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Eras Tour

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And in the end, the love Taylor Swift took from Swifties at the last-ever U.S. Eras Tour show on Sunday night (Nov. 3) in Indianapolis was more than equal to the love she gave. There were tears of joy and glitter galore, elation and wonder at being the last ones in the room as Swift brought a close to 141 shows on the tour that spanned the globe, and her career over the last 20 months.

And while Sunday’s was, by most accounts, a standard Eras show — none of the surprise guests or big announcements fans buzzed about before the gig — the 69,000-plus attendees at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis on night three went home secure that they saw the same type of over-the-top musical masterpiece as the Swifties who attended the tour kick-off in March 2023.

But, also, the last Eras gig ever in the U.S.

Swift, of course, treated them to one more magical mash-up of favorites during the surprise song segment near the end of the show in the city that, like all the others, gratefully gave itself over to the sparkling, happy-to-spend Swiftie mobs. The singer, literally, strode like a Colossus over the Midwestern town better known for its thirst for professional and college sports, via a 330-foot mural of the pop icon plastered on the facade of a downtown hotel just blocks from Lucas Oil Stadium.

It was a fittingly way-larger-than-life image for a spectacle that was all-encompassing, touching everything from the mundane — the check-in clerk with a flowing weird beard manning the desk at a hotel near the stadium who had Swift’s favorite number (13) drawn on the back of his hand above one of the tour’s ubiquitous friendship bracelets — to the sublime: a burly cop with an wrist-full of colorful bracelets signing a little girl’s white Tortured Poet’s Department dress as she skipped her way into the venue.

For the final curtain before the tour finishes up for real in Canada with eight more shows later this month, as in other cities on the Eras Tour, Indianapolis rolled out the red carpet for the singer. The state capital was transformed into TaylorTown for the weekend. Everywhere Swifties went, there Taylor was. 

More than 30 streets around downtown were temporarily transformed into Eras avenues, including The Man Dr., London Boy Ln., So High School St., … Ready For It? Rd., Bad Blood Blvd, and, of course, Cornelia St., which also happened to be one of Sunday night’s surprise songs.

The Indianapolis Zoo declared itself “In Our Wildest Era,” local vendors threw “Taylor” terrarium building parties and there were Tay-themed drink at bars all over town (Sun King Brewery’s ‘1,2,3 Let’s Go B*tch” Cherry Limeade Ale and an Eras Cider Box from Ash & Elm Cider Co. As well as snacks in Lucas Oil (Back to Decemberger Basked, Fearless Fries), a “Sweat Stretch Simmer” Swift-themed hot yoga class and even an “Era Sparkle Party for Voter Registration” at the Easley Winery in the lead-up to Tuesday’s (Nov. 5) presidential election, in which Swift has endorsed Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.

It was all in honor of the singer whose tour created its own ecosystem, with new traditions (trading themed friendship bracelets, dressing in different Eras costumes) and a radiant joy that kept event the youngest fans staving off yawns as they danced in their light-up shoes and sequined skirts well past their bedtimes.

“The fact that you would do that for us, for me, for my band, my crew, my fellow performers. You have just completely confirmed that we chose the right 69,000 people to spend our last night with,” Swift told the capacity crowd on the third night in a row that she set attendance records at the stadium.

Check out our eight best moments from the final Eras Tour U.S.l show below.

The Shirts

When Taylor Swift first announced The Eras Tour on Nov. 1, 2022, she might not have guessed that, exactly two years later, she would still be on the career-spanning trek. Also, with just 27 dates announced on that first day, it might surprise her to learn that when the tour wraps in December, she’ll be […]

Ryan Reynolds is his pal Taylor Swift’s biggest fan! The Deadpool actor took to Instagram on Thursday (Oct. 31) to share a series of photos and videos from one of Swift’s shows at New Orleans’ Caesars Superdome, which he attended with his wife Blake Lively and Rufus Wainwright. “When I’m 95 yrs old and my […]

When Taylor Swift plays Indianapolis for the ninth time in her career this weekend – performing three sold-out Eras Tour dates at the 70,000-capacity Lucas Oil Stadium – she’s returning at the very top of her game.
And Indy knows games. After all, the Midwestern capital city has hosted the Super Bowl, eight Final Fours (with a ninth set for 2026) and countless college tournaments across all sports – not to mention its 11 professional teams and a century-plus of the Indy 500 car race under its belt.

