Eras Tour
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Taylor Swift is back on the road for her global Eras Tour, and soon, she’ll be adding a new “era” to the mix: The Tortured Poets Department, her 11th album which she announced during her best pop vocal acceptance speech at the 2024 Grammys.
And at her returning show in Japan on Wednesday (Feb. 7), she revealed exactly how long she’s been crafting her April 19-slated record. “I’ve been working on Tortured Poets since right after I turned in Midnights,” Swift shared at Tokyo Dome, adding, “You turn in albums months in advance.”
“I’ve been working on it for about two years,” she continued. “I kept working on it throughout the U.S. tour and when it was perfect — in my opinion when it’s good enough for you — I finished it and I am so, so excited that soon you’ll get to hear it. Soon we’ll get to experience that together.”
Fans were shocked Sunday (Feb. 4) when the 34-year-old pop star, while accepting the first of two Grammys she would earn that night for her fall 2022 album Midnights, revealed the title and release date of Tortured Poets on the Crypto.com Arena stage before immediately sharing its cover art on Instagram. But according to Swift, the album’s announcement would have come this week no matter what — even if she hadn’t won either best pop vocal or album of the year at the awards show.
In fact, the “Anti-Hero” singer said she’d planned to drop the news at Wednesday’s concert had she not taken home any golden gramophones a few nights prior. “Luckily enough that ended up happening,” she told the crowd, thanking fans for indirectly securing Midnights‘ AOTY win. “My backup plan was I was gonna do it tonight in Tokyo.”
“I’m over the moon about the fact that you guys care about my music, it still blows my mind,” she concluded. “Everyone’s like, ‘Why do you make so many albums?’ I’m like, ‘Man, because I love it. I love it so much.’ I’m having fun, leave me alone.”
Swift has three nights left at Tokyo Dome this week before she’s expected to fly back to the States to support boyfriend Travis Kelce at the Super Bowl in Las Vegas, where the Kansas City Chiefs will face off against the San Francisco 49ers. The next week, she’ll embark on the Australian leg of the Eras Tour before doing a string of Singapore shows early March.
This week of Eras shows also means four nights’ worth of new surprise songs, which, at Wednesday’s show, were “Dear Reader” and “Holy Ground.”
See clips from Swift’s comeback Eras Tour show in Tokyo below.
So, when exactly did Emma Stone fall in love with longtime friend Taylor Swift? When the two superstars were just teenagers, as it turns out! In a New Year’s Day The Graham Norton Show interview (Jan. 1), Oscar-winning actress Emma Stone opened up about her friendship with Swift, her Eras Tour experiences and Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) vault track “When Emma Falls In Love.”
Stone, who won the best actress Oscar for her performance in 2016’s La La Land, revealed that she has attended the Eras Tour “three [times] so far,” including the tour’s opening show in her hometown of Phoenix, Ariz. “Mandy Moore, who was the choreographer of La La Land, was [Taylor’s] choreographer for the tour,” Stone explained. “So it was a bunch of lovely things all come together, and it was incredible to see.”
Moore’s choreography and Stone’s performance were two key elements that resulted in La La Land’s resounding success. At the 2017 Academy Awards, the Damien Chazelle-helmed film won six awards from 14 total nominations, a haul that helped the movie join All About Eve (1950) and Titanic (1997) as the most nominated films in Oscar history. Thanks to the La La Land soundtrack, Emma Stone is a Billboard-charting artist; “City of Stars,” her duet with co-star Ryan Gosling, reached both Digital Song Sales (No. 45) and the Bubbling Under Hot 100 (No. 8).
Nonetheless, Stone and Swift’s story stretches back years prior to their high-profile successes. According to Stone, the two met “at the Young Hollywood Awards when [she] was 18 in L.A.” She continued, “We just kept in touch ever since and became great friends.”
The most devoted Swifties have been well aware of the Stone-Swift friendship, and that knowledge provided the basis of fan theories regarding “When Emma Falls In Love,” a vault track from Speak Now (Taylor’s Version). Some fans believe that Stone is the titular Emma, but, for her part, the Easy A actress says, “You have to ask [Taylor]!” Naturally, her response drew hearty laughs from both the audience and her fellow Graham Norton guests, including Poor Things co-star Mark Ruffalo.
