With three of the six Taylor Swift shows in Toronto completed, the city gets a chance to catch its breath and see some less traffic and congestion until things ramp up again. for the next round of arena shows on Thursday.
Southern Ontario (or rather Canada) has never seen this kind of enthusiasm for a pop star.
You’ve probably heard about the incredibly large amounts people are willing to pay for tickets on the secondary market. A man emailed me saying his daughter was planning to buy a ticket. behind The stage costs $5,000. I heard about a woman who was offered $38,000 for her tickets but didn’t give up. BlogTO has been monitoring the situation and found the seat for sale on Vividseats for $99,507. (Prices have come down considerably since then. I just did a search and found a floor seat near the catwalk for less than $12,000. Pretty cheap, right?) The absolute lowest price for a last-minute ticket is over $2,400. That’s Super Bowl-level pricing. Maybe even higher.
Meanwhile, basic hotel rooms cost upwards of $2,000 per night. The city has additional public transportation. Taxi companies, Uber and Lyft have pulled out all the stops. A secure zone was created around Rogers Center, and the venue itself invested $8 million in 5G infrastructure upgrades to ensure everyone in attendance can take their TikTok and Instagram to paradise. Those who were homeless were moved out of the area and into hotels.
Some enterprising citizens have left the city and rented out their homes to fans through Airbnb. A street in the city was named Taylor Swift Way. The Taylgate party, a special event for Tay-Tay fans, is packed. Last week, there was a long line of people waiting to buy merchandise at the Rogers Center, but they were all sold out.
What is the net economic benefit to the city? A place worth about 3 million won.
lovely. Many fans will be very happy and many companies and people will make very large profits. however… why?
Wait a minute, Swifties. This is not about taking down your idol. The following is not intended to diminish, disparage, or disparage anything about the object of your worship, devotion, or affection. And I can’t question your musical tastes and how you spend your discretionary income. I just want to ask you a simple question. Why is Taylor Swift so big?
If you’re a Swiftie, the answer is laughably obvious. She writes great pop songs. She gave a fantastic concert. She is charming and stylish. She gives back to her fans. She is known for her great philanthropy and philanthropy. She treats her employees and crew very well and regularly hands out big bonuses.
And there’s more. She provides just the right amount of female empowerment through her songs and (perhaps especially) her reputation as a hard-nosed businesswoman who takes charge of her own destiny in a male-dominated industry. Her songs can be perceived as very personal. (Notice how many times she uses the word “you” in her lyrics. Other professional songwriters will tell you that this is a very powerful way to subtly connect with the listener.) – A tight-knit community of fans has grown around her, and , that is a story in itself. It’s a very big and loving sisterhood (although she has plenty of male fans).
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She is always in the tabloids, but there are almost no negative articles about her at all. All the photos are heartwarming. She has a boyfriend who won a Super Bowl, and the media treats them kindly. Meanwhile, one of the world’s biggest celebrities shrouded himself in mystery. Everything she does, from her social media posts to what she wears on stage, is analyzed for esoteric meaning.
In other words, if you were to grow a perfect pop star in a test tube, the result would be Taylor Swift. But even taking all this into account, I’m not sure we’ve answered the question of her immense greatness.
Let’s start with the basics of Taylor Swift Inc. Not only is she a celebrity and entertainer, but she is also a company with a large back office comprised of managers, accountants, lawyers, social media experts, concert experts, designers, marketers and merchandisers. Individuals and general administrative staff responsible for running a multi-billion dollar entertainment enterprise. Her people are clearly very good at what they do.
One of her most powerful employees is her chief publicist, Tree Paine. She has been working for Taylor since 2014 through her company Premium PR and nothing happens to Taylor without his approval. You don’t touch this woman. She is well known and much loved by Swifties, who often refer to her as “girlboss.” Who criticized Kanye West for using Taylor Swift’s name in a song without permission? For that matter, who was after Kim Kardashian? Who advises Swift on the political comments she makes? Who covers up all the stories about ex-boyfriends? Tripain.
