Brisbane was poised to host multiple Taylor Swift Eras shows. Then there was trouble in Japan

Taylor Swift’s record-breaking Eras tour was booked to come to Brisbane this year, but it was Tokyo – not a lack of venue – that caused the star to give Queensland a miss.

Swift’s seven sold-out shows in Melbourne and Sydney made up the biggest concert tour in Australian history, with the Australian Bureau of Statistics noting they boosted the retail economies of both cities.

Taylor Swift performing at the MCG in February.Credit: Jason South

The lack of Brisbane on the tour itinerary has been seized on by proponents of a new stadium to be built in the city before the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Stadiums supremo Harvey Lister, whose ASM Global venue and events company ran Suncorp Stadium and was behind the planned Brisbane Arena at Roma Street, told a business breakfast on Thursday the superstar’s Brisbane snub had nothing to do with the lack of a suitable venue.

But he still added his voice to those arguing for a new Brisbane stadium to be built in time for the 2032 Olympics, rather than a temporary refurbishment of the Queensland Sport and Athletics Centre at Nathan.

“As JC [former Powderfinger bassist and fellow panelist John Collins] would know, where artists burn out is on the road, so [Swift’s] management said this world tour, we’re doing one city a week only, anywhere in the world,” Lister told the Brisbane Economic Development Agency breakfast at Brisbane Airport.

“We’ll do six dates, but we’ll only do one city a week.”

In response, tour veteran Collins quipped: “She does fly private, so she can toughen up a bit.”

Lister said it was the flow-on effects of stadium unavailability in the world’s largest city that forced tour promoters to bypass a planned run of shows in Brisbane.

“They chose to do two cities only in Asia – Tokyo and Singapore – and then they had their three weeks for Australia, so it was Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne,” he said.

‘Taylor Swift was booked to play Brisbane’: ASM Global chief Harvey Lister.Credit: Brisbane Airport

“The three cities were each booked for a week. Then the scheduling fell apart and they couldn’t get the Tokyo Dome for the week they wanted it – it was baseball or soccer or something – there was an event in there and they couldn’t move it.

“So it’s like, damn, we got to come through Tokyo so we’re going to have to push that out a week and that means we’re going to miss a city in Australia.”

Lister said the larger populations in Sydney and Melbourne made it a simple choice for Swift.

Given the first show after the Australian leg was in a 55,000-seat stadium in Singapore, Lister said stadium size in Brisbane was not a consideration for organisers.

“At Suncorp Stadium, we could have done 60,000 for that show,” he said.

Still, Lister said it was time for a new major stadium in Brisbane, regardless of the Olympics.

“I would think that sometime after the end of October [the state election] will be a time to ask whoever is our government at that time to revisit this,” he said.

“I’m feeling there’s a lot of momentum in this city.”

As for the location, Lister backed Victoria Park.

“I still believe it’s the right place, about the same walking distance as the MCG to the middle of Melbourne,” he said.

The proposed Victoria Park stadium precinct. Credit: Archipelago

“There’ll be a pedestrian freeway built through Roma Street Parkland to get to where the Brisbane Live arena project will be so it’s only a hop, skip and jump farther to extend that and bring people back towards the city, instead of taking them away from the city and moving in the other direction.”

BEDA chief executive Anthony Ryan said the idea of the Olympic legacy being a reduced 14,000-seat capacity QSAC was “crazy”.

“If you look at the cost of QSAC, and you look at the cost of the transport that’s required to go into QSAC, the added costs literally is going to come back to a similar cost that Victoria Park would be, or the Gabba,” he said.

“I don’t care if it’s Victoria Park, I don’t care if it’s the Gabba, but I know it’s not QSAC, because we don’t want to be presenting QSAC to the world.”