Taylor Swift’s Eras tour reached its final curtain last weekend and, as expected, it has broken all sorts of records.
In terms of ticket sales alone the tour has grossed nearly $2.1 billion – that’s nearly $1 billion more than the previous record holder, Coldplay’s Music Of The Spheres tour. Swift has spent 484 hours on stage – that’s over 20 straight days performing. Her average concert time was three hours and fifteen minutes. Whilst there were initial grumblings about high ticket prices, Swifties seem to have got bang for their buck.
Swift has played to over 10 million fans over its 149 dates. Eras has also generated wealth in all the cities in which she’s played – in the UK alone, it added an estimated £1 billion to the UK economy.
The tour has also unsurprisingly made Swift extremely rich – she’s now the world’s most wealthy female musician with a net worth of over $1.6 billion.
However, Swift hasn’t kept all of that for herself. According to the US outlet People she has given £197 million of that away in the form of bonuses to the crew that kept the Eras show on the road these past eighteen months – all the truck drivers, instrument techs, merch teams, caterers, dancers, riggers, wardrobe stylists, lighting, sound and production staff that without whom you wouldn’t have a stadium show in the first place.
The tour's final concert was in Vancouver on Sunday and Swift gave an emotional speech, thanking her army of fans for “being part of the most thrilling chapter of my entire life to date.”
“Making friends and bringing joy to each other, that is, I think, the lasting legacy of this tour, is the fact that you have created such a space of joy and togetherness and love,” she said.
“I couldn’t be more proud of you, honestly, that is all you. That is what people think about when they think about this tour, is how they felt out in the crowd with you. I just want to say that, you’re why this is so special. And you supporting me for as long as you have is why I get to take these lovely walks down memory every single night because you cared about every era of my entire life that I’ve been making music, so thank you.”
Swift performed Karma, taken from the Midnights album, before she departed the stage after her final show. But given her incredible work ethic – in the last five years she’s released five new albums, as well as several re-recordings of all her old ones – it surely won’t be long before she returns..
