eras tour meaning taylor swift

Find anything you save across the site in your account

The Eras Tour: The Intricate World-Building Behind Taylor Swift’s Most Ambitious Sets Ever

By Katherine McLaughlin

There’s a joke circling the internet following the opening weekend of Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour: look at any random collection of photos taken throughout the night—some even snapped mere minutes apart—and you’d never know they all came from the same show. What starts in a hazy pink, cotton candy dreamscape ends in a sultry, sparkling twilight—with plenty of undulating stops in the middle, from ethereal fairytale woods to the energetic skyscrapers of the concrete jungle. “[The stage] changed for almost every song, which is crazy to think about considering most artists have the same stage for their entire set list,” Maya Minocha, a fan who was at the opening weekend in Glendale, Arizona, tells  AD.  

Following the COVID-19-induced cancellation of Swift’s sixth headline tour, Lover Fest, in 2020, The Eras Tour is her triumphant return to live music. Three new albums and two rerecorded records later, the three-hour 44-song show recaps every era of her 17-year career in her most ambitious performance to date. “The sets absolutely made this possible,” Ginnie Low, who also attended the shows and runs the TikTok account The Thrifty Swiftie , says. “I didn’t move from my tiny little seat area the whole concert, but was transported to 10 different worlds.” Ariel Miranda , another concert-goer agrees. “It was such an immersive experience,” she says. With a distinct focus on world building,  AD takes a look at the incredible set design that helps bring her music to life throughout the 52-date sold-out tour. 

The Lover Era 

Swift during the opening number of The Eras Tour

Swift opened the show with tracks off of her seventh studio album,  Lover. “It was as if she picked up right from where she left off,” Miranda says. Having characterized the album with yellow, pink, and blue pastels, Swift—outfitted in a shimmering leotard—belted songs like “Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince” and “Cruel Summer” while dancers wielding billowing tapestries performed beneath a rosy glow.

Taylor Swift performs in front of the Lover House during The Eras Tour. 

At one point in the  Lover set, a familiar dollhouse-like home appeared behind Swift, which many fans recognize from the “Lover” music video. “The screen began flashing images that eventually would piece together to become the Lover House, which was a huge Easter egg,” Miranda adds. In the video, Swift and costar Christian Owens move through various colored rooms  within a house in a snow globe. When the music video first dropped, fans theorized that each room represented one of her existing albums, and with the release of three new albums, many believe the home is now complete . 

During “The Man,” Swift uses scaffolding and office props to emulate a corporate environment. 

By Sarah Archer

By David Nash

Other notable scenes from the Lover section of the show include a full-scale office cosplay moment during “The Man,” where Swift sings about the sexism she’s faced throughout her career. 

The Fearless Era

Projects and stage lights provide a golden glow during the Fearless era. 

Next up in the night, Swift performed three songs from her second album,  Fearless, for which she won album of the year in 2010 at the Grammys (the youngest artist to ever win the accolade). Though she was certainly popular in country circles following her self-titled debut album, it was this second record that established her mainstream success. And not only did the singer bring back some classic circa 2009  dance moves , she also brought back a dazzling gold motif that she employed when promoting the album over a decade ago. 

Taylor Swift with her bejeweled guitar

Outfitted in soft curls and sequins, Swift was often portrayed as the girl next door and an American sweetheart during this period. Though she did, at times, lean into this persona, fans remember her determination to be bold, strong, and, yes, fearless. The sparkles and shine acted as visual representation of this.

For fans, perhaps the most exciting Easter egg was a nod to the bedazzled guitar that she toured with during her  Fearless era. In an Instagram story, Swift revealed that it was her parents who artfully stuck the shimmering crystals onto her acoustic guitar just days before The Eras Tour kicked off. 

The Evermore Era

Taylor Swift performs songs from her ninth album, Evermore, at The Eras Tour. 

“The most striking moment was as she transitioned from Fearless to Evermore ,” Low opines. “The woods grew out of the stage.” A sister album to her 2020  Folklore,  Swift’s ninth album, Evermore, was positioned as a deeper exploration of the “folklorian woods,” a fictional, cottagecore-inspired place used to direct her first foray into indie folk music. Throughout this portion of the night, massive oak-like trees took center stage while Swift crooned behind a moss-covered piano. 

Swift uses a moss-covered piano for songs during this set. 

“I loved the Evermore era setup, particularly during her performance of ‘Willow,’” Miranda says. “It really made you feel like someone literally just picked you up and dropped you straight into this particular Taylor Swift album.” Sonically, Evermore was understood as a more gothic album compared to  Folkore. The bare trees and snow covered woods represent that, and they also show Swift’s desire to strip back layers and portray innately raw, natural storytelling. 

The Reputation Era

Swift stands atop a raised stage during the Reputation era of the concert. 

Spawned from Swift’s 2016 public feud with Kim Kardashian and Kanye West,  Reputation represented the singer’s reflection on fame and public perception and an opportunity to rewrite the “good girl” narrative she’d carried around for years. Though the album is often billed as defensive and reactive, it remains one of her most misunderstood collections: It’s also full of love songs and sweet moments. The dark stadium and blood red risers certainly support the most common perception of the album; however, it’s hard to miss the lit candles just below her. After all, it’s no coincidence burning is just as frequently used to describe rage and anger as it is passion and love.

The backup dancers pay homage to Swift’s “Look What You Made Me Do” music video. 

During “Look What You Made Me Do,” Swift’s backup dancers perform in doll boxes dressed in outfits inspired by previous looks she’s worn. The moment was a direct nod to the song’s  music video , in which Swift reenacts various moments throughout her time in the public eye in an eruptive, Easter egg-filled video. 

The Speak Now Era 

Swift sings “Enchanted” during the Speak Now set. 

Though Swift only performed one song from her third album,  Speak Now —much to the disappointment of some fans—she made sure to make it count. The color purple defined the album’s aesthetic, and, though the shade is often associated with royalty, it can also symbolize ambition, power, and independence. Following her historic win at the Grammys for  Fearless,   Speak Now was a pivotal moment in her career. Could she keep up the pace or was she another teen star who lost momentum as they reached young adulthood? Not only did Swift deliver, she proved she could do it on her own: Speak Now was the first album she wrote entirely solo. 

The Red Era

Taylor Swift wears an outfit nearly identical to one she wore in the “22” music video. 

The original  Red tour, which took place between 2013 and 2014, was her biggest at the time. It included a seven-piece band, fifteen dancers, multiple costume changes, as well as jumbotrons and multilevel stages. Though The Eras set certainly honored some of these larger-than-life moments from the first  Red tour, it also showed considerable restraint. 

Swift wears a sparkling red coat during an acoustic set. 

During one particularly emotional moment, Swift sang the 10-minute version of her critically acclaimed “All Too Well” with just her acoustic guitar. However, this doesn’t mean it wasn’t exciting. “Even some of her slower songs like “All Too Well,” where it was just her and a guitar, had insane stage effects that you wouldn’t expect, like snow confetti falling across the stadium and the stage rising when she started singing a high note,” Minocha explains. 

The Folklore Era

Taylor Swift on an A-frame during the Folklore set

“I was so obsessed with the  Folklore set because it seemed like Taylor was living her best life in a little remote forest cabin even though some 60,000 people were watching her,” Minocha says of the A-frame cabin Swift brought on stage. (A version of this home was first seen in her  2021 Grammy’s performance .) 

Swift wears an Alberta Ferretti dress during the Folklore set. 

Thematically,  Folklore explored a fictional woodland world Swift dreamed up during quarantine, and while a cabin certainly captures that aura, the choice of an A-frame specifically is notable. Because they were relatively cheap and easy to build, the style of home grew in popularity in the United States following World War II as vacation properties—an appropriate connection given the album is centered around an escapist fantasy. 

A-frames also represented a unique moment for architects who, with little financial consequences at stake, were able to test out their more speculative creative ideations. In many ways, with lockdowns, limited promotion, and no obvious answer for how or if the music would be performed live, this is what Swift’s  Folklore era represented too: the opportunity to explore,  uninhibited . “I love that album and she really created this whole world for it,” Low adds, “Building the folklore cabin and bringing us all into that world with her was just so cool.” 

The 1989 Era

The 1989 set of Swift’s Eras Tour

“Another thing that I loved about the stage design in general was how there were basically three different parts of it that all connected together: the main stage, the diamond stage, and the catwalk that led to the end of the stage,” Miranda says. “She really utilized each and every one of these sections of the stage at different times during the night.” 

Swift and dancers wield golf clubs during “Blank Space.”  

Though examples are abundant, a particularly creative use came during Swift’s  1989 set, a record which won Album of the Year at the Grammys in 2016. While performing “Blank Space” on the central diamond, the raised portion displayed a Shelby Cobra, which Swift and backup dancers “hit” with light-up golf clubs in a live reenactment of an iconic scene from the song’s music video. 

The Midnights Era 

During the final set of the show, Swift performs songs from her newest album, Midnights.  

The non-stop show ended with cuts from Swift’s most recent album,  Midnights,  with the stage cast in dark light, representative of both the title of the album and the end of the concert. Standing firmly in the present,  Midnights still has its roots in the past, since the album tells “the stories of 13 sleepless nights scattered throughout my life,” Swift explained in a  Instagram post . It’s easy to follow the way the previous two-plus hours of sonic reflection—aided through the incredible set design—brought her to where she is now. As Minocha summarizes, “I’ve been to almost all of Taylor’s past tours and the stage and production has always been above and beyond, but because this one explores all the eras of her career, everything is just next level.”

More Great Celebrity Style Stories From AD

25 Years After Cruel Intentions, ’90s Noir Thrillers Are Still On Our Mood Board

11 Celebrity Candles AD Editors Actually Love

Prentice Penny’s Maximalist Los Angeles Home Is All About Dreaming Big

The Sopranos Finale’s Diner Booth Goes to Auction

Jeremiah Brent to Join Queer Eye Cast as Newest Member of the Fab 5

Inside Ariana Grande’s Houses Through the Years

Notorious Mobsters at Home: 13 Photos of Domestic Mob Life

Step Inside Tan France’s Tudor-Style Dream House in Salt Lake City

Not a subscriber? Join AD for print and digital access now.

Browse the  AD PRO Directory to find an  AD -approved design expert for your next project.

By Elizabeth Fazzare

By Kristi Kellogg

By Bianca Giulione

• Entertainment

Everything You'll Want to Know About Taylor Swift's Eras Tour Concert Film

Swifties rejoice: you can finally relive the Eras Tour in your living room.

I am a die-hard Swiftie . Over the past decade of my life, I've analyzed her endless Easter eggs, had Taylor top my Spotify Wrapped for years, and you better believe I checked out the Eras Tour this summer. The concert was one of the most memorable experiences of my life. I made and traded friendship bracelets with fellow Swifties and sang every word to every song while I was at the show. I even went to the Eras Tour concert film and relived every second of the extravaganza. 

Swift's highly anticipated concert flick premiered in theaters earlier this fall, and it smashed records. CNBC  reported  that it's the highest-grossing domestic concert film ever, bringing in between $95 million and $97 million. Recently, Swift announced that the Eras Tour will be coming to living rooms, as the film has been released for rent on several on-demand services. 

If you got snubbed in that Ticketmaster debacle , or if you just want to relive the magic that was the Eras Tour, I've got you covered with all the important information you'll want to know before attending from the comfort of your own home. 

For more entertainment-related fare, here are  10 things you can do to save money on streaming , and here are the best smart TVs of 2023 .

What is the Eras Tour? 

Swift's stadium tour swept through more than a dozen US cities plus Mexico City this summer. The Eras Tour is a love letter to her impressive musical career and the fans who have seen her through it. The numbers indicate the tour draws massive public appeal. The tour is projected to gross $1 billion , including Swift's overseas tour next spring.

That billion dollars is, by all accounts, a fantastic measure of Swift's power, but it doesn't even account for the thousands of fans who attended her concerts from parking lots and bridges outside of the concert venues this year. Already, Swift's journey around the US has proved an economic boon to host cities. 

So, what is the Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour concert film?

Filmed over her Los Angeles dates at the SoFi stadium, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour is a two-hour, 45-minute chronicle of her hit tour. For fans who are familiar with the tour, this raises some questions as to what has been cut from the film. The concert I attended ran for about 3 hours, but by the end of the tour, it was about three and a half hours long. Curious fans finally have their answers. 

The film had its premiere on Oct. 11, and we finally know what's been cut. Be warned, I'm going to get into some major spoilers for the concert film, so if you want to be surprised while you watch, just skip this section. 

It looks like Swift has nixed five songs from the setlist she performed the nights she recorded the film. Entertainment Weekly reports that the songs No Body, No Crime; Long Live; Wildest Dreams; The Archer and Cardigan were all cut from the concert film. Fans of Long Live do have some recompense; it plays over tour bloopers and videos of fans during the credits. 

Of the six surprise songs she recorded (Swift performs these during the rotating acoustic portion of the show), the songs Our Song and You're On Your Own, Kid ended up making the final cut. Fans can also expect to see shortened costume changes and transitions between Swift's different eras in the film. 

How long is Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour concert film in theaters? 

Swift's concert film hit theaters worldwide on Oct. 13. According to Insider, the film had to be shown in theaters for four weeks following its release. Insider said Swift circumvented Hollywood studios and negotiated the film's distribution directly with AMC, allowing her to have more control. Time has reported that Swift's concert film has brought home an impressive $248.9 million at the box office, cementing itself as the highest-grossing concert film at the US box office. Given this accomplishment, it's safe to say the concert film will be hanging around theaters for a while. 

How can I get Swift movie tickets? 

You can buy tickets to the concert film where you would ordinarily buy tickets to most movies, either online or at an in-person box office. 

Swift's website has links to sites where you can buy tickets through AMC, Regal, Cinemark and Fandango. You could check your local indie theater's website too, to see whether it's showing the concert film. 

Fan reaction to ticket sales was swift (pardon the pun). Wanda Gierhart Fearing,  Cinemark 's chief marketing and content officer, told me that the company saw "frenzied traffic to [its] website and app the moment tickets went on sale" and that "we are ready for Swifties to be enchanted by this concert film in the unprecedented number of auditoriums we have booked to meet demand."

How much do tickets cost?

