December 8th, 2024, marked the end of an era, or eleven eras, with the conclusion of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour that began on March 17th, 2023. The tour consisted of over forty of Swift’s songs from her eleven studio albums released during her 18-year career.
Swift performed in 149 shows in twenty-one countries on five continents, making it one of the longest and largest concert tours in history. This monumental tour had some memorable moments in its nearly two-year run, so here is a retrospective look at Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour.
The Great War
When Taylor Swift announced the Eras Tour on November 1st 2022, it included presale registration for potential access to purchasing tickets for Swift’s first North American shows through Ticketmaster. This presale registration became known among Taylor Swift fans as “The Great War,” paying homage to the song from her 10th studio album Midnights for the stress and drama it caused.
Countless Taylor Swift fans, also known as Swifties, who signed up for presale registration codes were left empty-handed, being given no chance to purchase face-value tickets since the general sale was cancelled. Still, those who did receive these codes weren’t given much of a chance either. The number of presale codes given to fans was much greater than the number of available tickets, meaning even more fans would end up empty-handed. Along with this, Ticketmaster notoriously crashed with over three million users online waiting to buy tickets, kicking fans out of the ticket queue and leaving the website frozen. Some fans even stayed online waiting for hours, having to fight robots and ticket scalpers, once they finally left the queue.
With numerous fans unable to purchase regularly priced tickets to Swift’s tour, fans resorted to looking at 3rd party ticketing sites to see their favorite artist live. Unfortunately, scalpers listed the tickets at unaffordable prices, with outrageous additional fees. This sparked many conversations about unlawful ticket pricing and fees throughout ticket resale sites, even leading to lawsuits, some unrelated to Taylor Swift, concerning other artist’s ticket sales. Luckily when Swift announced international tour dates, presale registration took place on multiple sites, not just Ticketmaster, to make the ticket purchasing process easier and less stressful for fans.
Surprise Songs
A fan-favorite part of each Eras Tour show is the acoustic set of the concert, where Swift performs two “Surprise Songs” not included in the setlist from any point in her career. Swift has a discography of over 200 songs, which made fans anxious to hear what songs Swift would shock fans with each night. Various Swifties attending each show would livestream the acoustic set on social media for fans who were unable to see the show live or were simply curious to see the Surprise Songs, highlighting the togetherness of the Swiftie community.
Swift also brought out countless of her collaborators to perform with her during the acoustic set. During the tour, Swift performed with Marcus Mumford, Aaron Dessner, Maren Morris, Ed Sheeran, Gracie Abrams, Jack Antonoff, Sabrina Carpenter, Hayley Williams and many more.
From the Stadium to the Screen
On August 31st of 2023, Taylor Swift announced that the Eras Tour would become a concert film shown in movie theaters across the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The film allowed fans who were unable to get tickets to the concert to experience the full show outside of a glitchy TikTok livestream.
In October of 2023, the concert film was released, and Swifties continued the concert tradition of wearing outfits that symbolized different eras of Taylor Swift’s music in movie theaters, capturing the true essence of the Eras Tour. Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour also broke countless records, as it became the highest-grossing concert film in history, generating over 260 million dollars worldwide, also becoming the first concert film to receive a Golden Globe nomination.
Album Releases
Even further, April 9th, 2021, was a historic day for Taylor Swift fans, initiating the start of Taylor Swift’s album re-recordings after she announced she would be reclaiming her masters, this day being the day she re-released her second studio album as Fearless (Taylor’s Version). Later that year, she re-released her fourth studio album as Red (Taylor’s Version), but with over a year of no re-recorded albums, the release of her tenth studio album Midnights in 2022, and the Eras Tour approaching in 2023, fans were anxious to see if Swift would re-release her remaining albums during the tour.
Swift’s fans shared their album release theories across social media, with most theories being incorrect, a phenomenon known in Swift’s fandom as “clowning.” However, Swift’s fans were on the right track. Across the span of the Eras Tour, Swift released three albums: Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), 1989 (Taylor’s Version), and The Tortured Poets Department.
On May 5th, 2023, in Nashville, Swift caught fans off guard when she announced her third re-recorded album, Speak Now (Taylor’s Version). Swift went live on Instagram during the show to spread the good news. When the album was released July 9th of that year, it included six extra never-before-heard songs known to fans of Swift’s re-recordings as “Vault Tracks.”
A special day for Swifties was August 9th of 2023 at SoFi Stadium, when Swift confirmed fans’ suspicions by announcing 1989 (Taylor’s Version) and wearing only blue variations of her Eras Tour outfits to represent the album. She then released the album on its 9-year anniversary, October 27th, 2023, with five “Vault Tracks.” On its first day on Spotify, the album received a staggering 176 million streams, confirming the excitement of Swifties. This opening represented the third biggest album debut on Spotify, only behind two of Swift’s other albums. Even more impressive, the “Vault Track” “Is it Over Now? (Taylor’s Version)” reached the #1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100.
During the break from the North and South American shows of the Era Tour at the 2024 Grammy Awards, Swift announced her 11th studio album The Tortured Poets Department when she went to accept the award for Best Pop Vocal Album for her 10th studio album Midnights. This form of album announcement was no stranger to Swifties, as Midnights was announced when Swift accepted the award for Video of the Year at the 2022 Video Music Awards. The Tortured Poets Department was released on April 19th, 2024, and when the Eras Tour reached Paris on May 9th, Swift added the album to the setlist for the remainder of the tour.
What’s Next?
The conclusion of the Eras Tour closed a major chapter in the lives of Taylor Swift fans, leaving many Swifties to wonder what could possibly be next.
This February, Swift will likely attend the 65th annual Grammy Awards, where she is nominated for six awards, five being for her latest studio album The Tortured Poets Department. Will Swift make history by becoming the first artist to win the “Album of the Year” award five times?
Swift also has yet to release the final two re-recorded albums left of her original masters, her debut album Taylor Swift (Taylor’s Version) and her fifth album reputation (Taylor’s Version), leaving her fans to continue their frenzy of theories and debate before Swift makes any announcements. Whenever and wherever that may be, Swifties are sure to break the internet once more.
