Maura Brunt ’27
EE Staff Writer
Earlier this year, in March, Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour won the title of Tour of the Century during the iHeartRadio Music Awards. The Eras Tour started on March 17, 2023, and ended on December 8, 2024- going on for over a year and a half. During this time, Taylor Swift had 149 shows and was able to reach many fans across the world as she stopped at 51 different cities in North America, South America, Asia, Australia, and Europe. Each show averaged 3 hours and 15 minutes, and Swift tried to make it the most show-stopping performance ever.
First announced on November 1, 2022, while Taylor Swift was on Good Morning America, fans were buzzing with excitement on her new tour. This was just after the release of Midnights, her 10th album, which she released on October 21 of that year. Before this tour, she had not gone on tour for over 6 years; her last tour was the Reputation Stadium Tour for her 6th album, and it ended in 2018. While she did plan to have a tour for her 7th album, Lover, called Lover Fest, it was canceled due to the Coronavirus Pandemic and shutdown. Thus, many fans felt like this tour had been a long time coming, and their anticipation for this tour was clearly shown- Ticketmaster, the platform where Swift’s tickets were sold, had a “historically unprecedented demand” (Ticketmaster) when her tickets went up on sale.
Unlike some of her previous tours, which were primarily focused on her newest album release of that time, for the Eras Tour, Swift included songs throughout her discography; at the start of her tour, she had at least 1 song for each album, excluding her first self titled album: Taylor Swift. She structured her tour so she would go through each era one by one, having different costumes, equipment, dances, and effects for each era.
Despite this structure, each date was unique as she found ways to spice up the show. While she had a specific outfit she wore for each era, she would switch them around, wearing different colors or style variants on different days. Guessing what outfits she would wear became so popular that an app was created out of it. The Taylor Swift app “Swift Alert” created a game called “Mastermind”, after Taylor’s song with the same name, where people competed and tried to get the highest score by guessing what she would wear accurately. Her different outfits also sparked different social media and online theories; people tried to guess when she would bring out a brand new outfit, and what that might mean or hint at.
Despite her being on tour, throughout the duration of it, she released 3 different albums, announcing 2 of them at the tour. On May 5, 2023, during the surprise song section of her tour, she announced Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) which came out later in July. Later that same year, on August 9, 2023, at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, she announced 1989 (Taylor’s Version). The third album that came out during her tour was her 11th album, The Tortured Poet’s Department, which she released on April 19, 2024. By having these releases, and hinting at them through the outfits she wore or songs she sang, fans all around the world tried to watch her shows, whether they were there or watching a livestream.
Along with these special events, the Eras Tour had many iconic and classic moments. One exciting, but rare, event for fans at this tour was being chosen for the 22 Hat. During her song “22”, in Red (Taylor’s Version), one person would be chosen to go up to her on the corner of the stage and receive her fedora. In addition, on each tour, she would have 2 surprise songs that she would sing to her fans. These were 2 songs from her discography that were not typically on the tour, and she’d play one on her guitar, and the other on the piano. As this tour progressed, she tried to create different blends of songs, combining different lyrics and parts, as she wanted to keep the songs unique to each date.
Another fundamental aspect of the Eras Tour was the friendship bracelets that fans traded. In her song “You’re on Your Own, Kid” in Midnights, Taylor sings “So make the friendship bracelets, take the moment and taste it”, which sparked a whole community of fans to make unique friendship bracelets and trade them with each other. This trend became so popular and common that even Travis Kelce made a bracelet for Taylor Swift when watching her tour before they met.
Call it what you want, but the Eras Tour is truly deserving of its title as iHeartRadio’s Tour of the Century. She reached over 10,168,008 people in her shows, and even more online, and made $2.077 billion. She was very strategic in how she planned the tour, the changes she made, and the “treats” she gave the fans, making it a very memorable and iconic tour, showcasing her massive success.
Photo courtesy: Washington Post