Adult tickets go for $19.89, which is a nod to the year of Swift's birth and the title of her fifth studio album, 1989. Fans also know that the album 1989 is about to get the Taylor's Version treatment, with the artist's rerecording of the album dropping 14 days after the film hits theaters. Seniors and children's tickets go for $13.13, a nod to Swift's lucky number. 

Right now, it's unclear whether subscribers to paid theater subscriptions like Regal Unlimited will be able to use the deals available to them on tickets for this film, given the special pricing. In a FAQ on AMC's website, the company said that this film is excluded from the company's A-List program's reservation feature. 

Cinemark confirmed to CNET that members of the Cinemark Movie Club can apply all standard benefits of the membership. 

Can I treat this like a normal concert? 

While a concert film can be exciting and almost feel like a real concert, it's best practice to be respectful of other theatergoers both in your showing and in other showings at the theater. 

This doesn't mean you can't keep up with other Eras Tour practices, like wearing a fun costume based on Swift's songs and lyrics or making and trading friendship bracelets with other Swifties. You could even quietly sing along and dance in your seat, as long as you're considerate of viewers around you and don't interrupt others' viewing experience. 

If you're attending the film at an AMC theater, then you're in luck. The company has provided you with guidelines for how to behave during the film -- and it all boils down to being respectful of those around you. 

I saw the concert film at an indie theater, and in my experience, people were pretty quiet during the film. There was no singing loud enough for me to detect, and the only people who danced in my theater were several smaller children. Based on my experience, I recommend going in with the expectation of watching this film just like you would any other movie. 

If you just have to sing and dance along to all of your favorite Taylor Swift hits (which I totally understand the urge to do) you do have some options. In a press release distributed to CNET, Cinemark announced Private Swiftie Parties -- an extension of its Private Watch Parties offering -- that allow fans to reserve an entire auditorium for singing and dancing. In the release, Fearing said "our larger-than-life screens and captivating surround sound deliver a most enchanting environment to sing and dance along with friends and family to the concert of the decade." Right now, these Private Swiftie Parties are on sale on Cinemark's website and app. The watch parties are available at participating locations for $800 and can accommodate up to 40 fans. 

How can I watch the concert film at home? 

This week, Swift announced that the Eras Tour concert film, extended version, will be available to rent on Dec. 13 (none other than the singer's birthday) on Apple TV, Vudu, Prime Video, Xfinity, Google Play and YouTube. Fans can expect some extra content from the extended version, with previously cut songs Wildest Dreams, The Archer and Long Live being added back in. Renting the concert film will set you back $19.89, and you'll be able to stream the film for 48 hours. 

There's not an exact date on when we can expect the concert film on streaming services, although TV Line reports that Swift can't put her concert film on streaming platforms for 13 weeks after the film comes out. Jan. 12, 2024, would be the earliest possible date the film could wind up on a streaming service. 

As a seasoned Swiftie, my recommendation is to keep a close eye on any hints Swift might give over the next few months for a streaming release date. Her well-known Easter eggs have given fans clues to album release dates and music video drops, so it's possible she'll use one to reveal the film's streaming debut. 

For more, here are  the best TVs of 2023 and the best streaming services of 2023 . 

Find anything you save across the site in your account

“Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” Is Intimate, Colossal, and Slightly Disappointing

By Richard Brody

Like most people, I know some of Taylor Swift ’s songs by the mere fact of being alive, but it’s one thing to hear music and another to listen to it. The prime virtue of her concert film, “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour”—shot last August, during three performances at SoFi Stadium, in Inglewood, California—is to concentrate one’s attention on her music, for two and three-quarter hours, as if in a listening booth. What it reveals about her artistry only heightens my appreciation for the substance and the imagination that goes into the making—indeed, the being—of this pop superstar. The concerts are megaspectacles, simultaneously intimate and colossal; Swift commands the stadium throughout, amid large-scale stage business. She’s often alone, sometimes joined by a handful of dancers, occasionally backed by a brigade of them, as huge video screens and stage sets serve as elaborate backdrops adorned by light shows and smoke effects. (As for the band, it’s kept far away, in a paddock of its own.) The film of this show puts her songwriting in the foreground, as if her music were a movie script, brought to dramatic life by her performance.

There are film directors who manage to turn big-budget studio movies into personal works, and, as I watched, I felt that Swift commandeers the mighty mechanism of celebrity in a similar way. The concept of the concert is autobiographical: Swift looks back at her career, album by album, each of which she ascribes to a different “era” in her life and each of which constitutes a segment of the show. She writes in the first person, with telling detail and candor, but also locks into a mythology of modern American young womanhood in a manner that lends narrative richness to her self-portraiture: young romance and boyfriends, friends and frenemies, school and neighborhood and family. The songs reflect a headlong desire to live the passions of the moment fully and deeply, an awareness of the barriers to this posed by the conventions of daily life, and a sense of pushing past these by sheer force of emotion toward hard-won self-knowledge. Swift is a melodramatist in the best sense, finding heroic grandeur in ordinary lives and circumstances, conceiving her experiences as a form of naturalistic legend in which her audience, of girls and young women, find their own experiences taken seriously, as they deserve to be. The “Eras” concept notwithstanding, Swift’s songs are curiously detached from their times: in expanding the specifics of her life to a quasi-universality, she filters out cultural specifics, as if inviting listeners to fill in the blanks with their personal set of references.

I found myself thinking of the romantic melodramas of Douglas Sirk, such as “ Written on the Wind ,” and this notion was reinforced by Swift’s performance of “the last great american dynasty,” a song from her album “ folklore ,” in which she tells the story of the late socialite and arts patron Rebekah Harkness (whose Rhode Island mansion Swift bought in 2013). While she sings the song—about a “middle-class divorcée” who marries the heir to an industrial fortune and becomes the focus of scandal—she’s accompanied not just by dancers but also by an actress who portrays Harkness clad in a glamorous fifties-style gown and elbow-length gloves. This number, a sort of impressionistic refraction of a glossy classic-era Hollywood romance, is the high point of the movie’s staging, though not its most inventive sequence. (There is more immediately eye-catching allure to the staging of some songs early on, in front of a huge, abstractly geometrical cutaway diorama-like house, reminiscent of Jerry Lewis’s “ The Ladies Man ”—and of the Hollywood Squares .)

The tour’s concept—the “eras” of Swift’s career—could easily seem self-aggrandizing, but it doesn’t come off this way because of a core of authentic experience that it delivers. Swift has grown up in public, and her fans’ fervent response to each new facet of her work corresponds to the major life changes (inner and outer) that accompany her artistic development. (Let no one who contemplates John Coltrane’s or Franz Schubert’s year-by-year musical self-transformations cast the first stone.) The movie shows Swift’s performance to be both artful and modest; she displays prodigious talent but not intimidating virtuosity. Though her dancing is adroit, she conveys far more with her theatrical repertoire of striding, gesturing, and glancing. Her singing is strong but not operatic, expressive but not flamboyant, perched at the border of a conversational or confessional tone. In effect, it’s a voice made to fit the lyrics—neither overwhelming nor underwhelming, an intensification and distillation of what’s extraordinary in ordinary life.

In short, the fascination of Swift’s performance is personal. That’s why the movie ultimately falls short of her aesthetic. Concert movies are rarely straightforward documentaries ; rather, they generally build an image track to go along with a music track, somewhat like a music video, with the celebratory and promotional aspects to the fore. But this movie (directed by Sam Wrench) hardly adds another level of experience to the performances, because its visual composition, moment to moment, is burdened by convention and complacency. This doesn’t get in the way of the music, but it disregards the authenticity of Swift’s presence, the physical side of her performance.

What’s missing from the film is both a sense of proximity and a sense of time. “The Eras Tour” offers very few screen-filling closeups of Swift, and they go by in a flash. Indeed, the movie is almost entirely made up of very short shots, whether Swift is singing in motion while striding across the stage or in place when accompanying herself on guitar or piano, introducing songs with spoken commentary. The decision to film and edit the movie that way comes off as no mere concession to short attention spans and impatience with stasis. Short shots, chez Wrench or Sergei Eisenstein or Ridley Scott , serve one purpose: to insure that each image says exactly one thing, to reduce complexity to an instantly graspable unity. To turn such images into a complex whole requires virtuosic editing, but the editing of “The Eras Tour” doesn’t rise to the challenge, providing little variety or contrast from image to image.

The impersonality of the filming is diametrically antithetical to Swift’s artistry. The movie’s visual monotony—its uninspired angles, its sameness of tempo, its obstinate cutting away from action—renders the cinematic experience wearying, even as one can see that the live performances were invigorating. Among the fascinations of Swift’s stage presence is its apparent lack of spontaneity—the way the band is relegated to the sidelines, except in a few theatricalized moments in which guitarists briefly jam alongside her. But I say “apparent” because I don’t believe it: for all the careful rehearsal that makes the numbers come off like clockwork, Swift is very much in the moment. The movie, however, catches this fervor only in glints and flashes, as if in still frames, never in motion. A freer and more creative directorial approach—longer and more urgent closeups, say, or more patient and more curious wide shots—would reveal the spontaneity and the immediacy and humanity of Swift’s performances. Such a film would mirror her combination of concentration and abandon, thought and feeling, converging in the inner life of the artist at the center of the spectacle.

Instead, the movie is shot and edited like a commercial—and it’s obviously an effective one, because it provides an opportunity for a cohort of middle-aged film critics, myself included, to fawn over her work in a way that risks doing it an injustice. Like so many parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles, movie writers may coo, “She’s such a nice girl,” as if implicitly differentiating her from edgier rockers and rappers, or from more reckless celebrities. And she may well be a nice person, but her art involves much more than that, and she gives much more than that to her art. To get to the passion and the power of Taylor Swift would require a much better movie; the one she deserves would show not just how she shakes it off but how she shakes it up. ♦

New Yorker Favorites

A Harvard undergrad took her roommate’s life, then her own. She left behind her diary.

Ricky Jay’s magical secrets .

A thirty-one-year-old who still goes on spring break .

How the greatest American actor lost his way .

What should happen when patients reject their diagnosis ?

The reason an Addams Family painting wound up hidden in a university library .

Fiction by Kristen Roupenian: “Cat Person”

Sign up for our daily newsletter to receive the best stories from The New Yorker .

By signing up, you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

By Helen Rosner

Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour Has Already Made History 13 Times

And she’s not even halfway done yet.

Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour is reaching its halfway point, nearly a year after she kicked off her global trek in March 2023. And it’s already made the history books. The singer started breaking records on opening night — literally — and has reached new heights at nearly every stop along the way.

Few world tours have had the same impact as Swift’s. It has been a huge boost for the global economy, with the U.S. Travel Association estimating that the tour has generated more than $5 billion for local economies.

Its success was also a huge factor in making Swift a self-made billionaire . Given that it’s not even over yet, there’s no telling how much more money it could generate.

Here are all of the records that Swift has broken with the Eras Tour... so far.

The First Billion-Dollar Tour

The Eras Tour became the highest-grossing tour of all time before it was even halfway finished. While Swift’s team doesn’t plan to report box office numbers as many artists do, Pollstar estimated she grossed over a billion dollars, making her the first artist ever to hit that milestone in a single tour.

Guinness World Records made it official in December after Swift concluded the 2023 leg. Since she’s playing shows through 2024, Variety estimates that the number could rise to an astounding $2 billion by the tour’s end.

Swift takes the record from Elton John, whose Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour became the biggest tour to date in January 2023. His years-long trek ended in July 2023, and made $939 million over 328 shows. To put Swift’s achievement in context, she broke the record after performing 66 shows out of a planned 152 shows.

Her Concert Movie Broke 2 Records

The Eras Tour domination didn’t end with concert ticket sales — it translated to the movie theater box office. After concluding the first North American leg in August, Swift announced that her Eras Tour concert movie would premiere in theaters that October. The film earned $37 million in presales on its first day alone and broke AMC’s single-day advance ticket sales record before it even came out.

It didn’t take long for Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour to be crowned the highest-grossing concert film of all time, with AMC reporting a week before the film premiered that it had already reached $100 million in advance sales . This was enough to beat the previous record-holder, Justin Bieber: Never Say Never .

An Unprecedented Golden Globe Nomination

At the 2024 Golden Globes, Swift’s Eras Tour movie was nominated for Best Cinematic and Box Office Achievement, making it the first concert film to ever be nominated for a Golden Globe . Sure, it got the nod in a brand new category that was practically tailor-made for a movie like Swift’s.

The Eras Tour film was up against other successful box office movies, like Barbie , Oppenheimer , and The Super Mario Bros. Movie, but it eventually lost out to Barbie .

The Biggest Concert For A Female Artist

When Swift performed her first Eras Tour show in Glendale, Ariz., on March 17, 2023, she broke the record for highest attended concert by a female artist in the U.S., with over 69,000 tickets sold . Naturally, she’s went on to break her own record multiple times over the course of the U.S. leg.

She Shattered 8 Venue Attendance Records

Swift has broken attendance records at multiple stadiums worldwide, another sign of the tour’s demand. In the U.S., she achieved the biggest single-day attendance at Nashville’s Nissan Stadium with 71,000 people, Pittsburgh’s Acrisure Stadium with 73,117 fans, and Seattle’s Lumen Field with 72,171 attendees.

Even more impressively, Swift was able to set three-day attendance records at the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, with 210,607 people, and New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium with 217,635 fans.

So far, she’s faring just as well overseas, setting both one-day and three-day attendance records at Sao Paolo’s Allianz Parque, and breaking the three-day record at Melbourne’s Cricket Ground with 288,000 fans, which were the largest shows of her entire career .

The 25 Best Moments From Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour

By Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

From the moment it broke Ticketmaster, the world knew Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour would become the biggest of the year. Now, it’s on track to become the biggest pop music event of the next two years thanks to multiple international legs that wrap up back in North America next fall. Swift has not only been performing to sold out crowds in each stadium, but also to more thousands of ticketless fans hovering outside of venues or watching on social media from home. 

She’s not even close to halfway through the tour, but she has already gone above and beyond her fans’ expectations thanks to multiple surprises, major announcements and special guest appearances that have made the tour’s first leg across the United States a major success. In honor of that historic run — and in chronological order — here are the best moments of Swift’s Eras Tour so far. Baby, let the games begin.

