Hundreds of thousands of Swifties are expected to descend on the streets of Toronto over the next two weeks as the city hosts Taylor Swift.
The global pop star will be holding her ‘Eras Tour’ at the Roger Center over the next two Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, showcasing a variety of performances.
Tickets for the now sold-out show will first go on sale in 2023, with an unknown number revealed by Ticketmaster last week, but your opportunity to purchase them there has likely passed.
Instead, those interested have few options, including buying tickets from secondary resale sites like Stubhub or Seatgeek or trying their luck at other options like contests or sweepstakes.
The lowest ticket I can find on Stubhub for a Thursday night is $2,678, but it gets you into the Corona Rooftop Patio, which is standing room only with an enclosed view.
If you want a stadium seat with an unobstructed view, it will set you back $2,830.
From there, prices rise very quickly into the tens of thousands of dollars, with the highest offer being a VIP hotel package that includes four tickets for $24,173.
For those crying over the prices, the company also lists recently sold tickets, with buyers paying more than $5,000 for seats to Thursday night’s show.
If you really want to get up close to the stage, you can head to Seatgeek, where someone is trying to pony up $32,978 for a floor seat to Saturday night’s show.
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“We have buyers from 47 countries (excluding the U.S. and Canada) attending the Toronto show,” a Stubhub spokesperson told Global News in an email.
They also said that the Toronto show outside of Miami was the best-selling leg of the ‘Eras’ tour, ahead of Swift’s Reputation Tour by 26 wins and 1 loss.
The company says to buy in advance because prices may not drop the day of the show as some people think.
“Some people may think that if they wait until the last day of the show, the price may go down, but that’s not what we’ve seen so far,” he wrote.
The streets of Toronto would have been packed with so many people expected to come to the city for the show, which would have kept restaurants booked for months and caused hotel prices to skyrocket.
Music industry veteran Eric Alper has been in the business for 30 years now and can’t remember another artist causing such an uproar.
“I was in the mid-80s when Michael Jackson was at his peak as a fan and teenager. And that was big because we were all looking at the same thing and reading the same thing,” he said. He pointed out that audiences these days are too fragmented.
“It’s really amazing because now we’re all in different silos. We are not all reading the same thing. We’re not all hearing the same thing,” he explained.
“You could go through life without hearing a single Taylor Swift song, but there’s no denying that she has influenced many aspects of people’s lives that no one else has.”
If you don’t want to sell your house or kidney to attend this year’s must-see event, there are a few other charity options you can roll the dice on.
Toronto’s two hospitals, St. Both Joes and Sick Kids are holding a raffle to give the winner the chance to see Swift during the second week of her show, while also paying some cash.
The drawing for Sick Kids will take place on November 17th and the winner will walk away with two 100th floor seats for the final performance and $10,000 in cash.
The raffle fundraiser for St. Joseph’s Hospital ends Nov. 18 for tickets to the Nov. 21 show and is currently worth over $44,000 and includes a 50/50 component.
How to join a Swift experience without a ticket
Of course, we can assume that it would take a small miracle to win both draws. So if you still want to partake in the Taylor Swift experience, you have another option.
There will be a Taylor Swift-themed drag show, a scavenger hunt at the Royal Ontario Museum, a cover night at El Mocambo to raise money for cat rescue, a trivia event at a local bar and more.
There will also be an event called Taylgate, which will give Swifties the chance to listen to music, dance and make friendship bracelets.
Speaking of tailgating, the Kansas City Chiefs will be in Buffalo to take on the Bills on Sunday night in a battle between the AFC’s two top teams.
This could give Swifties another chance to catch a glimpse of T-Swift. That’s because T-Swift often heads to games to support her beau, Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce.
It doesn’t seem like a coincidence that the NFL scheduled the game in the middle of Swift’s concert series in Toronto.
© 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
