The Eras Tour

12/13/2024

In honor of the singer’s 35th birthday, Billboard is looking back on the tour that changed everything.

12/13/2024

Tired of seeing Taylor Swift fans lose out in the great war against Ticketmaster and StubHub, Swifties Courtney Johnston, Angel Richards, and Channette Garay came together to create an X account, known as ErasTourResell, to help broker Eras Tour ticket resales between buyers and sellers.

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They’ve made sure fans get access to tickets for face value or less, rather than at multiples of face value sold on other resale sites. All buyers and sellers need to do is fill out a form and the ErasTourResell team tackles the rest.

In the beginning, buyers would express interest via direct messages or replies, but with over 330,000 followers it quickly became unmanageable. Buyers now fill out a form and a random generator selects who gets the tickets. The tickets have been verified by the team who ask for a screen recording as well as the ticket confirmation to be forwarded to their email — a reluctance to do this is one of the biggest tells someone isn’t legit, Garay says.

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Despite being located on opposite sides of the country — Johnston in California and Richards and Garay in Connecticut — they have been connected digitally through the fandom for years. Using their knowledge of Taylor Swift they can tell when someone is and isn’t a fan, Johnston says. 

“We’ve been doing it so long, it’s easy to spot these little things other people probably would think of,” she added. And even if something looks a tiny bit off, they will triple check the seller’s details, Garay says.

Though many ticket touts and scammers prowl social media, so far, no fans have been scammed using this system, which has played a part in the account gaining trust within the community, Richards says. Their receipts are the success stories that fill their page on show days. 

“There was a woman who is a breast cancer survivor and she was like, ‘I just beat breast cancer and I really want to celebrate this moment,’” Richards says. “She lives in New York and we posted a ticket for London. She was like, ‘I will fly out today, I just really want to do this.’ So she did, she got the ticket. She flew out that day, sent us pictures.”

“She’ll still message us sometimes just saying how grateful she was.”

ErasTourResell is just one of several fan-led accounts that has been making the Eras Tour more accessible over the past two years. Regardless of where Swifties are in the world, and whether they had tickets or not, they have been able to follow Taylor Swift’s every move as she goes from state to state and country to country via glitchy livestreams, Reddit megathreads, and social media alerts. They’ve even been one step ahead, placing bets on her next move through the fan-created Mastermind game.

The Eras Tour has been a “powder keg” moment within the fandom, says Georgia Carroll, a sociologist who focuses on fan culture and wrote her thesis on the superstar.

There was an unprecedented hunger from fans, old and new, to hear Taylor Swift’s music live – since she had three untoured albums from the pandemic period and then released several Taylor’s Versions re-recordings as well as Midnights in 2021-22, Carroll says. With this immense hunger came an imbalance of supply and demand for tickets around the world. The fandom stepped in with active service, in the form of livestreams, updates and games, to show “it doesn’t matter if you don’t get to be at the stadium or the arena or whatever — we can still come together and have fun and enjoy this,” she added.

This engagement from fans hasn’t come out of nowhere. The relationship of fans receiving a deeper and more revelatory Taylor Swift experience in exchange for engaging with her work in a scrupulous, detail-oriented fashion has been seeded from the very beginning — even in her earliest album where she was already encoding secret notes in her liner notes, says Paula Harper, a musicologist at the University of Chicago who is co-editing an academic book on Taylor Swift. 

“It may feel like it’s been relatively fast stardom, but this has been 20 plus years in the making,” says Mary Lauren Teague, an assistant professor of music business at Belmont University. “She’s always prioritized her fans and in exchange she’s seeing how that pays off.”

What is keeping fans hooked on this seemingly “unending” tour is the small pockets of variation that exist, which fans can latch on to in an almost gamified way, Harper says.

 “What are the surprise songs going to be? … Are there going to be new outfits?” 

This weekend will be the last time Swifties uncover Eras Tour Easter eggs as the tour comes to an end in Vancouver, Canada. The fans who run livestream accounts are expecting some of their biggest viewership figures.

Ammir Shah, a 25-year-old Youtuber who livestreams from the U.K. and has over 81,000 subscribers, is expecting his viewership figures to increase by around 25% for the final night as people tune in to see what surprises Swift has up her sleeves. 

Tess Bohne, the 33-year-old “livestream queen” from Utah, saw her average surprise song viewership figures of 100,000-200,000 spike to around 318,000 on Nov. 26, 2023, the end of the first leg of the tour. She isn’t expecting as high a spike for closing night because more streamers are now in the game.

Bohne and Shah operate like DJs curating the Eras Tour livestreams that fans post on social media to create the best possible viewing experience at home. As one the first accounts to do this, Bohne recognized a gap in the market because it could be hard to find consistently good streams on social media.

