Eras Tour
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After three Taylor Swift concerts in Vienna were canceled on Wednesday (Aug. 7) following the arrest of two suspects who reportedly planned to unleash a terrorist attack on the shows this weekend, ticketing companies have provided information on how ticket holders for the concerts will receive refunds. “We are aware of the news regarding the […]
UK officials have announced that there is no indication that the terror threats before Taylor Swift’s now-cancelled shows in Vienna, Austria, will have any impact on her upcoming shows in London.
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“There is nothing to indicate that the matters being investigated by the Austrian authorities will have an impact on upcoming events here in London,” a spokesperson for London’s Metropolitan Police said on Thursday (Aug. 8), per Reuters, adding, “The Met works closely with venue security teams and other partners to ensure there are appropriate security and policing plans in place. As always, we will continue to keep any new information under careful review.”
Swift is currently set to perform at London’s Wembley Stadium over five sold-out nights from August 15 to 20.
Earlier in the day, Associated Press reported that the main suspect in the case, a 19-year-old male, confessed that he planned to “kill as many people as possible” outside Ernst Happel Stadium, where Swift was scheduled to perform from August 8 to 10.
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.
At press time, Swift had not commented on the incident. Billboard has reached out to the star’s reps for comment.
Two suspects were arrest for allegedly plotting an attack at Taylor Swift’s concerts in Vienna, Austria, this week, according to ABC News. The two people — one of whom is a 19-year-old Austrian citizen — were taken into custody on Wednesday (Aug. 7) after they reportedly “radicalized” themselves online, with Swift’s concert marking the target […]
Though the cross-over in the Venn Diagram of Phish Phans and Swifties is normally pretty minimal, the unlikely streams crossed for a brief (okay, three-plus hour) moment this summer when Phish singer/guitarist Trey Anastasio‘s two grown daughters zoomed over to Europe to catch one of Taylor Swift‘s Eras Tour shows.
The Phish Phigurehead dropped into SiriusXM’s Phish Radio on Thursday morning (August 1) to tell the story of how his two adult daughters, Isabella and Eliza, saved up their money to see Swift in Dublin and ended up having a flashback to one of their dad’s most iconic eras. As any Swiftie will know, seeing the Eras Tour in Europe is often cheaper than catching it stateside, which is why the two women hopped over the pond, according to their dad.
“That’s why they went. It was the only place you could get a ticket,” Anastasio said. “My 27-year-old daughter wanted to get a Taylor ticket for my 29-year-old daughter, so she went online and put in for the lottery for every show on Earth, as did another friend of hers. And they both only could only get tickets in Dublin — her and one of her best friends — independent of each other.” So, the sisters met each other in Dublin at the show where Swift famously got briefly stuck on a platform mid-show.
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“I said, ‘is that a coincidence? That my daughters watched me on a platform, their dad, and Taylor?,” he wondered. Anastasio was referring, of course, to a show in Dublin on June 29 during which a stage malfunction during “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived” in which the elevated section Swift was standing on failed to lower when it was supposed to, leaving her momentarily stranded in air. Swift, a consummate professional, shook it off and kept rolling.
Anastasio was also thinking about the New Year’s Eve show in 2019 when each member of Phish performed from a color-coded, elevated platform above the stage to make room for their color-coordinated dancers. As his bandmates were lowered back to the main stage, Anastasio’s platform got stuck, so he just kept jamming from the air before drummer Jon Fishman’s platform was raised back up so the crew could rescue the frontman.
In a video from November 2020, Anastasio recalled that one of the chains holding up the platform broke and instead of being harnessed into his rig, he just had a rope that restricted his movement, so he couldn’t get too near the end of the platform. “Then I thought, ‘oh my God, if this tilts I’m going to be hanging by my belt!’
Gym, tan, Taylor! Jersey Shore stars Jenni “JWOWW” Farley and Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino had an adorable family outing in Milan, Italy, over the weekend to catch Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour show.
The Situation was joined by his wife, Lauren — and the reality TV star commemorated the sweet couple’s night out with a social media photo, in which the duo is seen smiling from their seats at San Siro Stadium. “The Situations are in the building #TaylorSwiftErasTourMilan,” he captioned the post.
Farley, meanwhile, treated her 10-year-old daughter Meilani to the ultimate birthday gift at the show. “The swifties have arrived,” she captioned a group photo from dinner, in which her daughter is seen rocking a “22” music video inspired outfit.
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In planned surprises from Milan that had fans chatting over the weekend, Swift debuted three Eras Tour costumes: new dresses for her Fearless and Tortured Poets eras of the concert on Saturday, and a new gown for the show’s Speak Now moment on Sunday.
Next up on the hitmaker’s Europe itinerary, she’ll get to visit Germany, bringing the summer Eras Tour to the cities of Gelsenkirchen, Hamburg and Munich.
