Taylor Swift Eras Tour: Up to 5000 Sydney Swifties enjoyed concert from outside Accor stadium

The official Sydney crowd for Taylor Swift may have been 80,693 people but that wasn’t the only wild number at Accor Stadium.

The official crowd for Taylor Swift may have been 80,693 people but there were up to 5000 Taylor-gaters who braved the dodgy weather to enjoy the concert from outside Accor Stadium.

You could clearly hear, if not see, the Eras Tour show from the fringes of the outdoor stadium thanks to Swift’s powerful production.

The crowd figures, which Swift cited as 81,000 during the opening Sydney show, were bolstered by 3500 police, staff and cleaners.

There were 6000 international fans and visitors at the Friday gig, with 30,500 interstate Swifties.

While their presence gave NSW an economic boost, travelling fans paid dearly for the experience with airlines and hotels inflicting a price surge during the Eras Tour dates.

More than 3500 staff, cleaners and police were also at the stadium.

Taylor Swift has sent fans wild in Sydney. Picture: Richard Dobson

Taylor Swift fans Taylorgate outside Accor Stadium in Sydney. Photo: Tom Parrish

Unsurprisingly the bar queues were short and the food and water lines long with the stadium selling 30,000 bottles of water - which could be refilled at stations throughout the arena - and 12,000 cans of Gordon’s Pink Gin and Soda.

Despite reception being patchy in the stadium’s black spots and because of the surge in traffic, Sydney fans still flooded social media with photos and videos from the 195 minutes show.

They vastly outstripped the amount of visual souvenirs uploaded from the opening Melbourne gig, according to Optus data.

Fans in Sydney uploaded 3,004,112 MB of data, the equivalent of about 751,028 photos or 300,411 short HD videos.

Melbourne fans at the MCG on February 16, uploaded 1,787,448 MB of data, about 446,862 photos or 178,745 short HD videos.

TAYLOR STORMS SYDNEY

Last night, the thunderstorm which saturated tens of thousands just as they arrived at Accor Stadium kept the arena seating closed until half an hour before show time and cancelled Sabrina Carpenter’s opening set.

All of it ceased to matter the second Swift took the stage to a deafening roar which swelled into an ear splitting crescendo as fans assumed their backing singer role on Cruel Summer.

“Sydney you are making me feel absolutely phenomenal,” she said before launching into The Man.

The audience also becomes the backdrop to rival her epic screens, their coloured wristbands and phone lights turning the stadium into a cavern of fairy lights.

Taylor Swift is the reigning champ of pop music. Picture: Richard Dobson

Like her fellow pop stars getting back up to speed with world tours after the three-year pandemic halt, she shared with fans that she gets they made a big commitment to get to an Eras show.

The train, the parking, the storm drama which put half the crowd into a holding pattern until police gave the go ahead to take their seats – Swift knows it ain’t always easy to be a fan at a big gig.

American superstar Taylor Swift on stage at Accor Stadium in Sydney. Picture: Richard Dobson

So Swift strikes that intimate connection with 81,000 people by telling them she loves the city, has fond memories of her times here and looks gratefully shocked when they scream and chant her name for two minutes after Champagne Problems.

“Are you joking right now … you guys know the way to my heart, I love you Sydney, we’re going to have the night of our lives,” she said.

Taylor Swift is at the peak of her powers. Picture: Richard Dobson

The Eras party took its acoustic pause with the much anticipated surprise song set.

“I kinda pick the songs for each individual crowd and hope I get it right,” she said.

The crowd lost their minds when she launched into How You Get The Girl on acoustic guitar.

“Do you know how loud you’re singing, it’s so loud I’m overjoyed,” she said.

And then, as she did in Melbourne, she revealed yet another vinyl edition of her upcoming album The Tortured Poets Department called The Albatross.

It will no doubt be available via her online store for pre-order for a limited time.

Swift switched to piano and brought out her support act Sabrina Carpenter for the second track which was a mashup of White Horse and Coney Island.

Among those 80,000 plus fans cheering her on were her boyfriend Travis Kelce, her friend Katy Perry, British pop star Rita Ora and director husband Taika Waititi and Baz Luhrmann.

Over four nights this weekend at the city’s biggest venue Accor Stadium, which last hosted her Reputation Stadium show in 2018, she will play to 320,000 adoring fans.

Taylor Swift plays a marathon three-and-a-half-hours set. Picture: Richard Dobson

POP CULTURE PHENOMENON

Swift kicked off the 2024 leg of her Eras Tour at the height of her powers as a pop culture phenomenon, and this two-year-long concert event is a victory marathon around the globe.

It is epic in scale and ambition. Only veteran rock acts such as Bruce Springsteen, The Cure and Foo Fighters have consistently played over three hours and kept an audience revving for the duration with their enviable catalogue of hits and fan favourites.

None of those artists also had to dance and pull off 16 costumes changes with each completed in a speedy two minutes.

Nor do their respective audiences – with all due respect – look as pretty as the idol they have come to worship. The Swifties may be the prettiest fans in the land, having spent hundreds of hours making replicas of her costumes and friendships bracelets just for this moment.

For more than three hours, they move and dance as a glittery, shimmering mass, creating little rainbow bursts of colour as the stadium lights bounce off their sequined dresses and tops and the silver and gold beads of their bracelets.

Taylor Swift on stage in Sydney. Picture: Richard Dobson

It is the first concert for many of the 81,000 people who went to the opening Accor Stadium show on Friday and they were committed to every minute of the three hours plus show. Although there was a steady stream of parents carrying little Swifties who just couldn’t go the distance out of the stadium before the concert’s end. You just hope they didn’t miss their favourite song.

Swift’s ambitious Eras concept is a boss move to showcase the astonishing breadth of her repertoire and evolution as an artist from her Nashville country beginnings to pop superstardom.

Taylor Swift said the Sydney crowd was making her “feel phenomenal”. Picture: Richard Dobson

It is also a generous gift to the fans, offering something for everyone with a sonic snapshot of the record that inducted them into the Swifty universe, with the exception of her 2006 self-titled debut record. Although songs from that record occasionally get a nod during her surprise songs set as in Melbourne when she performed Teardrops On My Guitar at night three.

One highlight among a concert of many is the ear-splitting cheers and singing which greets Champagne Problems during her Evermore era.

That song has taken on a bigger and bolder life during this tour as fans at each stop try to be louder than the gig before. It has become a moment to show their allegiance to their queen as she sings a song about a marriage proposal rejection in the wake of her break-up with actor Joe Alwyn and blossoming romance with Kansas City Chiefs star Travis Kelce.

Taylor Swift gave fans a night to remember. Picture: Richard Dobson

Swift is a natural-born performer who honed her craft from an early age at talent contests but in her Eras incarnation, she is at peak professionalism.

She moves effortlessly from guitar to piano. She maintains her vocals when busting out a racing strut across the stage or syncing into the choreography with her dancers. She imbues very note and lyric with the emotion which fuelled its creation. And while most of the banter follows the Eras script, she is genuine when she deviates from it to strike a more intimate connection with the Sydney crowd.

The big screens and Swift’s craft in working the cameras with her multitude of faces from beaming smile to feigned shock are mostly successful at propelling the action on stage to the corners of the stadium.

But that convention of modern pop concerts also occasionally leaves you feeling like you are watching a made-for-TV show rather than a gig.

Taylor Swift returns to Accor Stadium on Saturday, Sunday and Monday with fans advised to check Ticketek on show days for any last minute ticket releases.

Originally published as Taylor Swift Eras Tour: Up to 5000 Sydney Swifties enjoyed concert from outside Accor stadium