Fans are following Taylor Swift to Europe after finding tickets less costly there (2024)

LONDON -- Thousands of ride-or-die Taylor Swift fans who missed out on her U.S. concert tour last year or didn't want to buy exorbitantly priced tickets to see her again found an out-of-the-way solution: Fly to Europe.

The pop star is scheduled to kick off the 18-city Europe leg of her record-setting Eras Tour in Paris on Thursday, and planeloads of Swifties plan to follow Miss Americana across the pond in the coming weeks. The arena where Swift is appearing said Americans bought 20% of the tickets for her four sold-out shows. Stockholm, the tour's next stop, expects about 10,000 concertgoers from the U.S.

A concert might sound like an odd raison d’etre for visiting a foreign country, especially when fans can watch the Eras Tour from home via the documentary now streaming on Disney+. Yet online travel company Expedia says continent-hopping by Swift’s devotees is part of a larger trend it dubbed “tour tourism” while observing a pattern that emerged during Beyoncé's Renaissance world tour.

Some North American fans who plan to fly overseas for the Eras Tour said they justified the expense after noticing that tighter restrictions on ticket fees and resales in Europe made seeing Swift perform abroad no more costly — and potentially cheaper — than catching her closer to home.

“They said, ’Wait a minute, I can either spend $1,500 to go see my favorite artist in Miami, or I can take that $1,500 and buy a concert ticket, a round-trip plane ticket, and three nights in a hotel room,” Melanie Fish, an Expedia spokesperson and travel expert, said.

That was the experience of Jennifer Warren, 43, who lives in St. Catharines, a city in the Niagara region of Ontario. She and her 11-year-old son love Swift but had no luck scoring what she considered as decently priced tickets in the U.S. Undeterred, Warren and her husband decided to plan a European vacation around wherever she managed to get seats. It turned out to be Hamburg, Germany.

“You get out, you get to see the world, and you get to see your favorite artist or performer at the same time, so there are a lot of wins to it,” said Warren, who works as the director of research and innovation for a mutual insurance company.

The three VIP tickets she secured close to the stage — “I would call it brute-force dumb luck” — cost 600 euros ($646) each. Swift subsequently announced six November tour dates in Toronto, within driving distance of Warren's home. "Absolute nose-bleed seats" already are going for 3,000 Canadian dollars ($2,194) on secondary resale sites like Viagogo, Warren said.

Hard-core fans trailing their favorite singer or band on tour is not a new phenomenon. “Groupie” emerged in the late 1960s as a somewhat derogatory word for the ardent followers of rock bands. Deadheads took to the road in the 1970s to pursue the Grateful Dead from city to city.

More recently, music festivals like California’s Coachella and England’s Glastonbury, and concert residencies in Las Vegas by the likes of Elton John, Lady Gaga and Adele, have attracted travelers to places they wouldn’t otherwise visit, Fish noted.

Travel and entertainment analysts have also spoken of a pent-up consumer demand for “experiences” over material objects since the coronavirus pandemic. Some think the willingness of music lovers to broaden their fandom horizons is part of the same mass cultural correction.

“It does seem like it’s more than a structural shift, maybe a personality transformation we all went through,” said Natalia Lechmanova, the chief Europe economist for the Mastercard Economics Institute.

As Swift hopscotches across Europe, Lechmanova expects restaurants and hotels to see the same boost that Mastercard observed within a 2.5-mile (4-kilometer) radius of concert venues in the U.S. cities she visited in 2023. The U.S. dollar's strong value against the euro may also increase retail spending on apparel, memorabilia, beauty products and supplies for the friendship bracelets fans exchange as part of the Eras Tour experience, the economist said.

Former college roommates Lizzy Hale, 34, who lives in Los Angeles, and Mitch Goulding, 33, who lives in Austin, Texas, already had tickets to see the Eras Tour in L.A. last summer when they decided to try to get ones for Paris, London or Edinburgh, Scotland, too. They saw a Europe concert trip as a makeup for travel plans they had in May 2020 to celebrate Goulding’s birthday but had to cancel due to the pandemic.

