Taylor Swift‘s "Eras Tour" is expected to boost the UK economy by £1billion when it visits these shores this summer.
The pop star is due to begin the UK and Ireland leg of her huge career-spanning tour next month. She’ll visit Edinburgh, Liverpool, Cardiff and Dublin, and play eight sold-out concerts at London’s Wembley Stadium. Support will come from Paramore.
As Business Matters reports, a consumer spending report by Barclays has found that Swift’s UK fans are projected to spend almost £850 each when attending her shows – which will significantly benefit the UK’s experience economy.
It is noted that one in five of the 1.1million ticketholders for the singer’s 15 UK dates across June and August will purchase new outfits specifically for the concerts. However, most of the expenditure will go on accommodation, tickets, transport and merchandise.
Titled ‘Swiftonomics’, the document shows that the spending by fans for one ‘Eras Tour’ gig is over 12 times the average £67 cost of a night out in the United Kingdom.
The average price for Swift’s live shows is £206. When tickets went on sale last summer, it resulted in a 15 per cent increase in UK entertainment spending.
Barclays’ report has broken down the average additional spending for Swifties attending the upcoming UK dates, including accommodation costs (£121), transport (£110) and merch (£78).
Barclays predicts that the total £878 average spend per Swiftie will contribute nearly £1billion to the UK’s experience economy. This exceeds the near-£400 typically spent attending a wedding in the UK, and the £780 for a stag or hen party.
Peter Brooks, Barclays’ chief behavioural scientist, compared Swift’s huge and dedicated fanbase to The Beatles‘ at the height of Beatlemania.
Tom Corbett, head of group sponsorship at Barclays, said: “Fans are increasingly going all-out on experiences that resonate on a personal level, turning every concert into a potential holiday, every ticket into a cherished memory and every event into an opportunity to splash out on new outfits, food and merchandise.”
The ‘Eras Tour’ has already crossed the billion-dollar mark, and is on course to become the most lucrative tour in music history. It has had a significant impact on the US economy, and brought 0.2 percentage points of GDP to Singapore’s economy (roughly equivalent to $200million).
Per Business Matters, 4.35million tickets had been sold across 60 dates as of November 2023. The run of gigs also earned $200million in official merch sales.
Swift’s impact on the UK economy extends beyond her live shows too. Last month, The Black Dog pub in south London reached “max capacity” after the star sang about it on her new album ‘The Tortured Poets Department’.
She officially became a billionaire last year, according to a report from Bloomberg that broke down her estimated net worth. Swift recently appeared on Forbes‘ annual billionaires list for the first time – thanks to her music and performances alone.
Swift began the current European leg of her "Eras Tour" with four concerts at the Paris La Défense Arena in the French capital on May 9, 10, 11 and 12.
As some fans predicted, Swift added material from ‘Tortured Poets’ to the setlist as a new ‘era’. She later thanked her crew for “working tirelessly” to revamp the show during their two-month break.
You can check out the full setlist from night one in Paris here, along with a selection of fan-shot footage.
Swift is set to play three shows in Stockholm, Sweden this week ahead of stop-offs in Lisbon, Madrid and Lyon. The UK and Ireland leg of the "Eras Tour" will kick off in Edinburgh on June 7.
Photo: Kevin Mazur/TAS24/Getty Images
