Taylor Swift’s two stints at Wembley this summer have left us with many lessons to learn — about the new wave of gig culture and attendee etiquette, but also just how far fans will go to see their favourite person in the flesh. As it turns out, parting with £600 on the spot is no bother, nor is spending three days making an outfit only destined to be worn for one evening, or waiting 12 hours outside Wembley Stadium to try and get to the front of the crowd.
Before any naysayers bemoan the insanity of it all — and yes, it is insanity — lest we forget the lengths that England fans went to when trying to catch a glimpse of their team at the Euros? Aside from the glitter and lack of flares, they’re not really that different. So let’s accept that the Swifties can teach us a lot about Londoners, and the human race at large. Here’s eight lessons we learned from Swift’s eight nights at Wembley.
1. Fans are willing to go to wild lengths to get tickets
Many fell foul of the main Taylor Swift ticket sales this year. Unlike the average fan, who would just throw up their hands and give up, Swifties have a determination heretofore unbeknown to humankind. It’s the type of behaviour aliens would study if they came to earth.
One of these ultra-committed Swifties was ticketless south Londoner Emily, 30, who got dressed and went to Wembley this weekend with nothing but her cowgirl boots and a dream. “We kept refreshing the third party sites all day and I even posted on LinkedIn to my 4,700 London connections for a miracle,” she told the Standard. “Outside the arena, Taylor had started and in the 13th hour we found some 'reduced' tickets online (still kind of expensive). We looked at each other and just went for it.
“It was like a movie sprinting to the entrance with the sun setting behind us. I think our experience was even better because in two minutes we'd gone from sitting on the curb outside imagining it, to dancing inside Wembley living it. It was 100 per cent worth it. Thank god I wore my cowgirl boots.”
As it turns out, Emily and her housemate parted with £500 each to get into the arena that evening. Quite a hefty price tag.
2. Taylor brought £300m to the London economy
Taylor Swift’s presence in the capital apparently raked in as much as £300m for the London economy, thanks to her eight days of performances and 700,000 total attendees. According to Visit London, our fair capital leads the way across the globe as a home for music, with 54 per cent of people saying they’d consider travelling to London for a music event that has taken place in the past year — meaning it beat New York, LA, Paris and other UK cities to the top spot.
And once people are here, they want to stay. That same Visit London polling found that 76 per cent of people would extend their trip after visiting a music event in London. That means ka-ching for the London economy.
3. People wanted to live the life of TayTay in London
Speaking of extending trips — what’s a Taylor Swift fan left alone in London meant to do? Go and explore every single spot Taylor ever visited or referenced, of course! Guides for “Taylor Swift’s London” became all the rage during her Eras tour legs in the capital, with many Swifties visiting old haunts from back when she was dating Joe Alwyn (Highgate and Hampstead Heath, primarily) or mapping out the places she had referenced in songs.
The Black Dog in Vauxhall, which is the same name as a song on The Tortured Poets Department, was apparently “overwhelmed” by Swifties, so much that it started offering Swift-themed burgers and cocktails. “We're just loving it, it's been so fun,” the pub’s event manager told the BBC. “All of the attention has been pretty overwhelming but we can't be happier.
4. Friendship bracelets are here to stay
Taylor Swift fans are known for their ritualistic trading of customised friendship bracelets at her shows. It started after the release of her album Midnights, which features a song called “You’re on Your Own, Kid”, where Swift sings "So, make the friendship bracelets, take the moment and taste it.”
Tom, a 28-year-old Swiftie living in Limehouse, said that your friendship bracelet making skill has got to be up to scratch though, otherwise people will be less willing to trade with you. “If you’re doing friendship bracelets be inventive,” he says. “I felt bad because kids kept asking me but everyone just has album titles.” Instead, he recommends doing an artist’s song names instead of their album titles.
Plus, the friendship bracelet trend doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere. As well as cropping up at other gigs, it has also been encouraged at this year’s Democratic National Convention. Bizarre.
5. Dressing up for gigs is the new normal
This had already been ushered in by the likes of Harry Styles and Beyoncé, but Swift’s presence in London for the Eras tour cemented the burgeoning trend of dressing up for gigs. Not just dressing up, but wearing full on costumes that took days to hand-stitch and assemble.
Certain Swifties got so inventive that their journeys to Wembley actually took them longer due to people complimenting their outfits. “It must have taken two hours to walk up Olympic Way after we got off the Tube at Wembley,” one Swiftie’s dad told the BBC. “Everyone was stopping to admire the dress or take photographs.”
6. Nobody is drinking, really
According to Swifties in attendance, it was a notably unboozy affair, which makes sense given that it’s a full three hours at Wembley. When you’ve already spent a mountain of money on the ticket, forking out for four or five rounds of drinks just doesn’t seem reasonable.
"One of the nicest things about the concert was seeing how everybody was having such a good time but without the need to drink loads,” said one attendee. “I didn't really see anybody getting too drunk and the bars weren't that busy — it really looked like people were just having fun sober, dancing away to their favourite songs fuelled by excitement, mostly."
7. There's a LOT of crying
Even if the beers weren’t flowing, the tears were. Swifties have ushered in a new era of emotional openness at shows, whether that be good or bad. Recall the video of the girl hearing Exile for the first time outside the Eras tour in Sydney.
Okay, it wasn’t that intense, but apparently it was not uncommon to see Swifties welling up, dabbing at their tear stained cheeks or just outright sobbing. Maybe the men at Arctic Monkeys et al could learn from this and blub a little when 505 kicks in, it would probably do them good.
8. It's now normal to film an entire concert — or even film yourself watching it
A writer from Balham who attended Monday night's show told the Standard she was shocked at quite how many teenage girls seemed to be filming the entire show on their phones: "It made me a little sad, to see all these 13-year-olds glued to their screens, switching from filming Taylor to 0.5 selfie videoing themselves singing along, constantly flitting between Snapchat, Instagram, Whatsapp and FaceTime. It looked exhausting; that seemingly compulsory need to produce live content for 3.5 hours straight. Forgive me for sounding like a grandma but what happened to going to a gig and being in the moment?"
Moreover, other attendees noticed Swifties filming for long segments, but with the phone set to front camera, capturing their reaction.
Overall, the Swifties are pretty innovative. A lot of their more unusual concert behaviours are actually a clear indication of what’s to come — so get yourself a bedazzler, an extra strong portable charger and some friendship bracelets, because some of these new habits ain’t going anywhere fast.
