Taylor Swift, you’ve heard about her. From her country music days to her chart-topping pop hits, she is an established name in the music industry. With her musical career spanning almost two decades, the singer-songwriter is known for her dynamic and ever-changing “eras” distinguished by their sounds, styles, and demeanor. Swift started touring last March, paying homage to these phases in her career in “The Eras Tour”. After their selling to a third party, the artist had been re-recording her songs, reclaiming her musical legacy. Now owning exclusive rights to almost all of the music she published, Swift offers a journey, 17 years in the making.
As big as her reputation is, her economic impact is nothing short of it. The tour has been selling out stadiums, proving itself to be a league of its own in terms of success. By the one-year mark, The Eras Tour is estimated to have grossed over 1 billion USD, making it the biggest tour in music history. Taylor Swift fans have caused local economic boosts in the cities visited, best reflected by the unusually high, above-90 hotel occupancy rates. Mentioning friendship bracelets in one of her songs, Swift introduced a tradition of bracelet exchanges, causing a local shortage of beads and sequins. A June estimate from QuestionPro5 suggests a 5 billion in consumer spending caused by the tour in the United States alone. This number surpasses the gross domestic product of 50 countries. Swift did not stop there. Her recorded concert is now available in theaters for which the pre-sale of tickets achieved 100+ million USD of revenue with an estimated total of 1+ billion. It doesn’t take an economist to realize these are astronomically large numbers for an artist on tour. What is the reason for this success?
There is no doubt that the lavish set designs and multiple costume changes offer an unmatched experience. However, people’s demand for a live music experience post-pandemic has played a major role in the tour’s success. Swift made a great decision with the timing. She revived movie theaters and generated economic growth with her tour. "I don't think we should discount how much of this is a real tip of the cap to Taylor Swift for being a very effective businessperson,” says Brett House, The professor of professional practice in economics at Columbia Business School in New York. On her way to becoming a billionaire, it seems we will see and hear more of Swift in the coming years both as an artist and a businesswoman.
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