Following her historic Grammy-winning weekend, global superstar Taylor Swift resumed her legendary Eras Tour on Wednesday at the first of her four sold-out shows in Tokyo, Japan. The popstar kicked off a month of shows in Asia that will include a quick dash to Vegas to see her boyfriend Travis Kelce contest the U.S. Super Bowl on February 11. Swift will be on tour for most of 2024, taking the Eras Tour to Australia, Singapore, and Europe in the first half of the year before heading to Canada in the fall.
Over the weekend, Swift became a 14-time Grammy winner and the first-ever artist to win four Album of the Year awards after her historic win for “Midnights” at the 66th Annual Awards. Meanwhile, in Tokyo, hordes of fans from several countries gathered in snowy weather to buy merchandise days in advance, per a CNN report. The 55,000-seat Tokyo Dome was promptly sold out for the shows that kicked off Wednesday (Feb 7) evening and will end Saturday (Feb 10) night.
Swifties are going crazy
The Tokyo Dome’s surroundings were packed hours before the doors opened on Feb 7 night. Fans from different parts of the world showed up wearing tiaras and carrying banners with special messages and custom-made merchandise.
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One Swift fan, Kane Ishiyone, 28, bought tickets to all four nights as she loved the popstar since 2009. She even learned English to understand the song lyrics and left her job to move about more freely during the tour. “I’m taking a two-year break for going to her concerts, I quit my job when she announced this Eras Tour,” Ishiyone told CNN.
"It's us, hi! We are Swifties from Taiwan!" read a huge banner featuring 10 pictures of Swift. "We came just for the concert as we couldn't get tickets in Australia," another fan Ebony Donohue told The Japan Times. "I'm so excited to finally see her. All her music is so different. She's so relatable and strong and amazing,” the 18-year-old added. Other fans from places Swift won't stop this time, including Thailand, the Philippines, and China, joined the vast crowd that gathered in the afternoon before the gig.
The sale of tour merchandise began at the Tokyo Dome on Monday (Feb 5), with large crowds waiting outdoors in the snow and sleet. One fan from the Philippines said on TikTok she stood in line in temperatures hovering around zero for two and a half hours.
At the start of the show, Swift thanked the audience for their support. "I want to start out by saying thank you to everyone who traveled a great distance to be at this show tonight," Swift said during her "Evermore" set.
Mad dash to Super Bowl
Swift’s boyfriend, Travis Kelce, who plays for the Kansas City Chiefs will take on the San Francisco 49ers in Las Vegas at the Super Bowl. So far, Swift has been a regular at the Kansas City Chiefs games since September 2023. Thus, she is expected to be there at the Superbowl as well just a day after her final show in Tokyo.
Fans got involved in helping out Swift by drawing up charts and PowerPoint presentations. Even the Japanese embassy in Washington released a statement last Friday (Feb 2, 2024) saying that “despite the 12-hour flight and 17-hour time difference...she should comfortably arrive in Las Vagas before the Super Bowl begins.”
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The economic impact of The Eras Tour
Swift’s Eras Tour may have single-handedly boosted Japan’s entire economy in just four days. About 34.1 billion yen (about $229.6 million) are expected to be generated from the concerts, said Mitsumasa Etou, a representative of research site Economic Effects NET, in the CNN report.
Swift’s next stop, Australia, is also expecting a similar effect. The Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Michele Bullock said the “Taylor Swift inflation” effect has forced fans to adjust their spending elsewhere to afford tour tickets and other related costs, Reuters reported. The same report added that The Eras Tour is the first in history to gross over $1 billion in revenue.