We Find Out The Show Is 3 Hours Long

Along with the thousands of fans packed into Glendale’s State Farm Stadium for the first night of Eras Tour, there were even more watching the show from grainy Instagram and TikTok Lives. Swifties around the globe had no idea what to expect from the pop star’s new live show; she had released four albums of original music since her last tour in 2018, as well as re-recorded versions of two previous albums. Would she focus on 2022’s Midnights ? Would Folklore and Evermore even work in a stadium setting? Everyone was in for a treat as the night unfolded into 3.5 hours of Swift running through sets for all but her debut album (which did get some love during the surprise song portion that night). It felt like a fever dream for fans, making the Ticketmaster debacle even more worth the anxiety than anyone could have anticipated. –B.S.

Her ‘First Bridge of the Evening’ Speech

Every night this summer, just to seal our fate, Taylor has made a celebration out of the “Cruel Summer” bridge. As she declares, just a few minutes into the show: “We have arrived at the very first bridge of the evening! Now I would prefer that we cross it together!” A perfect invitation from a songwriter who has always made a specialty of her middle-eights. Later in the show, another highlight is when she does the “Illicit Affairs” bridge—not the rest of the song, just the “Don’t call me kid! Don’t call me baby!” chant in the middle. Who else could get away with that? We can’t wait for Taylor’s “Bridges Tour”—just four hours of her bridges. –R.S.

‘Cruel Summer’ Becomes a Top 10 Hit

Hey, any artist can score a hit in the middle of a tour. But the trick is crashing the Top Ten with a fan-fave deep cut that’s four years old. Fans always wondered why “Cruel Summer” wasn’t a single—it sounded like the great lost hit from  Lover , the would’ve-could’ve-should’ve summer jam of 2019. But a year later, the world was in  Folklore  Mode and “Cruel Summer” got left behind—that hit that slipped away like a bottle of wine. Until now. Just in time for Eras Tour, she finally dropped it as a single. “Cruel Summer” blew up into her 41st Top Ten hit in July, reaching #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #1 on the Pop Airplay chart. A very Swiftian redemption arc for this perfect pop banger—ain’t that the worst thing you ever heard? –R.S.

Taylor’s Speech Defending Her Love For ‘Evermore’

Evermore is to Folklore as Radiohead’s Amnesiac is to Kid A ; it’s the sister album that will always be pitted against its elder sibling. And there’s no Swiftie like an Evermore Swiftie. The album’s true fans will defend it to the grave, champagne problems and all. Fans were absolutely convinced Swift didn’t like Evermore when she didn’t commemorate its one-year anniversary on social media. But Taylor is always listening, and she wasted no time debunking this rumor, addressing it on night one of the Eras tour in Glendale, Arizona. “We’re currently in the middle of the Evermore album,” she told the crowd after “Marjorie.” “Which is an album I absolutely love, despite what some of you say on TikTok.” How’s that for some closure? –A.M.

The Lengthy Ovations After ‘Champagne Problems’

It happens every night. Taylor sits alone at the piano for “Champagne Problems,” her first solo performance of the night—and it always brings out the beast in the crowd. It’s a moment where the audience literally stops the show to scream, for minutes on end, leaving poor Taylor with no way to move on. In L.A. last week the ovation kept going for 8 minutes. (Never change, L.A.—you are the Dorothea of cities.) Since she doesn’t do a standard encore break, this is the crowd’s chance to grab the mic and go full blast—an unorthodox but totally organic moment. Like so many details of the Swiftian live experience, it’s a fan-created phenomenon that takes on a life of its own. It’s also proof that as far as the Eras Tour is concerned, sorry, but Evermore is more Era than any other Era. –R.S.

Marcus Mumford Sings ‘Cowboy Like Me’ In Las Vegas

Taylor knew “Cowboy Like Me” was special the minute she wrote it — who else could get away with a line like “Some tent-like thing” and make it sound magical? She knew she was sitting on a 21st century “Desperado,” beloved by everyone from Maya Hawke to Maggie Rogers . The Western lullaby was recorded at Marcus Mumford’s Scarlet Pimpernel Studios, and he even provided backing vocals. So it was only right that he join her on the Evermore track’s live debut, early into the tour in Las Vegas on March 25. “Would you sing ‘Cowboy Like Me’ with me?” she asked. Mumford, who’d already performed it more than 50 times on his own tour , happily obliged .–A.M. 

Taylor Replaces ‘Invisible String’ with ‘The 1’

In Swiftworld, few things happen without a reason, hidden or not. So when the fate-brought-us-together ballad “Invisible String” vanished from the Eras Tour setlist, replaced by the perfectly wistful masterpiece “The 1,” from the same album, it probably should’ve raised more eyebrows in the moment. Instead, it took certain headlines about Swift’s personal life, a week later, to make full sense of the very welcome swap.- -B.H.

The ‘And Take Her Home’ Note In ‘The 1’

Nobody, absolutely nobody, was complaining that “The 1” wasn’t heartbreaking enough. But for the live version, Taylor throws in The Note, for the kill. As she sings “The 1” on the mossy roof of her Folklore Cottage of Solitude, she adds that extra spice to the line, “You meet some woman on the internet and taaake her home.” As far as we’re concerned, this note is now “The 1” canon. The original Folklore version already sounds weird without it. –R.S. 

Aaron Dessner’s Surprise Song Appearances

When Aaron Dessner from the National came out in Tampa to bless the Eras Tour stage for the first time, Swifties in the stands and watching on live streams at home knew they were all in for a devastating set of Dessner-produced tracks. From an acoustic version of “The Great War,” to the poignant piano ballad “Mad Woman,” Dessner and Swift shined together on these stripped down versions of beloved songs. But the real kicker was “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve,” with Dessner jamming along on guitar and the entire Nissan Stadium screaming with Swift as she sang, “give me back my girlhood/ it was mine first!.” It was truly a moment for the history books. –M.G.

Taylor announces ‘Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)’ in Nashville

Nashville turned purple when Swift decided to announce the release of Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) during her Eras tour stop in her hometown on May 5. In typical Swiftian fashion, the singer used a play on words to reveal the album would be in July in the midst of her performance. “I think rather than me speaking about it, I thought I would show you, so if you would direct your attention,” she told an audience of screaming fans , while directing their attention to Nissan Stadium’s screens which featured the album cover and its release date. But Swift wasn’t done: She surprised fans by launching into a performance of “Sparks Fly.” And, oh, did they fly. –I.K.

Nashville Also Gets The First Rain Show of The Eras Tour

There is arguably nothing more Swiftian than rain; it’s a signature element to her lyrics. Swift used to play “Should’ve Said No” in a makeshift downpour on stage, and her first headlining rain show at Gillette Stadium is a thing of Swiftie folklore (it apparently inspired the fan-ode “Long Live”). Everyone was eagerly refreshing their weather apps to see if they’d be the Eras Tour stop to witness Taylor come in with the rain. Nashville night 3 got especially lucky. After lightning delayed the start of the show for several hours, Swift weathered the storm along with her hometown crowd. She was so drenched she compared herself to a “river otter” — and still put on one hell of a show that didn’t end until nearly 2 a.m. –M.G.

Tour Opener Phoebe Bridgers Sings Vault Duet ‘Nothing New’

On the first night in Nashville , Swift invited Phoebe Bridgers (“one of my favorite artists”) to perform their Red (Taylor’s Version) collaboration “Nothing New,” and emotions were running high. They were clearly both psyched to be sharing the stage: right before the song’s prophetic bridge, Swift laughed and mouthed “oh my god” while Bridgers shook her head in disbelief at the fact she was singing with one of her idols. At that moment, more than a few concertgoers had their inner child healed. It was so powerful that Swift snuck their performance into the set during every tour stop that Boygenius opened. –M.G.

The ‘Karma’ Video Premiere During the First New York Show

Fans attending Swift’s three night stint at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey (which technically also counts as her New York tour dates, for surprise-song purposes) knew they were in for some unexpected highlights even before the first show kicked off. Leading up to that night, Swift announced the release of Midnights (Til Dawn) , an expanded version of her 2022 album that included a remix of “Karma,” featuring buzzy new rapper Ice Spice. In the middle of the show, Swift did more than shout out the new release: she decided to debut the “Karma” video in the middle of her set. Swift and her dancers sat on the stage to watch the video, which premiered on YouTube soon after. –B.S.

Jack Antonoff Appears For A Surprise ‘Getaway Car’

After Aaron Dessner made appearances earlier in the tour to perform with Swift during her surprise song sets, it was only a matter of time before Jack Antonoff did the same. Fittingly, it occurred on the first night of her New York shows, which were in Antonoff’s home state of New Jersey. Even better, his appearance ticked “Getaway Car” off the surprise song list, with Antonoff playing guitar on the Reputation cut and fan favorite. –B.S.

Ice Spice Appears Onstage For ‘Karma’ Remix

A “Karma” video premiere wasn’t enough for Swift as she celebrated Midnights (Til Dawn) over the course of her weekend in New York. She added an extra dose of excitement to show closer “Karma” when she invited Ice Spice out to perform the remix with her three nights in a row. The pair were a match made in pop heaven on stage together, with the 23-year-old rapper commanding the crowd perfectly next to the headliner. It didn’t take a lot for the two stars to make “Karma” a massive success, so it came as no surprise that the song shot up the charts a week later. –B.S.

Two Lucky Audiences Get to Hear ‘Clean’

Back in February, Gracie Abrams told Rolling Stone that her favorite 1989 track was “Clean.” Fast forward to April 1st: Taylor Swift made good on a request from Abrams to play the track after her first night opening shows on Swift’s stadium run. “I will remember this feeling in my bones for the rest of my life,” Abrams wrote on Instagram. And if “Clean” stans weren’t satisfied enough, Swift played the song again on the second night of her New Jersey stop, claiming with a smirk that she “could have played it in a higher key” as a way to avoid violating her rule about not repeating surprise songs. A worthy rare repeat for a classic 1989   track. –W.A.

The First Performance of ‘Dear John’ In 11 Years

With the surprise songs section of the Eras Tour, fans were anxiously awaiting the night when Swift would break out “Dear John,” her scathing anthem allegedly written about her ex John Mayer. With the release of Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) , Swiftie anticipation hit a fever pitch. Then, on June 24 in Minneapolis, they got their wish— hearing it live for the first time in 11 years . But with the performance of the song, Swift also had a disclaimer for her fans: She reminded them to consider “kindness and gentleness” when interacting online. “I’m 33 years old. I don’t care about anything that happened to me when I was 19 except the songs I wrote,” Swift added. “So what I’m trying to tell you is that I’m not putting this album out so you should feel the need to defend me on the internet against someone you think I might have written a song about 14 billion years ago.” In short, there’s no reason to be “mean.” –I.K.

Opener Gracie Abrams Gets Invited To Sing ‘I Miss You I’m Sorry’ With Taylor

What’s better than two surprise songs at an Eras Tour show? Three! At her July 1 date in Cincinnati, Swift not only debuted Evermore track “Ivy” and Reputation cut “Call It What You Want” for the first time in five years, but she shared the stage with Gracie Abrams and Aaron Dessner for a performance of her tour opener’s track “I Miss You, I’m Sorry.” While Abrams’ ballad is stunning on its own, Swift stole the show by alternating verses with the Good Riddance singer. –I.K.

That Taylor Lautner Cartwheel

Even though he is one of Swift’s better exes, Lautner’s inserting himself into the Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) conversation on social media (remember #prayingforjohn?) wasn’t a perfectly smooth process. But that didn’t stop Swift from bringing him out in Kansas City for a very cool and very full circle moment punctuated by a cartwheel that would have turned a less-athletic person’s bones to dust. Lautner told The Today Show that the cartwheel wasn’t planned, making it all that more impressive. Despite the seeming spontaneity of his on-stage acrobatics, the move did have some resemblance to the flip Lautner did in the 2010 flick Valentine’s Day , in which he co-starred with Swift. A reach? Maybe, but it’s very cool to see Lautner and Swift still in touch (Swift called Lautner and his wife “close friends”). Just maybe cool it on the #prayingfor TikToks.- -W.A.

‘I Can See You’ Video Premiere In Kansas City

During her tour stop in Kansas City on July 7 — the release date of Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) — Swift surprised fans by premiering the heist-themed music video for “I Can See You,” which featured Taylor Lautner, Joey King and Presley Cash trying to steal her third album. It was one of the meta reunions for the “I Can See You” stars — King and Cash co-starred in the music video for “Mean,” while “Back to December” was allegedly about Swift’s breakup with Lautner. Of course, fans went wild when Swift sang Lautner’s praises to the Kansas City audience: “He was a very positive force in my life when I was making the ‘Speak Now’ album, and I want to say he did every single stunt that you saw in that music video. He and his wife have become some of my closest friends, and it’s very convenient because we all share the same first name.” –I.K.

‘Long Live’ Is Added To The Setlist

The Eras Tour is as grandiose and impactful as any victory lap we’ve seen an artist put on in recent memory. The tour pulls on the nostalgia heartstrings — yes, there’s a percentage of fans who who tapped in when Folklore dropped, but there’s a great many more diehards who’ve been through middle school, high school, and college with Ms. Swift. That’s why hearing the “tell them how the crowds went wild/tell them how I hope they shine” in “Long Live” hits so hard. Even cooler: Swift is using the koi fish guitar from the Speak Now era . It’s funny to think about Swift writing such an anthemic ode to her career…in 2010. If only she knew there were thousands of sold out shows, a handful of Grammys, and hundreds of broken records to come. “Tell ’em how the crowds went wild” — they still are. –W.A.

‘Last Kiss,’ July 8th

When “Last Kiss” finally had its moment as a surprise song on July 8, you could hear the cries of Speak Now girlies heard round the world. Officially named “the saddest song [she’s] ever written” by Ms. Fountain Pen herself, Swift performed the somber track on her famous koi fish guitar and was so excited she forgot the lyrics and had to start over several times. Swift finally sang “that July 9th/The beat of your heart” with a small smirk because it was, in fact, July 8th that night — a sweet nod to the heart-wrenching moment in the song. –M.G. 

Haim Appears Onstage For ‘No Body, No Crime’ In Seattle

On July 22, Swift’s murder ballad “No Body, No Crime” got its shining moment in Seattle when the singer brought out Haim to perform on their collaboration. Even better, their Evermore highlight wasn’t even one of the surprise songs of the evening: It was just a setlist swap for “Tis the Damn Season.” While it might be a coincidence—though with Swift it rarely is—they joined forces at Lumen Field exactly one year and a day after Swift shocked London fans by teaming up with the sisters for a “Gasoline”-”Love Story” mash-up. –I.K.