So how does a sports-forward city such as Indianapolis shift gears to welcome hundreds of thousands of Swifties to town instead of, say, 70,000 Colts fans on any given Sunday? The trio of Lucas Oil concerts were announced in August 2023, but the city’s wheels began spinning months before that.

Trending on Billboard

“We formed a local organizing committee, much like we do ahead of a major sporting event, to involve community partners to make sure that this was more than a concert,” Chris Gahl, senior VP of marketing/communications for Visit Indy, tells Billboard. “And so, over the last 18 or 20 months, a group has been meeting to think about and worry about how we welcome the anticipated 200,000 visitors and fans to our city.”

That huge swath of tourists is all coming to cheer for Swift – and while her arena is entertainment and not sports, when the music business is keeping score (like on the Billboard charts, for instance), she’s typically in the winners’ circle. On our most recent year-end charts, Swift was our overall top artist of 2023 and has ranked in the year-end top 10 in 14 of the last 16 years. She’s also tied with Drake for the most Billboard Music Awards wins of all time, picking up 39 prizes over her two decades in the industry.

And beyond the numbers, from its start in March 2023, The Eras Tour has been nothing short of an athletic feat. Swift is carrying a three-and-a-half-hour production of live singing and dancing, performing as many as four consecutive nights at a time across the world for almost 20 months. Beyond her Kansas City Chiefs star boyfriend Travis Kelce, we’ve seen professional athletes marveling at the endurance her concert must require, with Houston Texans defensive lineman J.J. Watt saying after attending opening weekend in Arizona: “She did not stop the whole time. There was no intermission. There was no halftime. There was no TV timeouts. The longest break she took was maybe three minutes for a costume change. And she was singing, dancing, entertaining the entire time — 70,000 people hanging on every single word and move she was making. … And she crushed it. And she didn’t even look tired. I was tired and I was just sitting there!”

With stats and stamina like hers, maybe Swift is a better fit for a sports town like Indy than it would appear at first glance. And to match her undefeated record, the city went especially big with signage for the Eras Tour dates – like, six-figure investment and 350-feet big – including a 34-story decal of the pop star (approved by Swift’s team) splashed across the JW Marriott, Indy’s largest hotel. They’ve also temporarily renamed 32 downtown streets after Swift songs, so visitors can take a stroll down Bad Blood Boulevard, All Too Well Way and, of course, Cornelia Street. And in a move sure to relieve fans desperate for a souvenir who don’t want to spend their entire night in a line, the adjacent Indiana Convention Center – typically home to massive fan experiences during major sporting events – has transformed its Exhibit Hall I into a pop-up merch stand, open to all Swifties from Wednesday to Saturday, no concert ticket required.

Visit Indy

And the Taylor Effect can be felt beyond the tourism board’s efforts. Local sports bars are playing their part too: The Slippery Noodle – a nearly 175-year-old bar and restaurant sitting a convenient three blocks from the stadium – is setting up a Swift-themed mocktail bar for young fans, complete with an accompanying friendship bracelet and glittery straw, as well as a “Dad’s Lounge” for any parents or partners delivering kids and spouses to the stadium and looking for a spot to chill for three and a half hours or so.

“We do have a couple of staff members that are Swifties, so I think they’ll be prepared to do some trading,” Slippery Noodle co-owner Sean Lothridge laughs to Billboard when asked whether his team will be armed with the Eras Tour’s trusty friendship bracelets. “It’s kind of something new for me. I don’t really know the Swifties as well, but I’m trying my best to learn a little bit about it.”

Over the summer, Lothridge got used to a different superstar woman drawing crowds to his bar, when a certain WNBA rookie came to town. “The Caitlin Clark effect with the Fever was tremendous,” he says, adding that fans were coming in from all over the country to go to Indiana Fever games at the nearby Gainbridge Fieldhouse. “We were getting good crowds from her fans, so she’s been a good boost for the city.”

This weekend’s concertgoers are also traveling from all over, with Gahl telling Billboard that 81% of the Indy ticket-holders are coming from outside the state of Indiana – presenting a massive opportunity to paint the sports town in a brand-new light, or introduce it to first-timers. The biggest difference between the Eras Tour weekend versus a high-stakes sporting event, Gahl notes, is that everyone should leave Lucas Oil Stadium a winner.

“You usually have two teams — sometimes four teams — that are taking sides, if you will, and advocating that their team wins,” he says. “In this case, it’s a commonality – and that is the love for the artist and her music. So whereas we’ve created different zones or restaurants or bars to align with a certain team in the past for major sporting events, this is a uniter. This is one city, one event, one weekend, all for the same artist and music, and it’s the capstone to her [U.S.] tour. So it feels like there’s even more unity and programming and everyone collecting for one common goal.”

