Taylor Swift has been putting on a great show across the US and elsewhere. Her Eras tour has been a record-setting riot of spectacular staging, currently on track to total 146 shows in 22 countries. The tour kicked off in March and will extend well into next year, although not, as has been widely bemoaned, extending as far as New Zealand. Along with providing fans with a whole lot of fun, it’s having significant economic, social, and even seismic impacts.
The tour’s non-musical fallout has been so significant that it’s even got its own Wikipedia page – Impact of The Eras Tour – which digs deep to bring you jaw-dropping facts about Taylornomics. At a total economic value of $5 billion, the tour is worth more than the GDP of 50 countries. (Relax. NZ’s GDP is worth five times as much as Eras. So far.)
Extravagant claims have been made for the tour’s overall effect on the US economy. Just to be absolutely clear, although $5 billion is a lot of money for most people, in terms of the overall US economy, it is just 0.04%.
That still leaves money flying in all directions. For instance, during the performance of You’re On Your Own, Kid, in which Swift mentions friendship bracelets, so many fans, or Swifties as they’re known, have been inspired to get bracelets of their own that bead and sequin shortages have been reported in some centres.
Even if you don’t like her music – what is wrong with you? – you’ll love the impact she is having on your local economy. Fusty old Time magazine cleared its throat, took a few puffs on its pipe, and sat back in its armchair to describe “The Staggering Economic Impact of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour” and find time to give the music some credit. “She can go three and a half hours and just hit after hit after hit” the magazine said, observing that “We are in an experience economy where people crave going out and participating in social events.” In other words, digital-only music isn’t enough.
The August Wall Street Journal threw up its hands in surrender early on, in a piece whose headline admitted: “It’s Taylor Swift’s Economy and We’re All Living in It”.
Even academia has sat up and taken notice. Maria Psyllou, assistant professor of economics at the University of Birmingham, celebrated Eras as a “harmonious overture of the trickle-down effect on local economies”, giving as an example “3300 employment opportunities creating a harmonious resonance of economic revitalisation”. These are not concerts, she said, but “channels of economic enrichment”.
One Eras social phenomenon to show up early was large-scale tailgating – or Taylorgating – the American practice of congregating outside at sports events and partying with refreshments served from the back of your car. With so many people unable to get tickets to the shows, thousands have been gathering outside the concerts and enjoying whatever trickledown sound they can pick up from the parking lots, singing along, sharing the experience, and effectively forming a mirror audience to the one inside.
Aligned with this is the effect of Taylordating. When Swift was “seen with” football player Travis Kelce, the All-Pro tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs, that team suddenly acquired a bunch of new fans. As one observer noted, they may not have followed football before, but now they were passionate supporters of “whatever that team is Taylor’s boyfriend is in”. Not everyone was thrilled for the couple – right-wing commentators have long had it in for the pro-vax Kelce, and left-wing Mother Jones magazine fretted “there’s something a bit odd watching an avatar of American femininity date an avatar of American masculinity in a stadium where people often chant, literally, USA”. All of which proves, along with everything else, that, politically, Swift is an even-handed annoyer.
But she’s also effective – when she urged fans to register to vote on an Instagram post, 25,000 obligingly did so.
Historically, extreme fan behaviour has always been an opportunity for experts to wring their hands over possible psychological damage, and Swift, although generally perceived as a benign presence, is no exception to this. Psychological problems occur when admiration turns to obsession, a process that is accelerated by social media and the instant access it provides to the object of a fan’s adoration. Negative behaviours that follow can range from neglecting normal relationships to stalking.
For most fans, the behemoth that is Eras is just a chance to have a good time together. Swift can make the earth move for them and they can make the earth move for her. According to CNN, crowd activity at a Seattle concert in July produced “seismic activity equivalent of a 2.3 magnitude earthquake”.