Watch Emma Stone spill all the Taylor Swift tea above.
When Sabrina Carpenter first released Emails I Can’t Send in July 2022, nobody expected “Nonsense” to take on a life of its own in the way that it has. While flashier songs like “Fast Times” and “Because I Liked a Boy” got a lot of initial attention, it was “Nonsense” that grew into the set’s […]
Heat exhaustion is the cause of death of a Brazilian fan who attended a concert of singer Taylor Swift in November, a forensics report obtained by The Associated Press on Wednesday shows.
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Ana Clara Benevides, 23, passed out during Swift’s second song in the Nov. 17 concert in Rio de Janeiro, “Cruel Summer,” and died hours later at a local hospital. Temperatures in the city that day were at about 40 degrees Celsius (105 Fahrenheit).
Fans lined up for hours before the show, and many accused organizers of failing to deliver enough water supplies for the more than 60,000 attending the concert at the Nilton Santos Stadium. They said they were not allowed to take their own water into the stadium.
The report by Rio’s Forensic Medical Institute said Benevides’ heat exposure led to a cardiorrespiratory arrest. It also said she did not have preexisting conditions or substance abuse that could have led to her death.
The forensics expert who analyzed her body said in the document she had “serious compromise of her lungs and sudden death” due to the heat.
One of Benevides’ friends, who also attended the concert, told local media outlets in November they had been given water while waiting to enter the stadium.
Organizers T4F said in a statement the company “followed the best practices,” complied with “every demand from authorities” and “distributed thousands of bottles of water” to fans. TF4 also denied it did not allow people to bring their own water to the concert.
TF4 also said Benevides “was promptly cared for by members of a rescue team and sent (to the hospital) in an intensive-care unit ambulance.”
“In our 40 years in the business, this company had never registered a tragic episode” like Benevides’ death due to extreme heat, T4F said.
The office of Rio’s public prosecutor has opened a criminal investigation. Rio police said in a statement on Wednesday that after the forensics report is analyzed “representatives of the company organizing the event will be called to testify.”
Benevides’ death shook many in Brazil. She had taken her first flight to travel from the country’s center-west region to see her favorite singer.
In a statement posted on Instagram after the death, Swift said the case had left her with a “shattered heart.”
Benevides’s father, José Weiny Machado, told news website G1 he “never doubted the cause of death was the heat.”
Gayle knows that everything happens for a reason. Late last year, the 19-year-old star canceled her North American tour to focus on her mental health. In a new interview with NBC News Now, Gayle shared how the “intimidating” experience ultimately led to something better — opening for Taylor Swift on select dates of her groundbreaking […]
A Taylor Swift fan who filed a class action against Ticketmaster parent Live Nation in the wake of last year’s disastrous presale of tickets to the Eras Tour has agreed to drop her case against the concert giant, months after attorneys on the case said they were engaged in settlement talks.
Swift fan Michelle Sterioff filed her case in December 2022 just weeks after the botched Eras rollout, which saw widespread service delays and website crashes as millions of fans tried – and many failed – to buy tickets. At the time, her lawyers blasted Live Nation as a “monopoly” that had “knowingly misled millions of fans.”
But a year later, Sterioff voluntarily asked a federal judge on Tuesday to dismiss her case. It’s unclear if a settlement was reached, but the two sides reported in August that they were engaged in “ongoing settlement discussions.” Neither side immediately returned requests for comment.
Sterioff’s proposed class action was just one piece of the legal fallout for Live Nation following the error-plagued pre-sale for Eras, which went on the earn hundreds of millions of dollars and dominate headlines as 2023’s biggest concert tour.
After the Nov. 22, 2022 incident, Live Nation quickly apologized to fans and pinned the blame on a “staggering number of bot attacks” and “unprecedented traffic.” But lawmakers in Washington and state attorneys general around the country quickly called for investigations. That included Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), the chair of the Senate subcommittee for antitrust issues, who suggest that regulators consider “breaking up the company” – a reference to Live Nation’s 2010 merger with Ticketmaster.