Taylor Gives ’22’ Hat to Kobe Bryant’s Daughter

Swift’s grace and generosity are now legendary . During her So-Fi Stadium show in Los Angeles on Aug. 3, the pop star gifted her Red -era bowler hat to Kobe and Vanessa Bryant’s daughter, Bianka during a performance of “22.” The sweet moment, which featured Swift hugging her and placing the hat on the six-year-old girl’s head, went viral, of course. It was one of those memories that we’ll be holding onto for a long time. –I.K.

The Dramatic Unveiling of 1989 (Taylor’s Version) On 8/9

Long before Eras Tour began, fans were racking their Easter egg-ridden brains to figure out which of Swift’s first six albums would be the next re-record to drop. Rightfully, many had been going back-and-forth on Speak Now and 1989 , and those who guessed the former were proven correct early in the tour. But Swift seemed to be dropping a suspicious number of hints at the possibility of more music, including several studio sightings on her off days. Ending the first US leg of Eras on 8/9 in Los Angeles also felt a little too on the nose. Thankfully, this time, everyone had decoded correctly. Swift unveiled 1989 (Taylor’s Version) in the most Taylor way possible, wearing blue versions of each Eras costume, a nod to the adopted color for 1989 . She finally revealed the new cover and release date after singing fan-favorite bonus track “New Romantics” during the surprise-song set, a perfect end to the first leg of this lengthy, massive trek .–B.S.

Contributors: Waiss Aramesh , Maya Georgi , Brian Hiatt , Ilana Kaplan , Angie Martoccio , Rob Sheffield , Brittany Spanos

Taylor Swift Makes Chart History With ‘The Tortured Poets Department'

• Chart Landmark
• By Althea Legaspi

Rihanna Again Teases New Album 'R9': 'It's Gonna Be Amazing'

• the wait continues...
• By Daniel Kreps

Kathleen Hanna Recalls Falling in Love With a Beastie Boy in 'Rebel Girl' Book Excerpt

• By Kory Grow

Post Malone Teams With Brad Paisley, Dwight Yoakam for Country Pivot at Stagecoach

• Stagecoach 2024
• By Larisha Paul

Miranda Lambert Surprises Stagecoach 2024 With Reba McEntire, Debuts New Song 'Wranglers'

• Fancy Cameo
• By Joseph Hudak

Most Popular

Anne hathaway says 'gross' chemistry test in the 2000s required her to make out with 10 guys: that's the 'worst way to do it' and 'now we know better', louvre considers moving mona lisa to underground chamber to end 'public disappointment', real-life 'baby reindeer' stalker speaks out following netflix show success, sources gave an update on hugh jackman's 'love life' after fans raised concerns about his well-being, you might also like, epsilon reveals cannes sales slate, headed by ulysses’ ‘mimi&harold – out of frame’ (exclusive), miranda lambert goes bold and blue in denim jumpsuit with turquoise, rhinestones and fringe for stagecoach 2024, performs with reba mcentire, the best yoga mats for any practice, according to instructors, is caitlin cronenberg entering the family business with ‘humane’: ‘we would need a therapist to weigh in’, mlbpa rips nike amid changes to controversial uniforms.

Rolling Stone is a part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2024 Rolling Stone, LLC. All rights reserved.

Verify it's you

Please log in.

18 details you may have missed at Taylor Swift's Eras Tour

• Taylor Swift's new movie, "Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour," was filmed during her concerts in Los Angeles.
• There are many easy-to-miss details weaved into Swift's performance, from the screen to her fingernails.
• Everything we noticed is listed below in chronological order of the setlist.

The pre-show playlist includes Swift's friends and opening acts.

The playlist that precedes Swift's performance includes "My Song 5" by HAIM, "Number One Fan" by MUNA, and "True Blue" by boygenius , all of whom opened for Swift during the tour's first US leg.

It also features songs by close friends of Swift like Selena Gomez, Lana Del Rey, and Suki Waterhouse .

From the very first show back in March, the playlist even contained an Easter egg: "In Ha Mood" by Ice Spice, who hopped on a remix of "Karma" and joined Swift on stage in New Jersey .

Other notable staples include "That's What I Want" by Lil Nas X, "American Teenager" by Ethel Cain , and "Applause" by Lady Gaga, which is always the penultimate track.

Just before taking the stage, Swift always plays "You Don't Own Me" by Dusty Springfield.

"You Don't Own Me" was originally recorded by Lesley Gore, but Swift's playlist features the 1964 cover by Dusty Springfield.

The song plays when the countdown clock appears on the big screen. It includes poignant lyrics like "I'm not just one of your many toys" and "I'm free and I love to be free / To live my life the way that I want."

This could be a subtle message to Scott Borchetta and Scooter Braun , whose purchase of Swift's masters spurred her to rerecord her first six albums .

In addition to signature hits like "Spooky" and "Son of a Preacher Man," Springfield was also known for rebelling against constraints in the music industry and meticulously crafting her own public image . According to biographers, she was often branded as "difficult" — although, in retrospect, this was more likely a reaction to a strong-willed woman in a male-dominated industry.

Springfield's love life was also a common source of tabloid fodder. In 1970, she publicly came out as bisexual and suffered an immediate plunge in commercial success . But 20 years later, she released an album titled "Reputation," which helped revive her career .

"Dusty was assumed to be a nightmare on a personal level," Neil Tennant, who coproduced the album, told The Telegraph in 2020 . "Couldn't sing any more. Probably some sort of drug addict. Whispers of sexuality, which was regarded as a problem. But the minute she walked in she was really sweet. And it was immediately evident she could sing as well as ever."

Swift's emergence on stage could be a subtle nod to the birth of Venus.

Swift arrives on stage by emerging from a cocoon of tapestries, which resembles the scallop shell in Sandro Botticelli's classic painting " The Birth of Venus ." In Roman mythology, Venus is the goddess of love .

The Eras Tour kicks off with songs from "Lover," Swift's seventh studio album , which she has described as "a love letter to love itself — all the captivating, spellbinding, maddening, devastating, red, blue, gray, golden aspects of it."

During "You Need to Calm Down," the crowd lights up with rainbows.

The 2019 single is Swift's most emphatic declaration of support for the LGBTQ+ community.

The music video is stuffed with bright colors and rainbows, which is reflected in the crowd during Swift's performance. (Upon arrival, concertgoers are given light-up bracelets that are programmed to follow the show's cues .)

After Swift sings "The Archer," the "Lover" house burns down.

The famous house first appeared in the "Lover" music video , which premiered in 2019. 

The house is a key visual during the "Lover" segment of the Eras Tour. While real-life Swift sings the namesake ballad , the house is projected on the big screen with mini-Swift moving around inside.

At one point, mini-Swift can be seen wearing a yellow dress in the pink room. She moves towards the floor-length mirror and steps inside of it, disappearing from view (possibly as a literary reference to Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There").

After Swift sings "The Archer" (the final song in the "Lover" set, which isn't included in "The Eras Tour" movie ), golden sparks fall from the top of the stage. Meanwhile, on the big screen, the visual of the house catches on fire .

During "Fearless," the stage mimics Swift's guitar.

Fans with floor tickets may not be able to see the intricate stage visuals beneath Swift's feet.

While she sings the title track from her second album "Fearless," the stage transforms into a sparkling silver guitar, much like the one Swift uses in real life.

The "Willow" performance is a personification of the song's vision.

For her performance of "Willow," Swift dons a green cloak and simulates witchcraft with her coven of dancers, mirroring a key scene from the song's music video .

Swift herself  said "Willow" is about  "intrigue, desire and the complexity that goes into wanting someone."

She told fans, "I think it sounds like casting a spell to make someone fall in love with you."

While Swift sings "Delicate," the floor appears to crack beneath her feet.

Swift's performance of "Delicate" is tightly choreographed. As she moves around the central diamond, she stomps her feet in certain moments. Each stomp seems to create a crack in the stage.

With one final hop at the end of the bridge, the entire stage appears to shatter .

Her shadow is snake-shaped during the "Reputation" segment.

Yet another sneaky detail on stage, invisible to the average floor-ticket holder, is that Swift's shadow takes the shape of a snake while she sings "Look What You Made Me Do." 

During her infamous feud with Kim Kardashian and Ye in 2016 , Swift was compared to a snake by critics online, who believed her to be untrustworthy. So Swift adopted the serpent as her sigil when she released "Reputation," an album that partially served as a response to those critics.

Her performance of "Look What You Made Me Do" calls back to the music video.

In the self-referential music video for "Look What You Made Me Do," Swift stands atop a pile of her own personas.

She recreates this moment during the Eras Tour with dancers dressed in her old outfits, all clamoring to push her off the main platform.

After Swift released "Speak Now (Taylor's Version)," she began using a guitar from the original "Speak Now" era.

Swift announced "Speak Now (Taylor's Version)" during her concert on May 5. 

After the album was released on July 7, Swift added the fan-favorite track "Long Live" to the setlist. (Unfortunately, the song was cut from the movie.)

Swift always plays the song using her iconic instrument from the 2011 "Speak Now" tour: a blue acoustic guitar with koi-fish inlays . She previously teased the guitar's reappearance in the "Lavender Haze" music video.

After less than one month on the road, Swift swapped "Invisible String" for "The 1."

Of course, extremely online Swifties will be well aware of this change. But less fixated fans may not be aware that "Invisible String," a tender love song, was the original opener for the tour's "Folklore" segment. Now, it's "The 1," a heartbreak anthem for wistful nostalgics.

The switch came shortly before news broke that Swift had split from her longtime partner Joe Alwyn .

Swift's fingernails are always painted in the order of her album releases.

For every show on the Eras Tour, Swift's fingers are freshly painted with a specific color combination , ordered according to her studio album releases: green for "Taylor Swift," gold for "Fearless," purple for "Speak Now," red for "Red," light blue for "1989," black for "Reputation," pink for "Lover," gray for "Folklore," beige for "Evermore," and sparkly blue for "Midnights."

The golf club prop during "Blank Space" is another music video reference.

In the music video for "Blank Space," Swift plays a parody of her own boy-obsessed persona. Once her latest fling disappoints her, she takes a golf club to his fancy car — living up to the lyric, "I've got a long list of ex-lovers, they'll tell you I'm insane."

Swift references the video on the Eras Tour by wielding a neon-lit golf club and standing atop a fancy car.

She also carried a golf club while performing the song on The 1989 World Tour.

The "Lover" house burns again while Swift sings "Bad Blood."

Swift's pyro-packed performance of "Bad Blood"  sees the return of the "Lover" house.

On the big screen, Swift struts through the house in a dramatic black outfit. She takes a seat at her vanity and flicks a lighter into the wreck .

The facade goes up in bright blue flames, perhaps to match the "1989" color scheme , or maybe as a reference to the "All Too Well" lyric, "Did the twin-flame bruise paint you blue?"

The lighter itself could be a reference to the original "Midnights" album cover, which includes a close-up photo of Swift striking a lighter.

Swift's song "Ivy," the 10th track on "Evermore," also includes the lyric, "He's gonna burn this house to the ground."

The "Lover" arches return during the "Midnights" segment.

"Lover" and "Midnights" act as bookends in the Eras Tour setlist, like the sun coming up and going down.

Fans have long theorized the albums are like sisters; according to Swift, the original title for "Lover" was "Daylight." The similar set design for each segment serves to underscore this connection.

The "Anti-Hero" performance highlights the difference between Swift's real self and onstage persona.

In the "Anti-Hero" music video, Swift creates an explicit contrast between her private and public selves .

During the second verse, an oversized version of Swift crawls into a dining room full of regular-sized people.

"Sometimes I feel like everybody is a sexy baby / And I'm a monster on the hill," she sings. "Too big to hang out, slowly lurching toward your favorite city / Pierced through the heart, but never killed."

When she sings "Anti-Hero" on the Eras Tour, another massive version of Swift appears on the big screen, wearing a similar striped top. She stalks through a tiny city, huffing and puffing in frustration. She looks out into the audience and screams silently, waving her hands and pointing to her chest .

Meanwhile, the onstage Swift skips around in a sparkly T-shirt dress , looking comparatively small and cheery.

During "Mastermind," the stage resembles a chess board.

"Mastermind" is the penultimate song in the setlist. In the "Midnights" track, Swift describes herself as a "Machiavellian" genius and compulsive planner .

During her performance of the song, the stage is lit up in black-and-white squares, resembling a chessboard. During the second verse, her dancers stand in a specific formation, only moving forward when Swift gestures to them like a puppeteer.

• Main content

• Entertainment
• <i>The Eras Tour</i> Movie Is Irresistible No Matter How Much You Think You Like Taylor Swift

The Eras Tour  Movie Is Irresistible No Matter How Much You Think You Like Taylor Swift

S ince humankind has been walking upright, and maybe even when we still had fins for arms, we’ve been attracted to shiny, shimmering things. In concert, Taylor Swift is exactly that. Tickets for the Eras Tour, Swift’s first concert tour in five years—set to conclude in November 2024—were costly and difficult to get from the start, which meant you had to either be very, very lucky or fall within a certain income bracket to see the show. But the spirit of the Eras tour is now available to almost everyone in the form of a concert film , one that is perhaps unsurprisingly exuberant and delightful. Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour is 2 hours and 48 minutes of an irresistibly shiny, shimmering Taylor Swift. She’s the lure skimming through the water; we’re the gawping trout, dazzled to the point of transcendence. All that for less than 20 bucks.

We are trout, it seems, of many different shapes, sizes, ages and orientations (even if, statistically, three quarters of us are white). I saw the film in one of the smaller multiplex auditoriums in Times Square’s Regal Theater on what was originally supposed to have been its opening night, though in one of Swift’s trademark last-minute moves, she’d decided to launch the film a day early. (Swift, who self-produced the film, is distributing it in partnership with the AMC theater chain, though other chains are showing the film as well.) My low-key but enthusiastic audience was about one-third teenagers and young women, one-third little girls in sparkly attire (accompanied by their parents), and one-third gay men. A whole troop of the latter marched in at one point, one of them calling out, “Hey, Swifties!” as he passed a cluster of Brownie-scout-aged fans. The same guy came over to me a little later and asked if I wanted a friendship bracelet—I hadn’t realized I was supposed to bring a supply of them to trade and give away. He handed me an elastic circlet strung with turquoise and smoke-gray plastic beads, apologizing for its tiny circumference—one of the little Swifties had given it to him—though it fit me just fine. “Now you can be part of the experience,” he told me.

