The End of an Era: Taylor Swift Concludes “The Eras Tour”

On March 17th, 2023, the world watched as Taylor Swift, the biggest artist on the planet, began “The Eras Tour” which would span 149 shows in 22 countries, generating over 2 billion dollars from the tour alone. The tour sold over 10 million tickets and was performed across 6 continents, bringing billions of dollars to any city where she performed. She broke the record for the highest-grossing tour ever, as well as being the first artist to make a billion dollars from her music alone.

Kicking off in Glendale, Arizona, Swift began her US leg of the tour, performing 52 shows across the United States, including a finale in SoFi stadium with 6 shows, an album announcement, and recording her record-breaking Eras Tour film. 

 

2023 On Tour

In her first year of being on tour, Swift took part in her US Leg of the Eras Tour, announcing and releasing two albums while on the road; both albums were re-recordings of Speak Now (2010) and 1989 (2014). Both albums did extraordinarily well: All 22 of Speak Now TV (Taylor’s Version) songs made it to the Bill Top 100 on release day, became the #1 country album for the 8th time, and 7 of those songs made the top 10 hot country songs.

When Speak Now TV was released, Swift also premiered the “I Can See You” music video live from her July 7th show in Kansas City, Missouri. She was joined in stage by co-stars Joey King, Taylor Lautner, and Presley Cash. The video was then released online for all fans on July 8th. It was also during this time when now-boyfriend Travis Kelce met Taylor Swift, and their highly-scrutinized relationship began, being closely watched by swifties, football fans, and the world.

In October of 2023, 1989 TV dwarfed Speak Now TV’s release. With 1.6 million units sold, the album surpassed her original 1989 release by over 600,000 units. The album hit #1, marking Swift’s 13th chart-topper, with 4.6 billion streams amassed since its release in 2023.

Swift was reportedly selling 14 million dollars worth of tickets every single night according to Pollstar, making nearly 750 million dollars throughout her 52 shows held in the US. Ticketmaster also became a hot subject during early 2023, with technical problems and faulty tickets being sold that caused hundreds of thousands of Swifties in multi-hour queues to lose their tickets. This “great war” that Swifties falsely embarked on caused Ticketmaster to undergo heated trials, which are still continued today, with their parent company being prosecuted for monopolizing the ticket industry.

Also during her tour, Swift caused a 2.3-magnitude earthquake in Seattle, thanks to her hit song “Shake It Off” and 70,000 fans singing along. Swift also saw an 80% listening spike thanks to the announcement of her Eras Tour, gaining tens, if not hundreds of millions of streams daily. Her tour in the US alone was estimated to gross 5 billion dollars from consumer spending thanks to hotel stays, drive times, food, outfits, and much more. 

Charlie Harding, a music journalist and co-host of the podcast Switched On Pop, compared Swift’s dominance and musical growth to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

“We’re in the Taylor Swift cinematic universe at any given moment. There’s endless amounts of discussion to be had at every level of this world that she’s created, and each one I think serves a different audience.”

During her final 6 shows at SoFi Stadium, recording equipment could be found both on and surrounding the stage, which was later revealed to be the Eras Tour Movie, released in theatres worldwide on October 13th, just two months after being recorded. The movie became available to stream the following March.

 

2024 On Tour

With 97 shows performed (100 originally planned), Taylor Swift traveled the world, performing in Australia, Europe, and America once again. Between shows, Swift announced her 11th original album, “The Tortured Poets Department” during the 2024 Grammys. According to Taylor herself, she planned on announcing the album during her Eras Tour show directly after the Grammys, should she have not won any awards. 

Although none of her re-recordings were announced or released, 2024 became the year of “clowning” for swifites. Fans have long speculated that her re-release of “Reputation (Taylor’s Version) would be announced on numerous occasions, spanning from the 2024 VMAs, the last show of the European leg of the tour in London, and her final Eras Tour show in Vancouver.

During her Vancouver shows, Swift was once again seen with recording equipment, though no confirmation has been given on what was being planned. The recording lasted for all three final nights of the show, with Taylor repeating her outfit selections each night. This troubled many fans, who have long participated in online games where they can win prizes from other swifties by guessing the most outfits correctly, and what “surprise songs” she would play during her acoustic set.

Just a few weeks before her final shows, Swift announced her long-awaited double album, “The Anthology” to be released on vinyl. She also announced her 256-page-long Official Eras Tour Book, which has a variety of photos from all throughout the tour. She also included commonly found easter eggs scattered throughout the book, such as ending the book with drawings of all her outfits, including some that were never seen on the tour. In her message to the readers, she ended her remarks with “See you next era…” leading fans to speculate when TS12 will be released. The book did extraordinarily well, instantly becoming the top-selling book and selling the most books in one week since 2001.

 

The Eras Tour Recapped

Over the course of 149 sold-out shows, Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour broke far more records than anyone could have imagined just a year prior. After breaking Elton-John’s record for the highest-grossing tour, and proceeding to double it, her tour amassed just over two billion dollars of revenue. Thanks to the Ticket Master meltdown, we know that the demand for her tour would have filled 900 stadiums. Should the average of each show been 65,000 people, she would have performed for over 58 million people for everyone to have a chance of seeing her in concert.

A massive list of celebrities have attended The Eras Tour since it began. Notable appearances were made by Emma Watson, Travis Kelce, Prince William, Prince Charlotte, and George of Wales, Millie Bobby Brown, J.J. Watt, Reese Witherspoon, Shawn Mendes, Camila Cabello, Sadie Sink, Jake Bongiovi, Emma Stone, and Gigi Hadid (just to name a few).

Throughout the tour, a variety of artists joined Swift on stage during her “acoustic set” where she would play a surprise set of songs from her 18 years worth of discography. HAIM, Gracie Abrams, Marcus Mumford, Sabrina Carpenter, Florence and the Machine, Ed Sheeran, Jack Antonoff, Aaron Dessner, Haley Williams, and Maren Morris.

With the tour over, Swift is expected to attend all Kansas City Chiefs games and take a short break from releasing any music. Swift was particularly emotional about the tour ending, so there is no doubt that the time will come to recoup and reorganize after the nearly two-year tour. 

For now, Taylor Swift’s record-breaking streak of success will be put on hold as she takes time for herself, her friends, and her loved ones. Only Swift, the famed “mastermind of the music industry,” shall know what era we can expect to see in 2025 and beyond.