Days after the incident, the New York Times reported that DOJ had already been investigating Live Nation for months over potential antitrust violations, reaching out to venues across the country to ask about the company’s conduct. Last month, Reuters reported that the probe was ongoing, with federal investigators focusing on whether Live Nation imposed anticompetitive agreements on venues. A Senate subcommittee investigation is also underway, sending out subpoenas last month demanding info about the company’s “failure to combat artificially inflated demand fueled by bots in multiple, high-profile incidents.”
Taylor Swift performs onstage for night three of Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour at Nissan Stadium on May 07, 2023 in Nashville.
John Shearer/TAS23/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management
Sterioff’s case was one of two major class actions filed against Live Nation over the Eras ticket rollout. In her complaint, she accused the company of violating consumer protection and antitrust laws, calling Ticketmaster a “monopoly that is only interested in taking every dollar it can from a captive public.”
“Because Ticketmaster has exclusive agreements with virtually all venues capable of accommodating large concerts, Taylor Swift and other popular musicians have no choice but to sell their tickets through Ticketmaster, and their fans have no choice but to purchase tickets through Ticketmaster’s primary ticketing platform,” her lawyers wrote.
Sterioff’s lawsuit claimed that Live Nation has exploited that dominance to charge “ever more supracompetitive ticketing fees for both primary and secondary ticketing services,” including for “virtually all venues hosting ‘The Eras’ Tour.”
But the lawsuit has largely been paused for months. In August, both sides agreed that it would be better to wait to litigate the case after a federal appeals court rules on a separate antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation, which will decide whether the company can force ticketbuyers to resolve such legal claims in private arbitration rather than open court.
The other class action over the Eras debacle, filed by an outspoken fan named Julie Barfuss and more than two dozen other spurned Swifities, remains pending in California federal court. In her complaint, Barfuss went even further than Sterioff, claiming Live Nation had tacitly allowed the kind of mass-scalping that caused so many problems during the pre-sale.
“Ticketmaster has stated that it has taken steps to address this issue, but in reality, has taken steps to make additional profit from the scalped tickets,” Barfuss’ lawyer wrote. “Instead of competition, Ticketmaster has conspired with stadiums to force fans to buy more expensive tickets that Ticketmaster gets additional fees from every time the tickets are resold.”
Taylor Swift is the ultimate Sagittarius, and her upcoming The Eras Tour extended edition film — out on the singer’s 34th birthday (Dec. 13) — will fittingly include a performance of her Lover track, “The Archer.” Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news In a preview clip of […]
Taylor Swift loves being friends with Beyoncé. But being pitted against her by fans and critics? Not so much. In her Wednesday (Dec. 6) TIME Person of the Year cover story, the 33-year-old “Anti-Hero” singer opened up about her years-long relationship with Bey. “She’s the most precious gem of a person — warm and open […]
Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour is poised to become the highest-grossing global tour of all time, according to Billboard’s estimates.
While no official numbers have been reported yet, Swift’s tour should pass current record-holder Elton John’s Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour with more than $900 million in ticket sales so far.
On Sunday (Nov. 26), Swift played her last scheduled show of the year, wrapping an intense run of 66 concerts in the United States, Mexico and South America. Representatives for The Eras Tour have not yet reported official revenue or attendance figures to Billboard Boxscore or any other trade journal or news entity, but the enormity of The Eras Tour is impossible to ignore, with a total that amounts to a staggering average of nearly $14 million per show.
Dating back almost 40 years, all Boxscore rankings are based on figures reported to Billboard. Data is reported from a variety of official industry sources, from artist managers and agents to promoters and venue executives. Reporting has always been voluntary, and some artists, venues and promoters opt to withhold data from representation on our charts. It is not uncommon for artists to not report — or to wait until the end of a tour, which is still more than a year away in Swift’s case — though it’s rare that such a well-documented blockbuster tour, in contention for top year-end honors, is not submitted. Swift’s abstention disqualifies her from appearing on year-end Boxscore charts.
Swift kicked off The Eras Tour in Glendale, Ariz., on March 17, playing 53 domestic shows before wrapping at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif., outside Los Angeles, on Aug. 9. She hit a total of 20 U.S. cities, and 11 of those venues have provided attendance figures to Billboard. Based on those numbers, as well as estimates based on aggressive scaling at the other nine stadiums, Swift likely sold 3.3 million tickets over 53 shows in the United States, or an average of 63,000 tickets per show.