“I learned that it wasn’t just me who had gone to a show who wanted more,” says Bohne . 

“I also learned how many people were like, ‘I’m in a country where it’s too far for me to travel, I’m not able to do this’ and how many people due to different mental or physical illnesses were unable to go to concerts too and just how grateful they all were to have something where they’re able to enjoy [remotely watching] the concert,” she added.

However, being a streamer on the ground is not for the faint-hearted. They need to be prepared with multiple battery packs and comfortable pointing a phone for three plus hours  — sometimes in tight quarters — while it consumes enormous amounts of data and power. Fans used a record 5.58 Terabytes (TB) of data at one night of Taylor Swift’s dates at Wembley Arena in London, which was the most mobile data ever used at a standalone show at Wembley, and the equivalent of streaming her music catalog 4,500 times. 

To manage switching between different streamers, Bohne has a setup of two monitors — one for her TikTok stream and another to search for backup streamers. She also remotely controls a separate computer in her house which forwards the TikTok feed onto her Instagram and YouTube accounts. On an iPad she’s streaming “The Break Room,” which is a behind-the-scenes space where Bohne can talk with fans.

“There are people who are confused [by the livestreams], but I’ve really related it to sports,” Bohne says. “This is our favorite athlete and we’re watching them perform.”

Swifties even have a sports betting equivalent in Swift Alert, an app founded by Kyle Mumma, a 34-year-old product manager from North Carolina. The idea for the app emerged when Mumma noticed livestream chats continually filling with questions about the tour.

The app — managed by Mumma, his wife, and a friend based in Minnesota — alerts fans to key moments each night and enables them to play Mastermind, a game where fans can make predictions about each era’s outfit and the surprise songs for each show and compete against each other for bragging rights and even prizes, often a package of signed Taylor Swift vinyls, CDs, and merch items.

“It is a lot of work,” Mumma says. “We watch every show … We’re entering Mastermind answers. We’re updating the song tracker. We’re sending out the alerts in real time. We learned pretty early on that she’s going to — with no warning — pop out in a new Speak Now dress and we’ve got to be ready to send that new outfit alert. There’s no way to automate it.”

It’s even more work for the team when Swift is on the opposite side of the world, and they are juggling lack of sleep and full-time remote jobs. But the sleep deprivation is worth it based on impact alone, Mumma says.

“We’ve heard from a lot of people who have basically said, ‘The first few months of the tour, I was really sad knowing that I was not going to get to ever go,’” Mumma says. “‘And since the introduction of Mastermind and Swift Alert and this community that’s built around it, it’s felt like I’ve gotten to be a part of the tour even though I haven’t gotten to attend.’”

Better accessibility from tools, such as the livestreams and Swift Alert, hasn’t taken anything away from the tour itself. Last week fans were still competing for $15 CAD “listening-only” tickets for the closing nights. These tools are really a “win-win-win” for Swift, says music business professor Teague. 

“It’s free publicity and marketing for the artist,” Teague says, “And it’s also not taking away from the ticket sales, because Taylor Swift has sold out this tour. It’s not like fans were saying, ‘Oh I was going to buy a ticket, but instead I changed my mind and decided to do the livestream.’”

Swift Alert launched in Tokyo to a few thousand users — a “blessing in disguise” since they were still ironing out technical glitches —  and now daily active users, on show days, sits between 350,000 and 400,000.

With a live show, there’s no practice runs and issues need to be worked out on the fly. The highest-stakes moment is always the surprise songs — two non-setlist songs selected from Taylor Swift’s 11-album back catalog. Viewership will peak when the surprise songs come on and drop off after, Bohne says. The priority is finding the most consistent streamer for that moment because it’s what fans are waiting for, Shah says.

Not every artist could pull off the surprise songs the way Taylor Swift does, says musicologist Harper. Swift benefits from her sizable back catalog and her fans enthusiastically memorizing that entire back catalog, a behavior typically seen in more “masculine-coded genres” such as rock, she added.

“Fans are engaging with [her back catalog] in these very, very particular ways that are decently off-norm for the genre-situated and identity-situated performer that she is,” Harper says.

The mashups — a combination of multiple songs during the surprise song set — are now a huge part of the tour, despite being introduced during the Asia leg. 

“She’s very, very clever as to how she’s keeping people’s attention and keeping so many people interested all of these months into the tour,” says Carroll.

Posts about surprise songs gain the most engagement for tswifteratour — an anonymous X account that posts Eras Tour updates to over 800,000 followers. However, the account’s most memorable moment came from when they let their guard down in September last year.

“I actually woke up late because no one knew she was going to attend that [Kansas City Chiefs] game,” says the 20-year-old Singaporean who runs the account. “I thought, ‘Oh what is something interesting that I can tweet so it doesn’t look like I missed out on everything.’”

