Taylor Swift sells $17.5 million worth of tickets for a concert
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Pop star Taylor Swift is on track to deliver the highest-grossing tour in music history with her The Eras Tour.
PHOTO: AFP
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LOS ANGELES – American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift is bringing in ticket sales of more than US$13 million (S$17.58 million) a night on the road – putting her on a trajectory to deliver the highest-grossing tour in music history.
She is due to perform for six nights in Singapore in March 2024.
Most of the money goes towards the cost of production and that sum does not include the additional millions of dollars in merchandise sales that The Eras Tour is generating.
But it still makes Swift, 33, the top-grossing artiste in the world and marks the biggest tour of her career.
Swift is on pace to gross more than US$1 billion, a threshold no artiste has ever hit.
Through 22 dates, the tour has grossed US$300 million, according to Pollstar, an industry publication.
She was scheduled to perform more than 50 dates in the United States in all and then go abroad. Pollstar estimates The Eras Tour could top US$1.3 billion.
Swift is also setting a high-water mark for prices – in a year marked by concert inflation.
Seven of the 25 best-selling acts of the first half of the year are also charging more than US$200 a night. The list includes American singer-songwriter Bruce Springsteen, at US$224; rock band Phish at US$206; and country music artiste George Strait at US$282.
Just five years ago, the only two acts that topped US$200 were American singer-songwriter Britney Spears and Canadian singer Celine Dion. That year’s biggest performer, British singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran, could be seen for an average of US$89 a night.
Since then, the average price of the 25 best-selling tours has jumped by US$37. Adjusted for inflation, the jump is about US$13.60, demonstrating that ticket prices are rising faster than consumer prices generally.
Before 2018, almost every ticket cost between US$75 and US$130, though a couple of acts charged at the higher end. Now, there are more top acts charging upwards of US$200 than there are top performers charging less than US$100.
Coincidentally, 2018 happens to be the last time Swift was on tour.
This is what has happened to her pricing since the Reputation tour in 2018 and even further back to Speak Now in 2011: The cost of seeing Swift has increased by US$134. That has not stopped more than 1.1 million people from buying tickets. BLOOMBERG
