It was probably the longest queue in history, if you count queuing online as queuing, and those of us who have done so know it can be at least as boring as the real thing. When Taylor Swift’s Eras tour came to Singapore, more than 22 million people tried to buy tickets; 1 million waited simultaneously. The chance of making it to the show itself, for the average Singaporean Swiftie, was minimal. It was a story repeated across the globe as the tour reaped the rewards of the post-pandemic spending boom and the public’s lockdown-induced thirst for live events. The tour grossed more than $US2 billion; it would make Swift a billionaire, the most profitable live music act in history.

A new and not particularly serious discipline, Swiftonomics, was established to study the impact of the Eras tour, as fans and their money arrived in the cities it favoured over 21 months. It was estimated that in the UK, 1.2 million fans spent an average of £848 on tickets, travel, accommodation and outfits. At face value, a VIP package ticket cost £662.40. You could even skip the queue by signing up for a Capital One credit card (or by being the prime minister). Among some fans was a sense that something had changed. Was Swift – with whom they had grown up, whose songwriting came from the heart, whose battles with the men of the music industry they had followed for years – as vulnerable and honest as they had thought? Or was she in it for the money?

New Statesman