“There’s this picture, let me just crop it and post she’s eating chicken and ketchup and seemingly ranch.”

“Seemingly ranch” took the internet by storm, putting a huge spotlight on the account. After the tweet, brands raced to capitalize on the moment, with many companies and news outlets contacting the account for comment and partnerships. Heinz launched a limited-edition version of “Ketchup and Seemingly Ranch” sauce — which they sent over 10 bottles of to tswifteratour’s house — while the Empire State Building was lit up in “seemingly ranch” colours. It’s also now frequently listed on the menus of stadiums hosting the Eras Tour.

“Other tweets I’m planning them out, I have them in my drafts …  and all those tweets don’t do as well. This random tweet about ranch changes my life.”

Tswifterastour nabbed the username on the day the tour was announced. They haven’t been too worried about Swift’s team shutting them down since they’ve received plenty of interactions from Taylor Nation, a social media account linked to Swift’s team. “That was a big relief,” says the account holder.

Shah was also worried about how Swift’s team would react, but noticed that Taylor Nation had reposted content with people dancing and singing along with his stream in the background. “I felt a bit of ease and I was like if they’ve done that then they obviously know what’s on the screen behind the person,” he says. Mumma believes there’s been a conscious choice made by their team to let them provide this value to the fan base.

The times that Taylor Swift has gotten litigious in her career, it has most frequently been exercised against other powerful entities rather than fans, musicologist Harper says. 

Swift is no longer signed to a traditional record deal where she is required to make music exclusively for a label, says music business professor Teague. If she had been signed to a label then those entities might not have liked it because it takes money out of their pockets, she added.

“There would have been some cost benefit analysis undertaken when the livestream first popped up,” Carroll says. “But they would have realized, ‘Oh, hey, this is a lot more eyeballs on you. This is a lot more people talking about you. This is a lot more attention. They’re working for you. Just let it be.’”

Ultimately it’s a form of marketing for Swift, getting her more attention, increasing demand, and eventually leading to more money for her, Carroll says. Swift could in theory bring some of these tools in-house, but it would be a fine line to walk. 

“There’s an argument to be made that it would be great if we saw more professional livestreams for accessibility purposes,” Carroll says. “ … But I don’t think it would have the magic. It would be a more corporate experience, versus the grainy livestream on TikTok with 100,000 other fans who are there for the love of it.”

While these fans may be indirectly bolstering Taylor Swift’s earnings, none are earning a profit, nor did they really intend to — many only switched on donations at the urging of supporters. Any donations made on show days were below minimum wage, says Bohne, who relies on brand sponsorships these days. The ErasTourResell team says their donations were often nice little bonus moments like “a $25 Starbucks gift card for the three of us.”

“It has not been enough to go pay each of us salaries — other than our engineer,”  says Mumma, who charges $1.99 for the premium version of Swift Alert. “It’s something that we’ve done for the experience and the fun, and not because it allows me to go buy a new house.”

These tools have been a way for fandom to cope with the phenomenon of Post-Eras Tour Depression, a feeling of loss that fans experience after attending the concert — and a feeling they will have to reckon with all over again as the entire tour comes to a close.

“It’s going to be a bit of a shock to the fandom system when it ends, because there’s always been another livestream and another leg of the tour and another something to look forward to,” says Carroll.

Mumma still sees a future for Swift Alert even as this era comes to an end. The ability to send push notifications to 1.5 million users is a huge benefit for artists in a time when it’s difficult to cut through the noise on social media and he wants to explore this further. He already rolled out Sabrina Alert, providing updates on pop star Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet tour. Several of the livestreamers and X accounts also intend to continue in some capacity, but likely with a more casual approach going forward. 

“It scares me for what’s gonna happen after these last shows,” Bohne says. “Back to the sports metaphor, it’s almost like your favorite sports team is still there, but you don’t know when they’re gonna play the next game … it’s definitely gonna leave a huge hole.”

Taylor Swift could tide the fan base over by announcing surprises this closing weekend. Fans are speculating she could announce one of her remaining re-recordings or a documentary during the final shows. On the closing night of the European leg she released the “I Can Do It With A Broken Heart” music video minutes after the show ended.

“I feel like in this fandom, it’s ‘expect the unexpected,’” Richards says. Mumma doubts Swift would let the tour end without announcing something, but “if one thing is true, I’ve been wrong about Taylor Swift a lot, my Mastermind score will confirm that.” 

One thing that is for certain is there will be a global Swiftie Post-Eras Tour depression, Carroll says.

“Taylor is the star of the Eras Tour, it’s her show,” she says. “But it’s the fans who have really made it what it has become.”