Read more: The Staggering Economic Impact of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour

I’m sure there are plenty of people who could resist that experience, but it turns out that I—a moderate Swift fan who, even so, can go for months at a time without thinking about her at all—am not one of them. The Eras Tour is a cleverly if somewhat haphazardly stitched-together approximation of an Eras Tour live show. (The director is Sam Wrench, and the footage was captured at the end of the tour’s first leg, at SoFi Stadium outside Los Angeles.) Some of the cutting may be reckless; there’s the occasional WTF? camera angle. But Swift’s command of her audience—and of the moment—is so complete that she instantaneously airbrushes every questionable filmmaking decision into oblivion. The Eras Tour is so named because it hopscotches through Swift’s nearly 20-year career . You could make a gaudy, jumbled show from that wealth of material, or a grand one, and Swift and her team have done the latter. Every number is like a room in a sprawling mansion, executed in just the right tone and color—like Mad King Ludwig’s castle, only conceived by designers, and one performer, who are only slightly mad and otherwise intensely practical.

And so, when Swift takes the stage for the show’s first round of numbers—among them “Cruel Summer,” evoking a dangerous seasonal romance of ice and heat—she does so in a spangly pale lavender tank suit with over-the-knee high-heeled Louboutin boots to match, their soles as red as a cartoon devil. It's a highly impractical outfit, but on Swift it looks normal, even low-key. When she segues into the Fearless era, she steps out in mini dress of golden fringe, once again with boots to match, only these are a bit more grounded—Swift, wisely, knows how important it is to switch between heels and flats. For “Ready for It…” and “Delicate,” off Reputation , she slinks out in a one-legged black catsuit, iridescent snakes slinking around her limbs. The sets are elaborate, at times veering close to magical. For “Willow” and “Marjorie,” off the smoky-forest LP Evermore , Swift appears to emerge from a projected backdrop of spooky-elegant trees, wearing a velvety black hooded cape over a flame-orange dress. Her dancers, also clad in dark cloaks, close in protectively around her, bearing mystically glowing orange orbs. Swift can be anyone she wants to be: a heroine from the cover of a gothic-romance paperback, sensibly fleeing a foreboding castle; a drum majorette sans baton, but with a mic instead, and plenty to say.

Read more: How 'Cruel Summer' Became Taylor Swift's Song of the Moment

Victim, survivor, temptress, storyteller-by-the-fire: Swift gives herself permission to be the woman she wants to be at any given moment, which may be why so many little girls are magnetically drawn to her before they have any real sense of what womanhood is. Well, that and the sequins. There’s no easy way to break down Swift’s appeal. The veteran rock critic Ann Powers has made a convincing case for her similarities to Bob Dylan, in the sense of building her own shape-shifting world. (“In a patriarchal society that favors white men, how can a young woman who looks like a supermodel dare to think she could be historical? And yet she does,” Powers has said.) Swift has captivated some unlikely people. Paul Schrader, the screenwriter of Taxi Driver and the director of such twisted delights as The Comfort of Strangers, adores her. He spent his 72nd birthday, in 2018, at a Swift show. “About Taylor Swift, let there be no doubt,” he wrote on Facebook, “she is the light that gives meaning to each to all our lives, the godhead who makes existence possible and without whom we would wander forever in bleak unimaginable darkness.”

Hyperbole aside, the Eras Tour movie shows, to stark effect, Swift’s power over an arena full of people. When she gazes out at the audience, which she often does (thanking them repeatedly for their generosity, which, admittedly, is also the very thing lining her silken pockets), she’s like the Romper Room lady with her magic mirror—is it possible she knows each and every one of our names? With her kitty-cat smile and her Cleopatra eyeliner, she’s flirtatious, erotically suggestive, but non-threateningly so. Even at 33, there’s something girlish about her, a characterization that some women might consider an insult, though it’s really a gift, suggesting not innocence or helplessness but a capacity for delight. It’s the kind of thing you want to hang onto until you’re 100 or beyond.

Watching Swift in her Eras Tour movie made me wonder what kind of a performer she’ll be at 50, 60, 70. It seems there are still many unexplored rooms in her mansion. Let’s not forget, though, that she’s also one of the most ambitious musical performers of her generation—ambitious in the way only men (the Beatles, Elvis, Little Richard) used to be. It’s estimated that the Eras Tour has already generated some $4.6 billion in consumer spending, and the beyond-robust ticket sales for the Eras Tour movie mean that the doubloons in Swift’s bank account are multiplying exponentially with every passing minute. She’s already one of the richest women in the world. Is there a distinction between shrewdness and outright greed?

Swift will make a ton of money off The Eras Tour movie, off those little girls trading bracelets, off those now-middle-aged ladies who have grown up with her, off those gay men—and some straight ones—who adore her balls-out showmanship. At a runtime of nearly three hours, The Eras Tour is enough Taylor Swift in one sitting for just about anyone, with the possible exception of Paul Schrader. Yet by the end of this rather long sojourn, Swift looks as if she’s just getting started. Her hair may have frizzed slightly, but that’s about it. No matter how much money she stands to make off this enterprise, there’s no sense that she’s kept the meter running. She’d give even more, if we wanted it.

The era of women having the means to make enough money to take care of themselves—and, in Swift’s case, much more than enough—is relatively recent. Just ask Edith Wharton’s Lily Bart. My Eras Tour ticket cost less than $20, and I begrudge not a cent of it. Swift doesn’t need more money, but I had much more than $20 worth of fun. And got a bracelet to boot.

More Must-Reads From TIME

• The 100 Most Influential People of 2024
• Coco Gauff Is Playing for Herself Now
• Scenes From Pro-Palestinian Encampments Across U.S. Universities
• 6 Compliments That Land Every Time
• If You're Dating Right Now , You're Brave: Column
• The AI That Could Heal a Divided Internet
• Fallout Is a Brilliant Model for the Future of Video Game Adaptations
• Want Weekly Recs on What to Watch, Read, and More? Sign Up for Worth Your Time

Contact us at [email protected]

Screen Rant

Eras tour movie title explained: all 9 taylor swift eras featured in the concert.

Taylor Swift's Eras Tour has quickly become a cultural and economic phenomenon, but not everyone knows what her nine featured eras in the tour are.

Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour follows Swift's iconic tour, documenting her passionate performances at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles as she sings her way through the eras of her career. Taylor Swift has become one of the biggest icons in American music, gathering one of the most dedicated fan bases in musical history. Her Eras Tour has sold out numerous venues, saturating every city she visits with vast numbers of ecstatic fans. The incredible success of her tour is all documented in her new movie, which combines footage from her first three concerts at Los Angeles' SoFi Stadium in August 2023.

Swift's 10-album, 17-year career includes several different genres of music, including country, pop, alternative rock, and folk. Taylor Swift began her career as a country musician, but she has since branched off into all the aforementioned genres, expanding her musical library as her career has progressed. Each of her 10 albums represents an era of her career, both in terms of her musical style and her personal journey as a musician and a person. Though Taylor Swift , her first studio album, is not on the Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour movie ’s setlist, songs from this album were included in the "surprise songs" section of her concerts at other venues.

Related: How Long The Eras Tour Movie Is (& How It Compares To Taylor Swift’s Concerts)

Fearless is Taylor Swift's second studio album and one of her most popular eras. Swift's setlist from SoFi stadium includes the three biggest hits from the album: "Fearless," "Love Story," and "You Belong with Me." Fearless was originally recorded when Swift was just 18 years old, and consequently, the album is mostly about young love in its various forms. This album is considered part of the Country pop genre, which is the genre responsible for launching Taylor Swift into stardom. This is a nostalgic era, and it's a big part of the reason Swift's film is scaring other movies off their release dates .

8 Speak Now

Speak Now , Taylor Swift's third career album, combines the country pop, pop rock, and power pop genres to create a unique listening experience for fans. Swift's Eras Tour setlist includes the two biggest songs from the album, "Enchanted" and "Long Live." This is another of Swift's earliest eras, and though her concerts at SoFi stadium only include two songs from this album, it played a critical role in her meteoric rise in pop culture. Swift re-recorded this album as Speak Now (Taylor's Version) , adding to the list of the albums Swift actually owns .

Red , Swift's fourth album/era, originally released in 2012, combining pop, country, and rock elements to create Swift's signature style. The SoFi Stadium concerts filmed in her upcoming movie included four songs from this album: "22," "All Too Well," "I Knew You Were Trouble," and "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together," and it is often considered her best album. Red is also credited with bridging the country and pop eras of Swift's career, serving as a transitional period in her musical style.

The next era in Taylor Swift's career comes in the form of her fifth studio album, 1989 . This album, which is named after her birth year, represents a big shift in her musical career as her first fully-fledged pop album. The setlist from her Eras Tour includes five songs from this album: "Style," "Blank Space," "Shake It Off," "Wildest Dreams," and "Bad Blood." This album takes a more light-hearted approach to her most commonly used song topic, failed romance. It also comes in heavy contrast to her formerly acoustic sound, leaning into more synthetic audio.

5 Reputation

Reputation is Taylor Swift's sixth album/era and is considered part of the Electropop musical genre. Swift's Eras Tour setlist contains four songs from this album: "...Ready For It?," "Delicate," "Don't Blame Me," and "Look What You Made Me Do." This era of Swift's career was sparked by her frustration with the excessive scrutiny she received from tabloids after 1989 's release. Its focus is split between the downside of fame and the difficulty of finding love in such a public life. Swift went on tour after releasing this album, smashing the record for the highest-grossing North American tour.

Lover is Taylor Swift's seventh album and her first after leaving Big Machine Records in a cloud of controversy concerning the rights to her music. Her Eras Tour setlist includes six songs from this album: "Cruel Summer," "The Man," "Lover," "Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Prince," "You Need to Calm Down," and "The Archer." This album is laced with Swift's newfound artistic freedom after leaving Big Machine Records, and it employs more upbeat lyrics and sounds than her previous album, Reputation . It was met with widespread acclaim and quickly became the best-selling album of 2019.

Related: Hollywood Has Already Forgotten The Lesson Of Barbenheimer (Thanks To Taylor Swift)

The next era of Swift's accomplished career arrives with her eighth studio album, Folklore . This album was a surprise release in 2020, and it has seven songs included in her Eras Tour setlist: "the 1," "betty," "august," "cardigan," "illicit affairs," "my tears ricochet," and "the last great american dynasty." This Taylor Swift era leans into the indie folk, alternative rock, and electro-acoustic musical genres, marking a departure from her previous indulgence in pop music. This era is full of slower, more story-like songs that stand in contrast to her typically autobiographical lyrics.

Taylor Swift's ninth album/era, Evermore , is considered a sister album to Folklore by Swift herself. Like Folklore , Evermore was a surprise release that came out just five months after Folklore . The songs from this album included in her Eras Tour setlist are: "no body, no crime," "willow," "marjorie," "champagne problems," and "tolerate it." Evermore is similar in style to Folklore , employing mostly indie folk, alternative rock, and chamber pop styles. It was conceived during the COVID-19 pandemic and recorded in Hudson Valley, New York.

1 Midnights

Midnights , the most recent era in Taylor Swift's Eras Tour, is her tenth studio album, and it deals with feelings of anxiety and insecurity on several different levels. This album smashed records all over the place, notably breaking Spotify's record for most single-day streams of an album. The songs from this album included in Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour are: "Lavender Haze," "Anti-Hero," "Midnight Rain," "Karma," "Mastermind," "Bejeweled," and "Vigilante Sh*t." This album combines a variety of pop styles, marking a return to Swift's focus on producing pop music.

Advertisement

Supported by

Taylor Swift and the Sparkling Trap of Constant Reinvention

Why do our female pop stars have to keep changing their clothes?

• Share full article

By Vanessa Friedman

Oscar de la Renta. Versace. Alberta Ferretti. Roberto Cavalli. Elie Saab. Christian Louboutin. Zuhair Murad. Ashish. The list of the designers who have made looks for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour , which began just over a month ago in Arizona and ends in California in August before heading overseas, is like a mini-tour of fashion weeks, replete with sparkles, chiffon and a message tee.

The resulting dress-up extravaganza has been greeted, not surprisingly, with heart-thumping enthusiasm. So many clothes! So much glitter! So fun! There are pages of stories online breathlessly documenting “Every Outfit Taylor Swift Has Worn on Her Eras World Tour” (as Elle Australia put it). And new styles keep emerging, enabling new coverage. As if sheer wardrobe abundance is an achievement unto itself.

It’s possible it is. The logistics alone are daunting: How do you change that much, and that fast, while in the middle of a performance?

Certainly it has raised the bar for the artists who are touring next, as we enter the Summer of the Diva: Madonna , who is embarking on a retrospective tour (just imagine the looks that one could involve), and Beyoncé, who set the bar sky-high in August when she dropped a teaser of sorts via the “I’m That Girl” trailer, which involved at least seven looks compressed into a few minutes, from cyborg goddess to cowboy dominatrix to killer Audrey Hepburn.

But it’s also possible to see in all these Swiftian clothes, all the wardrobe switcheroos, something else. It’s possible that they are, actually, not just a tour down memory lane but a more pointed piece of meta-commentary on the expectation that female pop stars unveil new versions of themselves for our viewing pleasure, one-upping their old image with new wardrobes ad infinitum. And a message that Ms. Swift is, perhaps, calling time on the whole thing.

The promise of reinvention is a core American value: the belief that everyone has the right to a fresh start, that you are limited only by your imagination and abilities. It’s intrinsically linked to the promise of fashion, which likewise dangles the lure of a new you; of allowing you to try on different selves until you settle into one that feels right.

Yet it is also its own kind of prison, as Ms. Swift, who has made a habit of embedding meaning into her wardrobe choices, said in her 2020 documentary, “ Miss Americana .”

“The female artists that I know of have reinvented themselves 20 times more than the male artists,” she says in a voice-over toward the end of the film, as various versions of her public personas flash by: teenage Taylor, with her gold ringlets, sparkly blue eye shadow and princess dresses; “1989” Taylor, with her ironed bob and glittery bodysuits; “Reputation” angry Taylor, with snakes crawling up her limbs.

This is necessary, Ms. Swift continues, because otherwise “you’re out of a job.”