Last month, Swift revealed that she has a planned date for her record-breaking Eras Tour to end. “You know, this is actually the 100th show of the tour,” Swift told the crowd in Liverpool, England. “That blows my mind. That doesn’t feel like a real statistic to me, because this has definitely been the most exhausting, all-encompassing, but most joyful, most rewarding, most wonderful thing that has ever happened in my life, this tour, these moments with you.
“You know, a lot of you were like, ‘Well, how are you going to celebrate the 100th show?’” Swift continued. “And for me, the celebration of the 100th show means this is the very first time I’ve ever acknowledged to myself and admitted that this tour is going to end in December. Like, that’s it.”
The Eras Tour kicked off at Glendale, Arizona’s State Farm Stadium on March 17, 2023, and the final scheduled concert — which will be the 152nd show, if no new dates are added — is set for Dec. 8 at Vancouver, Canada’s BC Arena.
However big a Swiftie you think you are, you have nothing on comedian Nikki Glaser. The stand-up and roast dais veteran revealed to fill-in Jimmy Kimmel Live! host and fellow joke slinger Kumail Nanjiani on Thursday night (July 11) that not only has she seen Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour show 17 times over the past 15 months, but she has also never once taken a bathroom break during all that time.
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In fact, Glaser said she had just returned from her latest hop over to Europe the day before after attending her latest Eras show. “I was on break from tour and I was seeing Taylor Swift. That’s what I do with my free time,” Glaser told Nanjiani about her latest jaunt in which she five shows in 10 days. “Europe just happened to be there while she was there,” Glaser joked.
The self-proclaimed Swiftie explained that when she has weekends off from her own Alive and Unwell tour she flies wherever she needs to for a “Florida!!!” fix. “I’m like a divorced dad doing his best to see daughter… she has no idea who I am but I’m just the biggest fan.” Glaser has no idea if Swift even knows who she is, though she suspects Taylor might since the Roast of Tom Brady star talks about her favorite singer all the time.
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Trying to keep up, Nanjiani noted that he’s also a Swiftie, though he’s only seen the tour once, “like a normal person,” holding up a pic of himself at a show in which he rocks several friendship bracelets. Nanjiani said he gets why Glaser is obsessed by the positive vibe at the shows, but looked shocked at the 17-gig figure as the audience let out a gasp at the gaudy figure.
“I know, I know! I’m addicted,” Glaser, 40, said, unapologetically describing the “surge of dopamine” she gets from the concerts. “For me it’s either that or cocaine and luckily I can afford both,” she quipped. Glaser said she realizes her show count is “excessive” and can’t explain her fascination, other than to note that when the tour was first announced she was determined to go to every show.
Realizing that might be weird, she decided to go to just two or three until her boyfriend reminded her that she works so hard and loves Taylor so much that he encouraged Glaser to go to as many shows as possible.
If you’ve gotten this far and none of this blows your mind, peep this: Glaser said despite the sometimes nearly four-hour show length, she prides herself on “never once” going to the bathroom during the more than 60 hours she’s logged at the concerts. “For whatever reason my body is just like, ‘you’re not gonna do that like right now… it’s probably what her body does during it,” Glaser speculated. “I don’t think she has time to go so I kind of like set my rhythms to hers.”
When Nanjiani asked if at some point Glaser might tap the breaks, the comedian said she, in fact, plans to see more Eras Tour shows. “I thought it might happen but it hasn’t yet at 17,” she said of tapping out. “I just feel like this is a time where I just have to see someone who is one of the best performers who’s ever lived,” she explained, comparing seeing Swift to the modern-day equivalent of having attended a Beatles show.
“I want to just see it as much as possible, it’s the thing that makes me happiest in the world,” she said. Glaser also mentioned that her dad does not like the Beatles comparison, then cued up a clip of her pops “crying like a baby” at an Eras show she took him to in Europe. Nanjiani then lightly roasted Glaser for her obsession, busting out some research on the other things she could have done with those 60+ hours, including: getting a helicopter pilot’s license, watched all five seasons of Breaking Bad and get CPR certification 30 times.
Watch Glaser talk Eras Tour on Kimmel below.
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Taylor Swift is having a blast on the European leg of her Eras tour, and the superstar took to Instagram on Thursday (June 20) to shout out the energy of the crowd in Cardiff, Wales. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news “Cardiff!! My first time playing in […]
Billie Joe Armstrong knows a thing or two about what it takes to rock a stadium crowd. So when the Green Day singer/guitarist attended one of Taylor Swift‘s Eras Tour shows in Lyon, France at Groupama Stadium over the weekend he came away super-impressed by… well, all of it. The punk veteran posted a pic […]
The latest missive from The Desk of Taylor Swift is a newly penned Eras Tour setlist, to make room for her 11th studio album The Tortured Poets Department. Last week, Swift brought her blockbuster trek to Europe for the first time, playing four shows at Paris’ La Defense Arena. After a year-plus of concerts — […]
Taylor Swift is returning to the road to complete the final leg of her Eras Tour for fans eager to hear the singer-songwriter perform new tracks like “Fortnight,” “Down Bad” and “Florida!!!” from her new album, The Tortured Poets Department.