Goulding managed to secure VIP tickets for one of Swift's three Stockholm shows. He, Hale and two other friends scheduled a 10-day trip that also includes time in Amsterdam and Copenhagen.

“As people who enjoy traveling and enjoy music, if you can find an opportunity to combine the two, it's really special,” said Hale, who is pregnant with her first child.

The local economic impact of what the zeitgeist has termed “Swiftonomics” and the “Swift lift” can be considerable. Airbnb reported Tuesday that searches on its platform for the U.K. cities where Swift is performing in June and August — Edinburgh, Liverpool, Cardiff and London — increased an average of 337% when tickets went on sale last summer.

Not to be outdone when it comes to trend-spotting, the property rentals company cited the demand as an example of “passion tourism,” or travel “driven by concerts, sports and other cultural events.”

In Stockholm, 120,000 out-of-towners from 130 countries -- among them 10,000 from the U.S. — are expected to swarm Sweden's capital this month, Stockholm Chamber of Commerce Chief Economist Carl Bergqvist said. Stockholm is the only Scandinavian city on Swift's tour, and airlines added extra flights from nearby Denmark, Finland and Norway to bring people to the May 17-19 shows, he said.

The city's 40,000 hotel rooms are sold out even though prices skyrocketed for the tour dates, Bergqvist said. Concert visitors are expected to pump around 500 million Swedish kroner, or over $46 million, into the local economy over the course of their stays, an estimate that does not include what they paid for Swift tickets or to get to Sweden, he said.

“So this is going to be huge for the tourism sector in Sweden and Stockholm in particular,” Bergqvist said.

Nightclubs, restaurants and bars are seizing the opportunity to cater to fans with Taylor Swift-themed events, such as karaoke, quizzes and after-concert dance parties.

Houston resident Caroline Matlock, 29, saw Swift more than a year ago when the Eras Tour came to the Texas city. Now she's making more friendship bracelets and trying to learn a few words of Swedish as she prepares to see the 3 1/2-hour show in Stockholm. The idea of seeing Swift in Europe was her friend's, and Matlock needed some persuading at first.

“I was like, ‘I only want to go if it's a country I haven’t been to. I’ve seen Taylor Swift,'” she said.

Visiting the Scandinavian cities of Oslo and Gothenburg is on their itinerary. The concert is the last night of the trip and Matlock looks forward to interacting with Swifties from other countries: “Americans tend to have a very obsessive culture, especially Taylor Swift-related, so I'm curious if the crowd will be more toned-down.”

It remains to be seen if the music tourism trend has legs as long and strong as Swift's and Beyoncé's, and if it will carry over to Billie Eilish, Usher and other artists with world tours scheduled next year. Expedia's Fish thinks other big-name artists in Europe this summer will prove that booking a foreign trip around a concert is catching on.

Kat Morga, a travel consultant based in Nashville, isn’t so sure. Morga saw Swift perform in Nashville last year and helped two clients with school-aged children book European family vacations this summer that include seeing Swift in concert. But she thinks the difficulty of navigating ticket purchases through language barriers, currency conversions, international banking regulations and the risk of cancellations will limit the appeal of regular gig getaways.

“I think this is an anomaly,” Morga said. “People aren’t typically going to build their $20,000 huge family vacation only because Taylor Swift is there. She’s the one-off. She’s special.”

Booking Holdings CEO Glenn Fogel, whose company operates Booking.com, priceline.com, agoda.com, Kayak and OpenTable, is even less enthusiastic about concert tours as a tourism instigator. The Swift Effect causes a “little blip” when the superstar goes to smaller destinations, but for the worldwide travel industry, “one star touring around does not make a difference,” he said.

“It may just shift it a little bit. A person was going to go to the Caribbean for a week vacation. Instead that person (says), ‘Let’s travel to the Taylor Swift thing,'" Fogel said. "It doesn’t increase it. It just moves it from here to there.”

___

AP journalists Colleen Barry in Milan, Chisato Tanaka in Stockholm, Anne D'Innocenzio in New York, David Koenig in Dallas, Thomas Adamson in Paris and Brian Melley in London contributed reporting.