For the next three nights, everyone entering the stadium is rooting for the same side: Team Taylor.

If you’re a certified Swiftie, don’t lose hope on finding tickets to the remaining dates of Taylor Swift’s Eras tour. In June, TikTok launched the #TSTheErasTour, an interactive in-app artist experience, during which fans were encouraged to complete album-themed tasks. Fans who completed all 11 tasks received a celebratory profile frame. However, now it appears that […]

Paramore is celebrating their Eras tour trek with Taylor Swift. The band took to their Instagram page on Monday (Aug. 26) to share appreciation for Swift, posting a photo in which frontwoman Hayley Williams and the band smile alongside the pop star, who is giving a thumbs up to the camera. “Thank you for asking […]

Taylor Swift officially wrapped the European leg of her Eras Tour on Tuesday (Aug. 20), and the superstar took to Instagram the day after to reflect on the special run, as well as break her silence on the canceled Vienna shows due to a terror threat.

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“We have officially wrapped the European leg of The Eras Tour. With it came the most passionate crowds I’ve ever played for, new traditions in the show, and an entirely new era added in. It was a more hectic pace than we’d done before, and I’m so proud of my crew/fellow performers for being able to physically perform that show and build our massive stage, take it apart, and make magic with so few days in between for recovery and travel. They’re the most impressive people I know and I’m so lucky they gave The Eras Tour their time, their energy, and their expertise,” she wrote.

She added that walking on stage at London’s Wembley Stadium was “a rollercoaster of emotions” after the “devastating” news that her Vienna shows were canceled. “The reason for the cancellations filled me with a new sense of fear, and a tremendous amount of guilt because so many people had planned on coming to those shows,” she shared. “But I was also so grateful to the authorities because thanks to them, we were grieving concerts and not lives. I was heartened by the love and unity I saw in the fans who banded together. I decided that all of my energy had to go toward helping to protect the nearly half a million people I had coming to see the shows in London. My team and I worked hand in hand with stadium staff and British authorities every day in pursuit of that goal, and I want to thank them for everything they did for us.”

Trending on Billboard

Swift also explained her reasoning for not speaking out until now. “Let me be very clear: I am not going to speak about something publicly if I think doing so might provoke those who would want to harm the fans who come to my shows,” she wrote. “In cases like this one, ‘silence’ is actually showing restraint, and waiting to express yourself at a time when it’s right to. My priority was finishing our European tour safely, and it is with great relief that I can say we did that. And then London felt like a beautiful dream sequence. All five crowds at Wembley Stadium were bursting with passion, joy, and exuberance. The energy in that stadium was like the most giant bear hug from 92,000 people each night, and it brought me back to a place of carefree calm up there.”

See her full statement here.

In a statement on Wednesday (Aug. 7), Barracuda Music, the concert promoters for the Austrian shows said, “With confirmation from government officials of a planned terrorist attack at Ernst Happel Stadium, we have no choice but to cancel the three scheduled shows for everyone’s safety. All tickets will be automatically refunded within the next 10 business days.”

The person identified as the main plotter reportedly quit his job and “conspicuously changed his appearance and adapted to IS [Islamic State] propaganda,” despite his North Macedonian roots. Omar Haijawi-Pirchner, Austria’s head of the Directorate of State Security and Intelligence, said the suspect wanted to use knives or homemade explosives to attack Swifties outside the stadium at the event, which was expected to draw more than 195,000 fans.

Authorities also said that I.S. and al-Qaida materials were found at the home of a second, 17-year-old Austrian suspect, who was reportedly recently hired by a company that provides services at the venue. Both suspects are currently in custody.

She’s a real tough kid, and Taylor Swift proved it with her new music video for “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart,” which arrived on Tuesday (Aug. 20), shortly after she wrapped up the European leg of her Eras Tour in London. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, […]

From Florida to London! To celebrate the final night of her Eras Tour European leg at London’s Wembley Stadium on Tuesday night (Aug. 20), Taylor Swift welcomed a special guest onstage. Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news For The Tortured Poets Department hit, “Florida!!!,” Swift surprised fans with […]

She may not love the “London Boy” anymore, but Taylor Swift made sure to fittingly perform the song at Wembley Stadium. As part of her surprise songs section of the show on Friday (Aug. 16), the superstar told the London crowd that she loves “the English” before delving into the fan-favorite Lover track, presumed to […]