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But those fans may be in for some sticker shock. Prices to see Swift at one of her final nine shows in the United States have increased following the release of the album April 19, with the average get-in-the-door price — the lowest price available — hovering around $2,600 per ticket, according to data from TicketIQ. That means it would cost a couple more than $5,000 just to be in the same building as Swift in Miami (Oct 18-20), New Orleans (Oct 25-27) and Indianapolis (Nov. 1-3) this fall.
In Europe, however — where Swift starts a 51-show run on May 9 with a kickoff date at Paris’ La Defense Arena — tickets cost only a fraction of that. Right now, the get-in-the door price to see the opening of the European leg of the Eras Tour is $340 a ticket — 87% cheaper than the average price in the United States.
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That means a fan in Miami could fly to Paris for about $900 a person (according to prices generated on kayak.com), spend two nights at a four-star hotel at $250 a night and purchase a $340 concert ticket for a grand total of $1,740 — which is still $760 less than the cheapest tickets currently available for her Miami shows.
Tickets to see Swift in Stockholm (May 17-19) are even cheaper, at $312 for the cheapest tickets, while tickets for her show in Portugal (May 24-25) start at $336 and in Spain (May 29-30) start at $324. Prices do start to climb in the United Kingdom, with the get-in-the-door price hovering around £540 (about $674 USD) for Swift’s Liverpool shows (June 13-15). Prices to see Swift at Wembley Stadium (June 21-23) hover around £720 ($900).
The reason for the huge difference in price, experts say, is due in part to longstanding consumer skepticism about resale tickets in most of Europe. That’s coupled with a much more aggressive regulatory environment where artists and consumers are empowered to report and remove illegal ticket listings, and where prices are kept low thanks to laws limiting how high tickets can be marked up over face value.
The European approach is significantly different from that of the United States, where ticket resale is not regulated and deceptive marketing practices, including the use of deceptive websites and speculative ticket listings, continue unabated despite widespread outcry from consumers. And federal officials don’t regularly enforce the few ticketing laws that do exist. It took five years after the BOTS Act — banning automated programs that jump the queue and buy up tickets — was passed for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to bring a case against brokers for violating the bill.
Sam Shemtob, managing director for ticket resale advocacy group Face-value European Alliance for Ticketing (FEAT), points to Europe as a model for how governments can be more vigilant about regulating resale markets. In countries like France, Germany and the Netherlands, ticket resellers face limits on how much tickets can be marked up on secondary sites — typically 20% over face value. Other countries like the United Kingdom allow resale but restrict who is allowed to post tickets for resale and give artists and event promoters the right to take some resale ticket listings down.
Adopting European-style regulations in the United States by restricting ticket markups to 20% above face value would transform the concert business overnight and likely drive prices down dramatically on the secondary market. Markup caps would also likely make programs like Ticketmaster’s platinum ticket pricing (which charges high markups for a small percentage of tickets to offset the resale market) obsolete and significantly reduce the number of ticket brokers and bad actors using bots to disrupt ticket sales and illegally buy up tickets.
A federal cap on ticket markups would also significantly disrupt the secondary ticketing market and push many brokers out of business, which might create unintended consequences for sports teams that are much more willing to sell season tickets to brokers and depend on resellers for distribution. It’s also unclear if Americans would even accept a regulatory framework capping how much tickets could be marked up. Lawmakers in New York, Utah, Colorado, Connecticut and Virginia have all passed laws in the last decade making it illegal to restrict how and where ticket brokers resell tickets. While U.S. consumers often complain about the excesses of ticket resale and like the idea of using technology to keep tickets out of the hands of scalpers, they also dislike the restrictions that come with non-transferable tickets and tend to loudly oppose policies that create inconveniences.
Shemtob notes that Europe’s ticketing rules aren’t just about protecting price, but are also designed to empower citizens to take action.
On Jan. 1, 2025, Europe’s Digital Services Act (DSA) will go into effect, creating a uniform set of guidelines for online ticket resale requiring resellers to disclose their names and contact details to potential ticket buyers. The DSA also mandates that resale platforms track takedowns of public ticket listings (to help provide a record of the deceptive activity taking place) and ban deceptive marketing practices.
While many of the DSA’s reforms mirror U.S. efforts to clean up ticketing, Shemtob says a provision in the DSA bill that makes it simple to flag, report and take down ticket listings that violate the rules is a game-changer for consumer advocates. The law creates “a clear process for removing illegal ticket listings as and when they appear,” he said in a statement provided to Billboard, putting in place “the groundwork for a fairer, more transparent ticket-buying experience for consumers.”
Besides keeping prices in Europe low, the legislation has also led to a surprising boom in tourism from U.S. fans traveling to the continent to pursue cheaper Eras Tour tickets: A spokesperson for StubHub told Billboard that 68% of ticket purchases for Swift’s 51-show run in Europe have come from U.S. buyers.