On the night of December 8th, Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour finally concluded after almost two full years of touring and performing. Since the beginning of the tour, Swift has been the talk of the town across the globe; NPR News highlighted Swift kicking off the tour “in Arizona in March 2023. Over the next 630-plus days, Swift performed 149 shows — each more than three hours long — in over 50 cities across five continents.” With this massive world tour, Swift has consecutively broken record after record. Not only does this pertain to chart performances, but also her cultural impact as an artist; few modern performers have reached the level of success that Swift has achieved.
This final farewell has evoked all sorts of emotions and demonstrations of pure fanfare. On the last night of the Eras Tour, the audience experienced more than just the average live music closing performance; rather, it was the end of an evolutionary era not only for pop music, but for musical entertainment as a whole.
As this was Swift’s sixth global tour, it is clear that the longevity of her career has a history. Adding onto this idea, Swift is one of the only mainstream artists who has been able to remain relevant whilst shifting genres multiple times. Back in 2006, she released her first self-titled album Taylor Swift, featuring clever teenage lyrics, paired with a professional country sound. Following the positive response to her debut album, Swift continued recording country music for two more releases: Fearless and Sparks Fly. Likewise to the first, her second and third albums were also considered huge victories in her career. As Swift’s fan base rapidly expanded, she was led to announce her first world tour, the Fearless Tour, marking the true start of her life of stardom.
Following the Fearless Tour’s sold-out success, Swift continued to tour globally, producing music and performing at that very same level of prosperity she started at. At this point, Swift began to redirect her musical focus towards pop music. This was considered a rather risky move in the industry due to uncertainty of what the public response would be. Nonetheless, Swift came out on top, proving herself as an artist time after time. Along with this came the Red Tour, the 1989 Tour, and the Reputation Tour, which were pop record releases – some of the most successful pop albums of all time.
Unfortunately, as the world entered the global pandemic of COVID-19 back in 2020, Swift was no longer able to safely continue touring as planned. However, remaining invested in her work, Swift kept writing new music – with new styles – throughout her time in quarantine. These albums – featuring sophisticated lyricism, descriptive conceptual storylines, and a deeper emotional approach – helped Swift’s artistry absolutely radiate from her work. Although they drastically differ from her past albums, works such as Folklore and Evermore are heavily applauded for their brilliantly portrayed aspects of vulnerability and have helped Swift’s devoted fanbase, labeled as “Swifties,” to connect with her even more.
Furthermore, after the pandemic had lifted and life resumed as normal, Swift not only released another album, Midnights, but she also announced news of another world tour: the Eras Tour. The tour was intended to represent all these different “eras” within her almost two-decade-long musical career. Swift excitedly informed fans that the Eras Tour setlist would be carefully crafted to feature songs from every album, which increased the demand for tickets to see her show even more. In fact, the demand was so insanely high that the Ticketmaster website crashed on the first day of ticket sales due to an overload of activity. According to Cockroach Labs, “14 million simultaneous users (and bots) tried to buy tickets. The number of requests ballooned to a staggering 3.5 billion — four times the peak of any previous ticket sale,” causing the crash.
Moreover, the numbers associated with the Eras Tour are beyond mind-blowing. As stated by writers at Inkspire, it “became the first concert tour in history to gross more than $1 billion.” With Swift selling over one million tickets, this tour almost immediately established itself as the highest-grossing tour of all time, actually managing to surpass earnings of $2 billion. As a result of tourists traveling to attend shows, local economies in specific areas also flourished; restaurants and hotels made higher profits at these times – all thanks to Taylor Swift and her devoted fanbase.
With the arrival of the sold-out tour in March 2023, each concert was more than just a show: they were intimate journeys – marked by gorgeous visuals and vocals. Along with this, fans who could not attend the shows were given viewing opportunities on TikTok live streams. This helped further establish a sense of social community amongst fans that played a role in the shows themselves. Swifties showed up to the Eras Tour with themed outfits that represented their favorite albums. In addition to this, fans also made album-themed friendship bracelets to exchange at the concerts; all of these simple ways Swifties find joy with one another help to really illustrate the social and entertainment impact of this tour.
The final night of the Eras Tour was a celebration of Swift’s accomplishments and the morals she chooses to represent as an artist. Tearing up during performances, Swift couldn’t help but acknowledge and thank her Swifties for their support and everything in general – from fans waving glow sticks for hours, to singing every song lyric: “Making friends and bringing joy to each other, that is I think the lasting legacy of this tour, is the fact that you have created such a space of joy and togetherness and love. I couldn’t be more proud of you, honestly, that is all you.”
With the conclusion of the revolutionary Eras Tour, the question upon every Swiftie’s mind at this moment is – what’s to come next from Taylor Swift’s career? While nothing has been confirmed, Swift consistently provides her fans with hidden “easter eggs,” pointing towards potential new music. Despite this, one thing remains undeniably true: the influence of Taylor Swift will only increase, as her mastery of reinventing her musical sound helps her to outshine all competition in her field – whether you like her or not. Now, it’s more evident than ever that Swift’s passion for building connections with her fans has cemented her legacy in the music industry forever.