Fans are following Taylor Swift to Europe after finding tickets less costly there (2024)

FAQs

Fans are following Taylor Swift to Europe after finding tickets less costly there? ›

Some North American fans who plan to fly overseas for the Eras Tour said they justified the expense after noticing that tighter restrictions on ticket fees and resales in Europe made seeing Swift perform abroad no more costly — and potentially cheaper — than catching her closer to home.

How much are Taylor Swift tickets in Europe? ›

Taylor Swift international tour dates
DateCityPrices from
May 24Lisbon, Portugal$354
May 25Lisbon, Portugal$379
May 29Madrid, Spain$190
May 30Madrid, Spain$260
40 more rows
May 14, 2024

What is the average cost of a ticket to a Taylor Swift concert? ›

Taylor Swift is 2023's top artist—her tickets sell for an average of $1,088.

How much are Taylor Swift tickets 2024 USA? ›

Taylor Swift tickets for 2024 US tour

The cheapest ticket for her first show at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami is currently $1,915, while the best price for Swift's Indianapolis show at Lucas Oil Stadium is $1,705. Swift will also perform at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans, which has a capacity of 83,000.

How much does Taylor Swift pay staff? ›

What is unusual is the amount. Swift has given a total of $US55 million ($84 million) to hundreds of her staff, including the road crew, caterers, dancers, and truckers. (The truckers reportedly received about $US100,000 each, along with handwritten notes of appreciation.)

Why are Eras tickets cheaper in Europe? ›

Taylor Swift's Eras Tour is cheaper for Americans to see in Europe than in the U.S.—thanks to the strong dollar and EU regulations.

How much are Taylor Swift tickets in Paris? ›

Taylor Swift Paris tickets 2024
Taylor Swift Paris concert datesTicket prices start atWhat ticket prices started at on May 6
Thursday, May 9$205$271
Friday, May 10$247$246
Saturday, May 11$239$289
Sunday, May 12$293$289
May 9, 2024

Is the Eras tour sold out? ›

FAQs: Is the entire Eras Tour sold out? Tickets for Taylor's Era Tour have sold out worldwide, including all UK dates. Demand was exceptionally high, with reports indicating that Wembley sold out within just 14 minutes of tickets going on sale.

How much are Taylor Swift tickets in Amsterdam? ›

Swift will perform three shows at Johan Cruijff Arena, also known as Amsterdam Arena, which can accommodate up to 55,885 people. Currently, the cheapest tickets on StubHub are $673 for night three.

What is Taylor Swift's net worth? ›

Is Taylor Swift a billionaire? ›

The financial news outlet said she is the first artist to achieve billionaire status solely on the basis of her music, and estimated she has a $1.1 billion fortune.

How much does Taylor Swift pay her truck driver? ›

Taylor Swift gives over $50 million in bonuses to 'Eras' tour crew; truck drivers each get $100,000 - ABC7 New York.

Who is Taylor Swift's best friend? ›

You'd think being part of Taylor Swift's “squad” of A-list pals is something you'd want to shout about, but the singer's long-term bestie Ash Avignone has tended to keep their friendship low key and out of the spotlight over the years.

Will Taylor Swift do a European tour? ›

Get ready, Swifties! Taylor Swift will be in Europe with the much-anticipated Eras Tour that you can enjoy along with the Paramore Europe tour since the band will be the opening act for Taylor. Let's dive into the dates, locations, and exciting details you need to know for this fantastic experience.

How much are Taylor Swift tickets 2024 Canada? ›

Taylor Swift 2024 North American tour schedule
Taylor Swift 2024 Canada tour datesTicket prices start at
Nov. 21 at the Rogers Centre in Toronto, ON, CA$943
Nov. 22 at the Rogers Centre in Toronto, ON, CA$1021
Nov. 23 at the Rogers Centre in Toronto, ON, CA$1126
Dec. 6 at the BC Place Stadium in Vancouver, BC, CA$792
5 more rows
Jan 24, 2024

How much are Taylor Swift tickets in Edinburgh? ›

Taylor Swift in Edinburgh - Ticket Options

Official face value from £57.65. Resale tickets from £384.35.

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