Taylor Swift’s “The Eras Tour” officially ended Sunday in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The nearly two-year-long tour was record-breaking and trend-setting.
It is finally the end of an era for Taylor Swift.
The last show here in Vancouver is the finale of a 149-concert tour that spanned almost two years. It is estimated that it earned around two-billion dollars since the first concert in March 2023.
Each concert lasted about three-and-a-half hours and featured at least 44 songs, divided into 10 parts, or “eras," of her recording career. The tour stopped in 53 cities on five continents.
For Vancouver residents, the arrival of Swiftmania took over the city and drew comparisons to when the area hosted the 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Chris May is the general manager of BC Place Stadium, the venue that hosted the final three Swift concerts.
He said organizing and preparations for these concerts was similar to ceremonies for the Olympics, Paralympics and the 2015 Women’s World Cup of Soccer, which were held in the stadium.
He said 70% of attendees for the final concerts were from outside of the greater Vancouver area.
“That means we have a huge amount of guests that have never been here before. So, you know, it's working through those realities of ensuring we have enough staffing, enough signage and wayfinding, and people to help to get people where they're going,” he said.
May said the April 2024 concert for Diljit Dosanjh, which was the biggest Punjabi music concert outside of India, drew more than 50,000 fans. All told, Swift's three Vancouver concerts drew about 160,000 people.
Jarrett Vaughan, an adjunct professor at the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia, said Swift’s adept use of social media played a crucial role in the tour’s success.
He also said the COVID-19 pandemic played a part for some younger members of her audience.
“I think when we look at the current audience that she has, you know, they were fairly young at that time. They didn't have the opportunity to attend concerts going through maybe middle school or elementary school, and so for them now, to be able to attend something like this is pretty remarkable,” he said.
Vaughan said the legacy of the Eras Tour will not solely be just Swift’s use of social media, but the positivity she created for her fan base.
Stephanie Burt is an English professor at Harvard College and recently taught a very popular class at the school on Swift.
For her, the secret to Swift’s Eras Tour and her career itself is simple, she is really good at writing songs that are aspirational and relatable.
“We hear the songs, and we hear both someone who's already like us and someone who we want to be more like and want to be closer to and aspire to be like. That's a rare gift to extend it that long, and the tour testifies to the persistence of her talent and to her versatility and to her ability to collaborate and organize and plan,” she said.
Vancouver’s tourism office estimates the final dates of Swift’s tour boosted the city’s economy by $112 million.