At the time she was talking about her newfound political voice as well as her new album, “Lover” (now three albums and at least two Taylors ago: the earth nymph Taylor of “Folklore” and “Evermore,” and the dreamer Taylor of “Midnights”). But in many ways, what she meant is laid bare (so to speak) in her Eras Tour.

Each musical era revisited in the show had — and has — its own look, all 10 or so of them. To watch her go through them in succession is to see not just fabulous clothes worn with purpose, but also the hamster wheel of constant reinvention that has been the model for contemporary female pop stars since Madonna set the tone in the 1980s.

It’s particularly stark in comparison with another musical act now touring to similar response and acclaim: Bruce Springsteen. Mr. Springsteen is 73, and his style hasn’t changed much in 50 years. He’s still in beat-up jeans and a denim shirt, bracelets around his wrist, boots on his feet.

To be fair, there are male rock stars who have made a game out of reinvention: most notably David Bowie but also, to a certain extent, Harry Styles (though he generally dons one statement outfit per night). And there are women — Lucinda Williams, Patti Smith — who bucked the trend.

But it is also true, said Kathy Iandoli, an adjunct professor at the New York University Steinhardt School and the author of “God Save the Queens: The Essential History of Women in Hip-Hop,” that the pressure to dress up and change up falls exponentially on women. “1,000 percent,” Ms. Iandoli said. “There’s a level of costuming that comes with being a female pop star, a way for labels to market creativity. And if you are known as an evolutionary artist you are always held to the standard of ‘what’s the next version of you?’”

Ms. Swift has turned that pressure to her own ends as cannily as anyone. Her makeovers, which coincide with her sonic evolutions, are not the same as the makeover imposed on the main character in the Lady Gaga version of “A Star Is Born,” in which studio bigwigs force their latest discovery into Creamsicle hair, new outfits and new dance moves — a ginned-up version of herself she rejects after her husband’s death.

By contrast, Ms. Swift (with her stylist Joseph Cassell Falconer) has been her own wardrobe mistress, and her fans, many of whom show up dressed as their favorite Taylor, can relate.

But even Gaga, a master of the fashion-music makeover, seemingly rebelled against the imperative at this year’s Oscars when, rather than change into yet another showstopping gown for her performance, she subverted all expectations by donning ripped jeans and a black T-shirt and scrubbing her face bare, as if to say to the watching world: enough.

Fernando Garcia, a creative director of Oscar de la Renta, which made a lavender faux-fur coat with matching crystal-embroidered T-shirt dress and a midnight-blue, crystal-embroidered jumpsuit for the current tour, said that working with Ms. Swift on Eras felt “very much like a full circle moment.” If so, perhaps it’s also a sign that another era is coming to an end.

At one point in the Eras show, when Ms. Swift is singing “Look What You Made Me Do,” all of the old Taylors are embodied by different backup dancers in different outfits in different little glass boxes — all those mini-mes of the past, trapped in their own limited spaces, in their old wardrobes, only to finally break free .

As fashion metaphors go, it’s hard to miss.

An earlier version of a picture caption with this article misidentified the location of the opening night of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour. It was in Glendale, Ariz., not Arlington, Texas.

How we handle corrections

Vanessa Friedman has been the fashion director and chief fashion critic for The Times since 2014. In this role she covers global fashion for both The New York Times and International New York Times. More about Vanessa Friedman

Inside the World of Taylor Swift

A Triumph at the Grammys: Taylor Swift made history  by winning her fourth album of the year at the 2024 edition of the awards, an event that saw women take many of the top awards .

‘The T ortured Poets Department’: Poets reacted to Swift’s new album name , weighing in on the pertinent question: What do the tortured poets think ?  

In the Public Eye: The budding romance between Swift and the football player Travis Kelce created a monocultural vortex that reached its apex  at the Super Bowl in Las Vegas. Ahead of kickoff, we revisited some key moments in their relationship .

Politics (Taylor’s Version): After months of anticipation, Swift made her first foray into the 2024 election for Super Tuesday with a bipartisan message on Instagram . The singer, who some believe has enough influence  to affect the result of the election , has yet to endorse a presidential candidate.

Conspiracy Theories: In recent months, conspiracy theories about Swift and her relationship with Kelce have proliferated , largely driven by supporters of former President Donald Trump . The pop star's fans are shaking them off .

By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy . We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour Looks: Every Meaning, Easter Egg & Fan Theory

Olivia marcus.

• Share on Facebook
• Share to Flipboard
• Show more sharing options
• Post to Tumblr
• Submit to Reddit
• Share on LinkedIn
• Share on WhatsApp
• Print This Page

Taylor Swift has officially kicked off her highly anticipated Eras Tour. After two spectacular performances in Arizona (that included a causal 44 songs over 3 hours), we finally got a complete look inside Taylor Swift’s mastermind performance. Between era-themed rooms moving across the digital screen, completely coordinated dance numbers with even a chair sequence, and a changing acoustic set, there’s a whole lot to pay attention to on stage. Of course, at the forefront is Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour outfits —she really outdid herself with an entire wardrobe of outfit changes throughout the show.

We all know Swift chooses every detail of her performances to be intentional and her Eras outfits are no exception. Fans are already crafting theories behind the meaning of each of her Eras Tour looks. From scrambled letters to color schemes, I can guarantee you that Miss Swift has thought of everything. From what we’ve seen of her two performances so far , her tour wardrobe consists of approximately 11 outfits. Most of her looks between night one and night two in Arizona were consistent across both performances but she did make a few costume changes. We’re not sure if Taylor Swift will continue to change her looks for each show or will stick with what we’ve seen thus far but we’ll be sure to keep you updated when we find out.

The basis of Taylor Swift’s wardrobe was a look for each set that matched the corresponding era. Swift has a clear color scheme for each album and dropped hints about her color-coded looks with a photo of her era-themed nails on Instagram prior to opening night.

In true Swift fashion, she was dropping high-fashion hints about her tour wardrobe for the last few months. She wore a Roberto Cavalli two-piece set to the 2023 Grammy Awards and wore custom creations by the designer four times during the first two nights of her tour. Similarly, Swift wore Oscar de la Renta to the 2022 MTV VMA awards prior to her Midnights  album release—the designer brand can be credited for a couple of Swift’s Eras Tour looks.

Keep reading for a run-down on all of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour outfits, plus a few clues that  Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)  may be coming soon.

The Lover Era

Swift opened the Eras tour with the Lover era, a concert tour that was cut short due to Covid and deserves its time to shine. She started the show by performing “Miss Americana and The Heartbreak Prince” in a pink and blue bejeweled Versace bodysuit and Christian Louboutin sparkly boots. The look was a perfect sequel to the original shimmer bodysuit she wore for the short-lived  Lover  tour.

Taylor Swift channeled her inner business-woman by layering a silver sequin Versace blazer over her bodysuit for her performance of “The Man” from  Lover. 

If there’s anything to know about Taylor Swift, it’s that she loves a surprise. She kept the overall look of her opening outfit the same for night two but wore the Versace bodysuit in a new color combination, the stage lights reflecting off of her gold sequined bodysuit and boots created a subtle reference to the “Daylight” track on her Lover album.

The Fearless Era

Taylor Swift kept the sparkes going as she seamlessly transitioned from the  Lover  era into the  Fearless  era. She wore a gold Roberto Cavalli fringe dress that looked like a perfectly updated version of the silver sparkly fringe dress she wore back in 2009 for the  Fearless  tour. She added the best accessory imaginable with a sparkly acoustic guitar.

For night two of the tour, Swift opted for a more grown-up version of the look with a long fringe Roberto Cavalli dress. The dress was a hybrid of the 2023 and 2009  Fearless  looks with the crystals fading from gold to silver ombre.

The Evermore Era

Fans are ecstatic that Taylor Swift finally gave her 2020  Evermore  album the recognition it deserves with five full songs included in the Eras Tour setlist. Swift commented on the lighthearted rumors that she “hates  Evermore”.  During the concert, Swift said, “S ometimes you like to tease me about things. And the really hilarious thing that you were on for a while was saying, ‘Taylor hates Evermore .'” 

Swift proved that she definitely does not hate  Evermore with her extended set. To channel the album’s boho vibe, Swift wore a soft orange color Etro dress with gold embroidery. The color scheme of the dress matches the Evermore album cover perfectly.

The  Reputation  Era

Taylor Swift brought another custom Roberto Cavalli one-piece in for the “big reputation” segment of her concert. Channeling vengeful, snake-like energy, Swift wore a sexy asymmetrical snake bodysuit for the middle section of her concert. The asymmetrical design reflects the duality of Taylor Swift’s character which is a major theme she explores within the album.

The  Speak Now  Era

For the time being, Taylor Swift is briefly taking a moment to “Speak Now” by putting one confirmed song from the era on her setlist. The lucky number? “Enchanted”. Swift put on her best dress(es) for the song. She wore a glittering gold ballgown by Nicole + Felicia (which was giving major  2014 vibes in the best way) for night one of her tour.

Swift changed the look for night two and changed into a pink ballgown by Zuhair Murad. Fans immediately began speculating why Swift only chose to perform one song from the  Speak Now  era. The general consensus? She must be releasing a  Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)  soon/next and is purposefully minimizing the attention the album will receive until the re-recorded version is out.

The Red Era

Taylor Swift’s  Red  era outfits are important but first and foremost, let’s take a moment to appreciate that she sang the full 10-minute version of “All Too Well”. Ok, back to the outfits. Taylor Swift channeled an old Easter Egg with her “A Lot Going On At The Moment” shirt that she wore for the opening night of the Eras Tour. At first, the shirt seems like a cheeky callback to her initial  Red  era Easter Egg—but after the second night of the tour, fans are speculating that it’s something more.

Swift wore a similar shirt for the second night of her tour but with a different phrase. This one read, “Who’s Taylor Swift Anyway? Ew.” Since this is the  Red  era, fans are focusing on the words in red text. Some fans believe that the letters in red from both t-shirts are part of a larger word puzzle that when scrambled will read  Speak Now (Taylor’s Version).  Either the Swifties are on to something, or we are all just really desperate for the  Speak Now  re-recordings.

Swift ended the  Red  segment of the concert by wearing a red sequin bodysuit under a long sequin red and black ombre jacket.

The  Folklore  Era

Besides Taylor Swift’s 2021 Grammy performance (which ended in her winning Album of The Year), we haven’t had the opportunity to see much of Folklore  IRL. The good news is that’s about to change since Taylor Swift performed nine (yes nine!) songs off of the album during her first Eras Tour concert. It may be in Swift’s best interest to rename the tour Eras ft. Folklore. To pay tribute to what fans speculate may be Swift’s favorite album, she wore a custom purple maxi dress by Alberta Ferretti for the opening night of her concert.

Fans on TikTok have speculated that the purple dress may be another  Speak Now  Easter Egg since the dress fits the album’s color scheme perfectly. During the show, fans noticed that Swift looked like she was intentionally adjusting the skirt of her dress when she sang the lyrics “were there clues I didn’t see” from her song  Invisible String , implying that the clue is referring to  Speak Now (Taylor’s Version). 

Regardless, the purple dress theories only lasted one night because Swift swapped it out for a cream-colored Alberta Ferretti gown with long cape sleeves for night two. If you subscribe to the theory that Swift and her longtime boyfriend, Joe Alwyn, were secretly married before the  Folklore  era, let this dress help your imagination run wild.

The  1989  Era

The pop queen took us back to when her pop era officially started with 1989.  For opening night, Swift wore yet another Roberto Cavalli set, this time in bright pink.

Taylor Swift brought the Roberto Cavalli set back for night two but wore it in a fun shade of green with matching sparkly Louboutin booties.

The  Debut/Acoustic Era

If there is a song you’re  really  hoping to hear that isn’t already listed on Taylor Swift’s set list, the acoustic set may be your chance. Following her song, “Tim McGraw”, Swift will be playing two songs acoustically each night of the tour and informed the audience that she does not intend to have any repeats. For the more casual portion of the concert, Swift wore a sweet, simple pink wrap dress.

The  Midnights  Era

And finally, Taylor Swift closed the show with seven songs from her newest  Midnights  era. She channeled her “Lavender Haze” aesthetic in a purple Oscar de la Renta sequin dress and matching faux fur coat featuring dangling crystals.

To close the show, Swift dressed like  Midnights  herself in a navy star-like bodysuit by Oscar de la Renta which included over 5,000 beads and crystals to resemble the night sky. She paired the look with midnight blue knee-high sparkly Christian Louboutin boots and a rainbow tassel jacket.

Most Popular

You may also like.

Things you buy through our links may earn  Vox Media  a commission.

You Missed These Easter Eggs on the Eras Tour

After scrapping the two-city Lover Fest in 2020 due to the pandemic, Taylor Swift has taken the Swift Show back on the road for the Eras Tour, her first trek in five years. Each performance is a journey through the pop star’s, well, eras, with a 44-song set list pulling from all ten of her studio albums. A 146-stop worldwide Swift road trip also means so many Easter eggs. And everything is in play: The glittery costumes, the over-the-top props, the elaborate stage design, and even the dance moves hide clues about future projects (or nods to an earlier part of her career, depending which theory you choose). Since it can be difficult to spot them all during a three-plus-hour concert, whether there in person (probably weeping), following along afar through fuzzy TikToks, or through the cinematic experience of the Eras Tour film , we’re keeping an ongoing list of every Swiftian hint we’ve found from the mastermind herself.

Are the Swift dancers in on the Easter eggs?

Swifties (and obviously Swift herself) aren’t the only ones at the show dressed like old versions of Taylor — her dancers are too. During “ Look What You Made Me Do ,” Swift’s onstage crew are made to look like past versions of the pop star (a concept pulled from the song’s music video), with new additions like Folklore, Evermore, and Lover joining the party. However, the homage doesn’t come without a few tinfoil-hat theories for future rerecordings. During the performance, Swift walks over to a glass box holding the Speak Now dancer and unsuccessfully tries to break them out, which foreshadowed the Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) announcement that arrived in early May. But do the other dancers hint at the rerecording after Speak Now ? Three of the 12 dancers are in costumes inspired by 1989 a.k.a. the latest re-release (the “Shake It Off” cheerleader, the “I Know Places”/”All You Had to Do Was Stay” tour look, and the “Welcome to New York” tour look).