But there is still more. Taylor’s rise to her current top position began roughly with the chaotic rise of Donald Trump. Her reputation soared through COVID-19 during his first term, and through all the social divisions and conflicts that followed his defeat in 2020. Her music, images, and overall story are pure escapism: a distraction from all the terrible, strange things happening in the world. world. And her brand of escapism (see above) was more effective than anything other pop stars had to offer.
Let’s pursue that line of thinking for a moment. Taylor Swift’s songs are not without controversy. They’re all built to cruise right into the middle of the pop music zeitgeist. Can you tell us which song she took a chance on? really Opportunity — even in courting something. a little Off brand for her? no. To be honest, she is a very moderate person. That’s not the problem. It works for her, and it works for her fans.
This explains me like this: Maybe Taylor is as big as she is because of the lack of competition. Sure, the Beyhive has Beyoncé and her troops, but her 2023 Renaissance World Tour grossed US$579,879,268. This is a very good payday and ranks 9th on the list of highest-grossing concert tours of all time. However, the price of the Eras tour is US$1,930,000,000 and rising.
What about Coldplay? A fan-friendly, eco-friendly, radio-friendly superstar global act that encourages fan engagement and community. But when Coldplay returns to Toronto next July for a few shows at the yet-to-be-built Rogers Stadium, do you think we’ll give them the same attention? no.
Who else is competing for attention when it comes to modern mainstream pop stars? Ed Sheeran, of course. Harry Styles is on the list. Pink? maybe. And that’s it. With so few cars on the road, Taylor’s lanes can be that wide. She has so much of her own pop culture landscape. It’s one big, mostly empty field.
None of this is what she does or her fault. The recording industry has done a terrible job of creating new superstars since the Internet destroyed the old business of selling pieces of plastic to music fans. Streaming has separated music consumers into millions of smaller communities, each with their own object of devotion. Back in the 1990s, you could see 2,500 albums released a year. Today, Spotify received over 103,000 new song uploads. every 24 hours.
In the pre-internet era, there was a consensus, an idea that we were all hearing more or less the same thing. Music was controlled by record labels, radio, video channels, music magazines and record stores, and distributed sparingly allowed acts to slowly rise to the top. That is no longer the case. We’re all doing our own thing.
Taylor then delivers impeccably composed, exquisitely crafted, and uncontroversially escapist pop music, supported by corporate executives who rarely make a mistake in her career. The opening was there and they went for it.
Final question: Will Taylor Swift’s popularity last?
I often think of Paul Whiteman, a hugely popular big band leader of the 1920s and 30s who sold millions of records and played to thousands of fans.
Newspapers called him “The King of Jazz.” Even though his brand of jazz was very white bread and, in the eyes of purists, jazz in name only. Whiteman was one of the biggest stars in American music. But he wasn’t like that. His brand of music was outdated, and the critics who shaped history and had opinions on how people would be remembered were vicious. When names from the big band era are mentioned, Whiteman is not one of them. As Antonio Salieri said, he was. amadeus“Ordinary”.
I am not suggesting for one moment that Taylor Swift will suffer the same ignominious historical fate as Paul Whiteman. But I wonder if 50 years from now people will remember her songs the way they do the Beatles, Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, and even U2 today. I guess time will tell.
In the meantime, Swifties, have fun. You and your idols enjoy a level of dominance and ubiquity not seen since Michael Jackson’s heyday. Thriller. Perhaps even more so today, considering our dependence on social media and our thirst for connection in these extremely strange times.
One of the reasons we had Beatlemania was because the world seemed like it was going to hell with all the upheaval of the status quo caused by JFK’s assassination, the Cold War, the Vietnam War, and the rise of women’s rights and civil rights. rights movement. As the saying goes, before the Beatles, everything was black and white. When they arrived, the world suddenly burst into color.
To follow that analogy, Taylor Swift is 8K HD. Maybe Swiftomania is just what the world needs right now.
