Written by Ishani Datta
Illustrated by Francesca Corno
Whoever said money doesn’t buy happiness clearly hasn’t been to the Eras Tour. Ask anyone who has, and I’ll bet my two cents it was the closest they had ever been to Heaven. Of course, that is if Heaven was a seat at the most serotonin-inducing, gut-wrenchingly, childhood-fulfilling sparkly collection of songs by one of the greatest artists of all time: Taylor Alison Swift!
Whether you love or hate her, you can’t deny that she can put on an ‘era’-defining show, the currently best-selling concert tour of all time. I can’t name many artists who can perform over 40 songs, 16 outfit changes, endless dance routines (including a certain Midnights Era chair that could very well be the most expensive chair in the world right now), about five genres of music, no breaks, for at least three-to-four nights every week. Did reading about everything she does in a single concert – let alone multiple nights in a row – leave you exhausted? Same. This is notwithstanding the fact that the Eras Tour has been going on for over a year and a half. And let’s not forget that the tour has had 4.3 million attendees in the past 20 months.
Ms. Swift is a dedicated performer and an incredibly savvy businesswoman. I mean, who else has amassed $1 billion in revenue from a single tour? And it’s not even over yet!
In the UK, her concerts in London, Edinburgh, Liverpool, and Cardiff generated £1 billion for the economy (with the London stop solely responsible for a third of that money injection)—a jaw-dropping accumulation of ticket sales, tourism boosts, hotels, restaurants, and plane tickets. And let’s not forget that a substantial portion of the revenue was stacked by the merch sold outside each concert: according to Forbes, since early 2023 (the start of the Eras Tour) Swift racked up over $1 billion from ticket sales at her concerts alone, in addition to the $240 million she had already made from merch sales that year. The only other tours that have reached anywhere near this marker were Coldplay’s Music of the World tour (grossed $1 billion post-completion) and Elton John’s Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour (grossed $939 million post-completion). Swift’s contribution to individual and global economies across the globe has been so profound that a new economic phenomenon has developed to explain it: ‘Swiftonomics’!
Swiftonomics is the economic phenomenon that describes the impact of Swift’s streaming and concert sales in local and global economies, notably the ones she performs her concerts in as of 2023. Beginning with the USA in March 2023, Swift performed 53 shows in 20 cities, generating over $4 billion for America’s GDP according to Bloomberg and Business Insider. Four billion dollars—let that number sink in before we get to the foreign policy incident in Singapore (yes, literal governments got involved). Spoiler alert, even Harvey Specter wouldn’t take a risk to cash in the way they did.
As many South Asian and South East Asian Swifties would tell you, getting a ticket to the Eras Tour in Asia was harder than clearing the Gaokao Exam in China, or the JEE entrance exam in India. It’s no secret that Asian Swifties have cried foul about the lack of diversity in Swift’s tour stops, but it’s with the Eras Tour that we got to see the true brunt of it. Fans across Asia were disheartened and angered when the tour announced just one Southeast Asian stop—a six-night run at Singapore’s National Stadium. For any non-Singaporean Swiftie, the price to attend (or even have a chance to attend) just increased past doable thresholds. The Guardian also revealed that Singapore’s Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong, closed a deal with Swift’s tour management with an incentive of over $2 million per show for Singapore to be the only stop on the Eras Tour in Southeast Asia. This set off an angering chain reaction in the neighbouring countries, with fans and political leaders alike slamming this decision. Filipino lawmaker, Joey Salceda, expressed his displeasure at this move, remarking that ‘This isn’t what good neighbours do’. According to Time magazine, the Prime Minister of Thailand, Srettha Thavisin, commented on Singapore’s shrewdness and said: ‘If I had known this, I would have brought the shows to Thailand’. While PM Loong has defended this decision, one can’t help but respect the shrewdness needed to pull off something of this nature. He clearly understood Swift’s worth: the six nights in Singapore alone contributed almost half a billion dollars to the city-state’s GDP, adding to their thriving tourism industry that was already worth over $200 million. According to Bloomberg, Swift’s arrival in Singapore alone boosted the GDP by 0.2% in the first quarter. It, however, came at the cost of South Asian Swifties elsewhere who had to fight an uphill ticket battle against the Thai, Indonesian, Chinese, and Korean Swifties (and more).
To put it simply, Taylor Swift has been revered as a ticket to economic heaven, leaving national economies across the world begging for more. Swiftonomics influenced Singapore’s decision to be the only stop in Southeast Asia; Swiftonomics influenced Lisa Gillmor, Mayor of Santa Clara to appoint Swift as Honorary Mayor during her Eras Tour in the city (also renamed as Swiftie Clara), and it was Swiftonomics that gave the US economy a $4.5 billion boost— all from a single tour. For any university thinking of adding a Master in Swiftonomics degree anytime soon, I think I’ll risk my life savings and do it. Would you?