@tawn.gurnsey Look What You Made Me Do, Eras Tour, Night 2, Glendale, Erazona #erastour #erastourtaylorswift #swiftcity #taylorswift #tstheerastour #reputation #lookwhatyoumademedo ♬ original sound - Tawn Gurnsey

Those “22” shirts are burning red

The first two shows in Glendale, Arizona, had Swifties wondering whether their girl was leaving hidden messages in her own outfits. She wears a shirt that reads “A lot going on at the moment,” a variation on her lockdown-era Instagram caption “ Not a lot going on at the moment .” She wears another that reads “Who’s Taylor Swift anyway? Ew.” Both shirts had letters bolded in red (“A lot” on the former; “Ew” on the latter), which made fans like TheThriftieSwiftie wonder if the red letters would eventually spell out “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version).” Alas, we never found out, as the  Speak Now TV  news arrived before she got to finish. But maybe Swift will use this theory as an idea for a future announcement?

@thethriftyswiftie I see you, @taylorswift . I see you. #taylorswift #swifttok #taylornation #swiftietiktok #swifttoker #swifttoks #swiftliketaylor #taylorswiftlover #speaknow #speaknowtaylorsversion #speaknowtaylorswift #taylorswiftspeaknow #speaknowtv #speaknowtviscoming #taylorontour #theerastour #erastour #tstheerastour #taylorswifterastour #taylorswifttour #taylorswiftontour #theerastourtaylorswift #taylorontour ♬ original sound - Ginnie

Is Taylor hinting at more than just Speak Now (TV) and 1989 (TV) ?

When Swift announced Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) on May 5 and 1989 (Taylor’s Version) on August 9, Swifties hoped for one final surprise to end the year of Swift. While they didn’t get the reputation (Taylor’s Version) announcement in Brazil, maybe something will happen when the tour kicks off in Tokyo in February 2024. After all, it is the setting for the “ End Game ” music video.

What’s up with the numbers 7 and 11?

Swifties know that every single detail with Swift is meticulously planned, and that includes her nails. TikToker JessByAThousandCuts recently noticed that after the tour’s 11th show, Taylor changed the color of her Lover- themed nails from pink to orange — and has since kept it that way. Dare we say it’s … Karma orange for her rumored 11th album? Plus, Swift is not so subtly hiding that specific nail color in her Instagram video promoting Speak Now (TV) . It was also in plain sight during the Eras Tour movie . So, how does seven play into this? Lover was Swift’s seventh album — and the first one she owned — and “Karma” is the seventh song on Midnights. And (stick with us) in the final song of the tour, Swift dances as a giant orange door descends behind her . She also dances on an orange tile during “Vigilante Shit” while the other dancers are on white tiles.

What does the lack of Debut Taylor mean?

Each Swift set list includes two surprise songs, one played on acoustic guitar and the other on piano. Opening night in Glendale Swift City saw “Mirrorball” and “Tim McGraw,” leading fans to believe that the latter was on the permanent setlist. However, the second night of the tour featured no Taylor Swift songs. In fact, she’s only returned to her debut a handful of times since then (for a total of 11 performances off her first record). So what does the lack of Taylor mean? Could a separate tour made entirely of her first album be on the way? Or perhaps a special similar to the Folklore: Long Pond Sessions on Disney+?

Don’t trust the set list online

Swift is refusing to let spoilers or live streams disappoint any future fans still waiting for their concert. After the release of Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), Swift added “Long Live” to the Speak Now section. She plays her Koi fish guitar as her original band members join her on stage. But that’s not the only permanent setlist change on tour. During the first night in Arlington, Texas at the beginning of the tour, instead of playing “invisible string,” Swift replaced it with another Folklore track, “the one.” “You think you can just scroll and know the setlist, you think you can come prepared,” said Swift on the setlist change. That wasn’t the only change in Texas; she opted for a new shirt during “22,” this time with the lyrics for “ We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together .” While fans are seeing if the new red letters are spelling out a secret message, we’re trying to figure out how many songs, choreography, costumes, and graphics Swift prepared if she continues with setlist changes throughout the tour.

Right now, we’re at 45, not including the surprise songs she sings solo. And during the first night with Phoebe Bridgers as an opener, the two surprised the crowd with “Nothing New,” temporarily adding another track to the 45-song-long set list. Plus, Haim helped Swift replace “’tis the damn season” with “no body no crime” during their West Coast shows. Maybe Hayley Williams will do the same with “Castles Crumbling” when Paramore opens the European leg of the tour.

What’s happening to surprise songs in 2024?

In Brazil, Swift explained that she’s resetting the surprise song counter, as she’s played 125 surprise songs during the first year of the tour. “I decided that in 2024, when we go back out on tour, I’m just gonna open back up all the songs for surprise songs,” she said during her final show of 2023. “Because for one year, we’ve really gone through a lot of songs. All the songs are fair game.” Does this mean we have to power through more devastating losses (looking at you, “RWYLM”)? Yes, but we will power through them together .

Can we predict the pairings of future surprise songs?

After night four of the Eras Tour, fans began to notice that the surprise songs were connected thematically. “Mirrorball” and “Tim McGraw” are about the legacy you leave with someone once you’re gone; “A Place in This World”and “Today Was a Fairytale” are about feeling like you’re in your own little world with the one you love; and “Mean” and “mad woman” are about people sucking and that it’s okay to be mad about it. So what does this say about future pairings? Will we get a “Red” and “Maroon” night? Or will she play an all-Mayer grouping of “Dear John” and “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve”? (I’m personally hoping for a post-breakup “Question …” and “Out of the Woods” moment.) Swift said she’s going to repeat past songs in 2024, so anything is fair game.

The return of the hand hearts

During the Fearless and Speak Now era, Swift would hold up a hand heart in the air to her audience. She’s brought the gesture back for the Eras Tour — an Easter egg for the OG fans who remember teenage Taylor.

She’s gonna burn this house to the ground

In the Midnights era, Swift confirmed a theory after liking a TikTok post that said the dark night surrounding the Lover house is represented by Midnights , marking the house complete with her discography. However, Swift takes it a step further during her performance of “Bad Blood,” lighting the Lover house to the ground while finishing out the show’s 1989 section. Could this mean all of her rerecordings are finished and ready to go? Maybe Swift is preparing to take a break from music after the rerecording to focus on her film career. This could also just be an homage to “Ivy” (“He’s going to burn this house to the ground”) as it is not a part of the permanent setlist, but the idea of having all the re-recordings by the end of 2024 sounds more fun.

@xorainbowlouis lover house burning down 🙀 #taylorswift #eras #erastour #midnights #swiftok #swifttok #swiftcity #swifties #badblood #1989 ♬ original sound - ali 🌈

Making the whole place shimmer

Swift paid homage to Mikael Arellano’s “Bejeweled” TikTok dance by including moves during the song on tour, sticking to her promise that she’s listening to her fans about what they want to see. She even invited Arellano to some of the Philadelphia shows and gifted him the “22” hat , which he wore to do the “Bejeweled” dance.

@mikaelarellano I BARELY SLEPT!!! #taylorswift #swiftie #swifttok #theerastour #bejeweled ♬ Screaming crying throwing up Blank Space edit - Cowboy Han

@mikaelarellano I LOVE YOU TAYLOR ❤️❤️❤️ #taylorswift #swiftie #swifttok #tstheerastour #phillytstheerastour ♬ original sound - Mikael Arellano

Can you watch the Eras Tour at home?

Sure, you can watch the live show from a grainy livestream, but you’ll have to wait until February 2024 for the tour to start again. Beginning on December 13, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour will be available to rent for $19.89 on digital streaming services. Several songs were removed in the original theatrical run made their return in the streaming version (“Long Live,” “The Archer,” and “Wildest Dreams”). “No Body No Crime” and “cardigan” are still no where to be seen in HD.

Do the elaborate stage design and costumes hint at Swift’s future film?

This is a stretch, but I’m all about flexing the Taylor conspiracy muscles. Swift’s stage for the Eras Tour is an incredible mix of larger-than-life props, including large pine trees for Evermore and the Folklore cabin. But we must not forget that Swift is going to be a director of a feature-length film. Will her movie have fantastical production designs and settings, similar to how she sets the stage at her concerts? Will the film have sparkly costumes with hidden meanings? While she has not revealed the title or plot of the movie, maybe she’s been telling us about it all along.

• vulture section lede
• taylor swift
• it's taylor swift

Most Viewed Stories

• A Tennis Dummy’s Guide to the Ending of Challengers
• The 10 Best Movies and TV Shows to Watch This Weekend
• Is Zendaya the Leading Lady We’ve Been Looking for?
• Richie Sambora Apologizes to Everyone
• Cinematrix No. 45: April 26, 2024
• Colin Jost’s Best Jokes at the 2024 White House Correspondents’ Dinner

Editor’s Picks

Most Popular

What is your email.

This email will be used to sign into all New York sites. By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy and to receive email correspondence from us.

Sign In To Continue Reading

Create your free account.

Password must be at least 8 characters and contain:

• Lower case letters (a-z)
• Upper case letters (A-Z)
• Numbers (0-9)
• Special Characters (!@#$%^&*)

As part of your account, you’ll receive occasional updates and offers from New York , which you can opt out of anytime.

• Account Settings
• The Disney Bundle
• Parks & Travel
• Walt Disney World
• Disney Cruise Line
• All Parks & Travel
• Movies Anywhere
• Disney Movie Insiders
• 20th Century Studios
• Accessories
• Disney News
• Disney on Broadway
• Disney on Ice
• Disney Live!
• Walt Disney World Resort
• Disneyland Resort
• Aulani - A Disney Resort and Spa
• Adventures by Disney
• Disney Vacation Club
• D23: The Official Disney Fan Club

Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour (Taylor’s Version)

Concert Film, Music

Experience the exclusive "(Taylor’s Version)" cut of the record-breaking phenomenon concert film "Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour" which contains four additional main show songs not shown in theaters, and an acoustic collection after the credits featuring four unseen performances.

Rated: TV-14 Runtime: 3h 31min

Directed By

'Ready For It' | Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour (Taylor’s Version) | Disney+

'Our Song' | Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour (Taylor’s Version) | Disney+

'You Belong With Me' | Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour (Taylor’s Version) | Disney+

'Blank Space' | Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour (Taylor’s Version) | Disney+

'I Can See You' | Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour (Taylor’s Version) | Disney+

'You Are In Love' | Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour (Taylor’s Version) | Disney+

'cardigan' | Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour (Taylor’s Version) | Disney+

Tonight | Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour (Taylor’s Version) | Disney+

'Death By A Thousand Cuts' | Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour (Taylor’s Version) | Disney+

Maroon | Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour (Taylor’s Version) | Disney+

4 Days | Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour (Taylor’s Version) | Disney+

Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour (Taylor’s Version) | Official Trailer | Disney+

Explore More

folklore: the long pond studio sessions

Bono & The Edge: A Sort of Homecoming, with Dave Letterman

Miley Cyrus – Endless Summer Vacation (Backyard Sessions)

Lang Lang Plays Disney

TOMORROW X TOGETHER: OUR LOST SUMMER

BTS: PERMISSION TO DANCE ON STAGE – LA

Idina Menzel: Which Way to the Stage?

Encanto at the Hollywood Bowl

Just Love and a Thousand Songs

Elton John Live: Farewell From Dodger Stadium

Happier than Ever: A Love Letter to Los Angeles

A Celebration of the Music from Coco

Black Is King

BTS Monuments: Beyond The Star

*U.S. residents, 18+ only. Access content from each service separately. Location data required to watch certain content. Offer valid for eligible subscribers only. Subject to  Disney+ and ESPN+ Subscriber Agreement . For detailed information on billing and cancelation, please visit the Disney+ Help Center .

Our travel boxes are selling out! Grab your Shop TODAY Staycation box for 63% off before it's gone

• TODAY Plaza
• Share this —

• Watch Full Episodes
• Read With Jenna
• Inspirational
• Relationships
• TODAY Table
• Newsletters
• Start TODAY
• Shop TODAY Awards
• Citi Concert Series
• Listen All Day

Follow today

More Brands

• On The Show

What does it mean if you were waitlisted for Taylor Swift's Eras Tour tickets?

Taylor Swift added a batch of dates to her Eras Tour in North America in 2024 and fans are already virtually lining up to score tickets.

Ticketmaster asked fans to register online by Nov. 2 for the chance to purchase tickets to three British Columbia shows at face value in the Eras Tour Verified Onsale. On Nov. 8, Swifties learned via email whether or not they were selected to participate in the sale, which begins Nov. 9.

In an email to those lucky enough to get the pre-sale code, Ticketmaster said they would be receiving that code before the sale begins. But to a number of other hopeful buyers, they received an email saying they were on the waitlist for the Eras Tour Verified Onsale.

Here's what it means to be on the Ticketmaster waitlist

Those with a code to participate in the Eras Tour Verified Onsale will have a chance to purchase tickets in cities they pre-selected. Ticketmaster emphasized in their emails that having a code does not guarantee you will get a ticket, and that "due to the high demand, we expect all tickets to be purchased during the Verified Fan Onsale."

However, if any tickets do remain after the initial sale is complete, Ticketmaster said it will begin notifying those on the waitlist that they can enter the sale for a chance to buy tickets.

What initially happened when Ticketmaster held a sale for Taylor Swift tickets in the United States

Ticketmaster famously fumbled the initial ticket sales of Swift's U.S. tour, with many waiting in a virtual queue for the early sale for hours, sometimes to end up with nothing .

In a post on Nov. 19, 2022 , the company said that the initial Verified Fan pre-sale had been plagued by a "staggering number of bot attacks as well as fans who didn’t have codes." The result was an "unprecedented" 3.5 billion total system requests, Ticketmaster reported — four times the company's previous peak.

“We want to apologize to Taylor and all of her fans — especially those who had a terrible experience trying to purchase tickets,” the seller said in a statement at the time.

The company seems to be trying to prevent more subterfuge this time around, saying in the waitlisted email that the unique access codes cannot be purchased or transferred and will only work with the account to which it was assigned.

Fans have banded together since the first round of ticket sales to try to help other Swifties secure tickets and avoid the steep secondary market prices. (For context, tickets to Swift's Aug. 9 show in Los Angeles are going for a minimum of $864 each for essentially behind the stage and as high as $3,386 for floor seats on StubHub, as of the evening of Aug. 8.)

A woman who founded the TS Fandom Fund , a Tumblr collective that seeks to address economic inequality among the Swift fandom, told the New York Time s in March that those working to help other fans get tickets were fueled by altruistic enthusiasm.

