured Poets Department set to sing their song “Florida!!!” (feat. Florence & The Machine.) A lot of these artists came back to play internationally too. Sabrina Carpenter also played international dates. For the eight shows at Wembley Stadium, Swift announced eight artists to perform one night for each London show. These artists included Suki Waterhouse, Maisie Peters, and Raye amongst others. Swift also included Carpenter, Abrams, Hailey Williams (lead singer of paramore,) Jack Antonoff (one of Swift’s producers,) and more in surprise song performances. Although not a musical guest, Travis Kelce, a tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs and Swift’s current boyfriend, appeared as one of her backup dancers in a performance put on before playing “I Can Do It With A Broken Heart” on her third night in London at Wembley Stadium.
Swift also worked on plenty of projects during this tour. Her first project was “Midnights (Til Dawn Edition)” which is an extended version of her album “Midnights” released on May 26, 2023. This featured “Hits Different,” “Snow on the Beach (feat. More Lana Del Rey)” and “Karma (feat. Ice Spice.)” On May 5, 2023 she announced “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)” which was released later that summer. On Aug. 9, 2023 she announced “1989 (Taylor’s Version)” which was released later that fall. Swift also announced at the 2024 Grammys that her newest album “The Tortured Poets Department” was to be released on April 19, 2024. She then opened with a new concert set list including songs from the new album on the first show after the album‘s release. These albums also included music videos filmed before and during the tour. They include “I Can See You (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault,)” “Fortnight (feat. Post Malone,)” and “I Can Do It With A Broken Heart.” She also released the single “You’re Losing Me (From The Vault.)” Swift was also featured on other artist’s projects like Abrams’ song “us.” (feat. Taylor Swift)” on her newest album “The Secret of Us.” Swift also released a concert film on Oct.13, 2023, which ended up being the highest grossing concert film of all time. A book was released of the tour on Nov. 29, 2024 just before it ended called “The Eras Tour Book.”
Fanbase traditions and inside jokes were also very prominent in this tour. Fans dressed up referencing their favorite album or song. They also dressed up as people related to songs and made costumes to match ones she wore on tour. Friendship bracelets are the most famous thing to come out of this tour. Inspired by lyrics from her song “You’re On Your Own Kid,” a fun fan project started. During tailgates and the concert itself fans would distribute and trade homemade friendship bracelets that were themed off of certain albums, lyrics, inside jokes and the infamously long acronyms developed by fans for long song names. Towards the end of her concert, the Superdome stadium in New Orleans created a blow up friendship bracelet that wrapped around the stadium. After fans realized that Swift has many different outfits for her shows (over 60 in total,) started to become a game of guessing outfits and surprise songs, which are also different at each show. After a while, an app called Mastermind was created. In this app, you could guess all her outfits, guitars used and surprise songs played, getting a point for each guessed correctly.
This tour changed more than fans’ and Swift’s lives. Because of the tour’s popularity, every stadium was completely sold out. This not only helped Swift, but it also helped the community around the stadium. Each city performed in had millions of dollars in tax revenue earned in transportation, hospitality and food. Swift also donated to food banks in each city she visited. Swift’s concerts have also made ecological changes. It is a joke in the fandom that Swift controls the weather due to many coincidences with Swift throwing her hands up and lighting striking and rain beginning during the song “Fearless,” which talks about dancing in the rain. These concerts also created real ecological events. During a show in Seattle, the stadium caused the equivalent of a 2.3 magnitude earthquake.
Overall, this tour changed not only Swift’s career, but many artists and athletes as well. It broke record after record in the music industry and boosted every city’s economy that she visited. It was also the reason for making her a billionaire. The tour was titled the most successful tour in the music industry.