Sources close to the tour point to an average domestic ticket price of around $252. This is in line with the prices for the summer’s other major concert event, Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour, which maintained a $135 ticket in Europe and a $253 ticket in North America. While ticket prices might dip in certain markets and bloom in others, using that number as an average puts the U.S. leg of The Eras Tour at $838.3 million. That total gross spreads out to $15.8 million per show, a staggering figure that exceeds recent tours by Bad Bunny, Beyoncé, and The Rolling Stones, each of which had giant totals of their own.
Taylor Swift performs onstage during Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour at Levi’s Stadium on July 28, 2023, in Santa Clara, Calif.
Jeff Kravitz/TAS23/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management
That projected $838 million haul is more than enough to make Eras the highest-grossing U.S. and North American tour ever. John’s Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour holds the official Boxscore title, with $567.7 million in the United States and Canada. That total reflects 135 shows over a span of four years, compared to Swift’s 53 shows in less than six months.
Moreover, The Eras Tour’s U.S. gross would situate it as the second-highest grossing tour of all time based on global figures, before even crossing the border. John’s farewell tour remains the official record-holder with $939.1 million.
Since wrapping the Eras Tour’s U.S. leg, Swift played four shows at Mexico City’s Foro Sol (Aug. 24-27) and, more recently, nine South American shows, spread between Buenos Aires in Argentina and Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. Those dates bring her much closer to John’s global record, even based on relatively conservative projections. But as we’ve seen with virtually every worldwide stadium tour in the last two years, the post-pandemic surge in ticket prices hasn’t been as severe outside the United States.
Further, these are Swift’s first shows in these Latin American markets. That means pent-up demand likely drove huge sales, though her base isn’t quite as explosive there as it is in the States.
Based on estimates considering the high end of grosses and ticket prices for each Latin American venue’s post-pandemic history, The Eras Tour likely earned another $60 million to $75 million and more than 750,000 tickets from those 13 shows.
In all, Billboard estimates that Swift has generated $906.1 million and sold 4.1 million tickets in 2023 across all shows in the United States, Mexico and South America. That would unofficially make The Eras Tour the biggest tour of 2023. And when considering Swift’s total revenue from the tour, it doesn’t even account for merchandise sales, sponsorships, music streaming and sales boosts, or her self-produced and released Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour concert film.
Swift is scheduled to resume The Eras Tour on Feb. 7 with four shows at the Tokyo Dome in Japan. Then, she’ll play seven shows in Australia and six in Singapore. In May, she kicks off a 50-date run in Europe before returning to North America for 18 shows in new markets, including the tour’s first entry into Canada. In all, that’s 85 shows to go, with the possibility of more to come, considering her recent concert additions to runs in London and Vancouver.
These upcoming international legs are already more ambitious than any previous Swift tour. While this year’s 53 U.S. shows are in line with what she did on 2018’s Reputation Stadium Tour and 2015’s The 1989 World Tour, those treks included just six and seven shows in Europe, respectively — a fraction of next year’s slate of 50.
If we use the comparison between Beyoncé’s recent European and North American grosses as a north star, in Europe, Swift could be looking at $8.5 million per show, or about $420 million over the entire leg. And even if next year’s North American shows dip from 2023’s record-breakers, the U.S. and Canada shows could add another $240 million to 260 million. Including the 17 shows in Asia and Australia, The Eras Tour is likely headed toward a total gross of $1.6 billion to $1.7 billion by the end of 2024. It will be the first in history to earn more than $1 billion in ticket sales and will set Swift far apart from her competitors. If figures skew toward the higher end of what’s possible, she could double John’s current record gross.
Representatives for Swift did not respond to a request for comment on Billboard‘s estimates at press time.
Turkey with a side of spell-check? Taylor Swift‘s Eras Tour movie trailer for the extended version of the film is out now, but with misspelled album title Monday (Nov. 27) on two verified accounts associated with the superstar, and Swifties are having some fun with the oversight. The typo in the new teaser follows Swift’s […]