“We want Taylor to look out and see people who actually know the words to these songs, and we want to be surrounded by the people who make up our community, not just randoms,” she told the newspaper.

Swift wrapped up the first U.S. leg of her tour in Los Angeles after performing a total of six sold-out shows at Sofi Stadium in Inglewood.

She then headed to Mexico to begin a set of  international dates  that will take her to South America, Asia, Australia and Europe through 2024 before she returns to North America.

Sam Kubota is a senior digital editor and journalist for TODAY Digital based in Los Angeles. She joined NBC News in 2019.

Taylor Swift's The Tortured Poets Department is here, but it could be a logistical nightmare for the Eras Tour

Get ready for another Taylor Swift era.

The Tortured Poets Department (TTPD) is the superstar's 11th studio album and is being released around the world today.

It'll be dropping the second the clock hits midnight on the east coast of America, which will be this afternoon in Australia.

• 2pm AEST : ACT, New South Wales, Queensland, Tasmania, Victoria
• 1:30pm ACST : Northern Territory and South Australia
• 12pm AWST : Western Australia

So far, we know the album is a whopping 16 songs (not including bonus vinyl tracks) and features multiple collaborations, including with Florence + The Machine.

We also know the first single will be Fortnight featuring Post Malone, with a music video dropping tomorrow morning as well.

Despite no singles being released in its lead up, clues point to TTPD seemingly being inspired by the five stages of grief : denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

Plus, many fans have speculated that the album title is a reference to the name of a group chat Swift's ex was part of – The Tortured Man Club.

And while The Tortured Poets Department could very well set new streaming records, it also poses a logistical nightmare for Taylor Swift's Eras Tour: how do you include yet another album into a show that is over three hours long?

Below, two ABC reporters and Swifties weigh up the likelihood of how the megastar might adapt her sell-out tour when it recommences in Europe next month.

We could lose some songs from every era to make room

Jessica : This seems like the most likely course of action. To put things into perspective, the Eras Tour includes songs from nine albums, but their airtime varies wildly. Lover, Folklore and Midnights have at least six songs, while Speak Now gets just two. So this might be a chance to balance things out?

Georgie : It would make the most sense to me. I can't imagine a tour that doesn't spend at least some time on the freshest music. But, this is a unique scenario. You have an artist who is essentially doing a greatest hits tour at the age of 34 while she is still churning out new music.

If she does cut music to make room for Tortured Poets, it will be very divisive. Every fan has their favourite era. But, I think if she was to I would hope she cuts songs she has already toured. You have to remember she put out four (now five) albums since her last tour and I imagine it would make the most sense for her to give more air time to Lover, Folklore, Evermore, Midnights and TTPD.

Jessica : If you were in charge of Taylor Swift's setlist, which songs would you cull? I'd ditch The Archer from the Lover era so it ends with, well, Lover. I'd be ruthless and cut most of the songs from the Red era as nothing compares to All Too Well (10 Minute Version). But keep the Reputation portion as is! It's perfect.

What if smaller eras, like Fearless and Speak Now, got cut altogether?

Jessica : I love chaos so I would not bat an eye if Taylor Swift dropped the entire Speak Now era from her tour. (But Enchanted is such a core memory for a lot of fans.) I know this might be a wild concept but there's not one song from her self-titled debut album in the Eras Tour (justice for Our Song!), so make of that what you will.

Georgie : I think this will cause a major generational divide. The beautiful part about the Eras Tour is you have fans new and old coming together. Taylor has been making music since 2009 and the Eras Tour has been a chance for people in their twenties and thirties to dress up in glitter and be teenagers again while sharing the new music with teenagers today. I'm a folklore girl through and through so I am hoping if any eras get sacrificed it's the older ones. But I can't lie, it's pretty special to belt out Love Story with thousands of other people.

Could we lose the two surprise songs for a few Tortured Poets hits?

Georgie : Controversial opinion but I would be ok with this. Although, take this as you want because I have experienced the Eras Tour. But the section is a gamble anyway. You never know what she's going to play and someone is always disappointed or their top pick is played another night. If you cut this section, no-one gets hurt. Maybe she subs it out for three best songs from TTPD?

Jessica : I missed out on tickets for the Eras Tour altogether so I was taken aback seeing fans who did score tickets complaining about which night got "better" surprise songs. You can't please everyone! I agree, this would level the playing field and take the comparison factor out of the tour… but I wonder if that uniqueness is a marketing factor as some super fans attend multiple concerts in the same city.

Imagine if she just… didn't play her new album

Georgie : Don't say it or it might come true!

Jessica : I think this would be the riskiest option. Imagine the disappointment on the first night when the tour recommences in Paris on May 9. But some fans, especially in America, who witnessed the Eras Tour last year before this album was announced feel it's unfair if other countries get a different experience. But that's what happens with the passage of time!

Georgie : I see your point but you have to remember we're in an age where many people have watched the Eras Tour happen through TikTok and the cinema release. So is it really missing out when it's been inescapable for over a year? This could be a chance for the people who have waited so long for the Europe leg – who have basically watched the tour on streaming and all over TikTok – to have something unique and worth the cash.

Or she could just include the new album and make the show nearly *four hours* long?

Jessica : I think this option would please the most fans, but I genuinely don't know how she performs for hours on end each night and then travels through different time zones. Oh,  to be a billionaire with a whole team taking care of everything all the time.

Georgie : I don't see this happening. Costs would skyrocket and many stadiums have a noise curfew. That's new costumes, sets and dance routines.

Jessica : But I would eat up new costumes, sets and dance routines! A four-hour concert is outrageous, which makes me think she might very well pick this option. Time will tell.

Georgie : I'm obviously a Swiftie but when I found out about the new album and what that might mean for the tour I just felt… overwhelmed. I'm still processing the release of four albums and two Taylor's Versions in four years. And now she's putting out new music? It's simply too much! The concert is a marathon but if I did have to go to a four-hour show, I'd do it for Ms Swift.

The worst option: Swapping All Too Well (10 Minute Version) for the radio edit to save time

Jessica : Sacrilegious.

Georgie : The people would riot. Jake Gyllenhaal would be thrilled though.

Final thoughts

Jessica : With everything going on in the world, I think this is a fun problem to ponder, and an interesting one for Taylor to tackle. I wish her well in whatever form the Eras Tour takes, because fans are going to have strong opinions either way.

Georgie: I worry that Taylor needs a holiday but, as you said, she's a billionaire now so I think she'll be fine. I hope she tours future albums but I also support her having a rest. Go chill with the cats and Travis. You've danced in high heeled boots for two years.

• X (formerly Twitter)

Related Stories

Taylor swift's understanding of the element of surprise is her best marketing tool.

'Do I need to give a billionaire more money?' How Taylor Swift's financial status collides with fans

Was 1989 the birth of superstar Taylor Swift or just her supersized financial ambitions? Let’s discuss

'A celebration of girlhood': Why the act of dressing up for Taylor Swift is so layered

Taylor Swift named Time magazine's Person of the Year, beating Putin, King Charles III and Barbie

• Arts, Culture and Entertainment
• Music (Arts and Entertainment)
• Music Industry
• Popular Culture
• United States

Recommended

• Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
• Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
• Click to copy URL

Taylor Swift hints at Eras Tour setlist changes after ‘TTPD’ album release

• View Author Archive
• Follow on Twitter
• Get author RSS feed

Thanks for contacting us. We've received your submission.

Fans theorize that Taylor Swift is changing her Eras Tour setlist to include songs from her new album, “The Tortured Poets Department.”

Swift shared a black-and-white video collage of her practicing for the upcoming leg of her tour and added her new single, “Fortnight,” in the background to YouTube Shorts on Thursday.

The Grammy winner, 34, included several snippets of her wearing different athleisure outfits while holding a microphone, singing and dancing on different parts of the stage.

The “Cruel Summer” songstress even featured a snap of her playing her acoustic guitar and sitting at her signature mossy piano.

However, some eagle-eyed fans noticed a few differences in some of the clips from what she’s done in her past shows –– such as her background dancers wearing black top hats and canes.

Swift also appeared to be leaning on a silver pole that seemed to have a white “TTPD” sign hanging on the side of it. Fans additionally pointed out her white guitar and matching microphone.

Want more celebrity and pop culture news?

Start your day with Page Six Daily.

Thanks for signing up!

Please provide a valid email address.

By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy .

Want celebrity news as it breaks? Hooked on Housewives?

“A fortnight til Paris 🤍 Brought to you by YouTube Shorts #ForAFortnightChallenge,” she captioned the video on Thursday.

Swift will resume her tour in Paris in two weeks –– aka a fortnight –– on May 9.

Several fans flooded the comments pointing out the changes and wrote about how convinced they are she’ll be swapping some songs for “TTPD” hits.

“Won’t be surprised if she actually does change the setlist a little bit,” one user wrote.

“she’s going to add TTPD songs to the setlist!!” another person commented.

For more Page Six you love…

• Listen to our weekly “We Hear” podcast
• Shop our exclusive merch

“SHE’S PROB GONNA ADD TTPD!!!!!” someone exclaimed.

“TTPD on the setlist😭I will pass out,” another person added.

Swift has not released the setlist for her upcoming shows and she did not share the setlist before she kicked off the tour in Arizona in March 2023.

The “Shake it Off” songstress previously sang 44 songs on every show and swapped out two songs each concert that were acoustic “surprise songs” not included in the same setlist.

After Paris, Swift will hit several European countries, including Sweden, Spain and Portugal, before wrapping up in London in August.

Share this article:

Advertisement

Taylor Swift releases YouTube short that appears to have new Eras Tour dances

Taylor Swift  released a new YouTube Shorts video and fans believe clips are signifying a "The Tortured Poets Department" number or set during the Eras Tour.

After the double album was released Friday, fans wondered if the singer would fit any of the 31 songs into the three-plus hour set. In the quick 15-second video, fans pointed out a couple of suspect shots, including Swift leaning against a railing that seems to have the "TTPD" logo and a quick scene where her backup dancers hold poles and wear top hats.

Swift has been on a two-month break from the Eras Tour and has spent much of her time in Los Angeles.

If there is a new Eras Tour set, the next question is where would she add the era? "Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince's" opening line is a perfect opening for an artist who has released seven albums and hasn't seen fans: "It's been a long time coming."

She could end the show with the "TTPD" set, but "Karma" is also a good show closer. Other than those two options, she could place "TTPD" after "Reputation" and before "Speak Now" or also right before "Midnights."

"A fortnight til Paris 🤍," Swift says in the caption. Her next tour stop is Paris, France on May 9. Swift will tour in Europe for 51 shows until she takes a break and heads back to the United States and Canada.

Follow Taylor Swift reporter Bryan West on  Instagram ,  TikTok  and  X as @BryanWestTV .

Don't miss any Taylor Swift news; sign up for the  free, weekly newsletter "This Swift Beat."

• Manage Account

Travis Kelce Calls Taylor Swift ‘My Significant Other’ in Eras Ticket Auction at Patrick Mahomes’ Charity Gala

Swift cheered Kelce on as bids went higher for tickets to her tour. Mahomes' foundation raises money to benefit children and communities in need of resources.

By Ashley Iasimone

Ashley Iasimone

• Share this article on Facebook
• Share this article on Twitter
• Share this article on Flipboard
• Share this article on Pinit
• + additional share options added
• Share this article on Reddit
• Share this article on Linkedin
• Share this article on Whatsapp
• Share this article on Email
• Print this article
• Share this article on Comment
• Share this article on Tumblr

Taylor Swift

See latest videos, charts and news

Madonna Joined by Salma Hayek for 'Vogue' in Mexico City as Celebration Tour Wraps

Trending on billboard.

Auctioneer Harry Santa posted a selfie with Swift on Instagram Stories , followed by videos of Kelce helping him get bids for an unannounced package of Eras Tour tickets the star put up for auction for the foundation.

“I was just talking to my significant other,” Kelce said in a coy voice in one of the clips, “and we might have one other auction item that wasn’t on the docket. Has anybody heard of The Eras Tour?”

Donna Kelce Had Taylor Swift’s ‘Tortured Poets Department’ on Repeat on Release Day: ‘Probably Her…

Santa made the first bid of $5,000 himself, saying they’d be moving forward in $5,000 increments. He joked that the winning bidder could go big for 15 and The Mahomies, then still profit by selling the in-demand tickets online for $200,000 straight after the gala.

“Taylor Swift is actually cheering you on as you’re winning four of her tickets,” he pointed out as Swift, seated next to Patrick and Brittany Mahomes, waved a red napkin. Kelce threw his head back, laughing.

Santa’s last update reported the four-ticket package sold for $80,000.

15 and The Mahomies is “dedicated to improving the lives of children,” Mahomes’ foundation, which he founded in 2019, states on its website . “The Foundation supports initiatives that focus on health, wellness, communities in need of resources and other charitable causes.”

Taylor Swift’s ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ Is Messy, Unguarded And Undeniably Triumphant…

She returns to tour in less than a fortnight, resuming her hours-long, career-spanning live show — presumably with at least some new material from the TTPD era — in Paris on May 9.

See clips of Kelce and Swift captured at the gala below.

Taylor Swift with her SIGNIFICANT OTHEr Travis Kelce with his SIGNIFICANT OTHER pic.twitter.com/UCioUqyQ1V — sarah ⸆⸉ (@reqnights) April 28, 2024

"-actually pay hundreds of thousands just to know taylor swift is actually cheering you on as you're winning 4 of her tickets this is insane let's go" pic.twitter.com/jsmw2eRJ7r — beloved (@taybeloved_) April 28, 2024

Get weekly rundowns straight to your inbox

Want to know what everyone in the music business is talking about?

Get in the know on.

Billboard is a part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2024 Billboard Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

optional screen reader

Charts expand charts menu.

• Billboard Hot 100™
• Billboard 200™
• Hits Of The World™
• TikTok Billboard Top 50
• Song Breaker
• Year-End Charts
• Decade-End Charts

Music Expand music menu

• R&B/Hip-Hop

Culture Expand culture menu

Media expand media menu, business expand business menu.

• Business News
• Record Labels
• View All Pro

Pro Tools Expand pro-tools menu

• Songwriters & Producers
• Artist Index
• Royalty Calculator
• Market Watch
• Industry Events Calendar

Billboard Español Expand billboard-espanol menu

• Cultura y Entretenimiento

Honda Music Expand honda-music menu