Taylor Swift: Why was the Eras Tour a phenomenon?

Fans from 8 to 88 explain why they think the Eras Tour became a cultural phenomenon. Photo / Getty Images

At this point, it’s easy to recite the statistics of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, which wrapped up for good on Sunday night local time in Vancouver, British Columbia: 149 sold-out stadium shows on five continents. Local economies boosted by millions of dollars. The first billion-dollar grossing tour in history (earning more than US$2 billion ($3.4b) total, according to the New York Times). One massive Ticketmaster meltdown during the presale, with an executive later explaining that the demand for tickets could have filled 900 stadiums.

The harder task is trying to explain why.

Why, of all tours, did this one become a cultural phenomenon, where every single concert made headlines? Why did fans devote so many nights to watching shaky iPhone footage of the 3½-hour concert? Or as naysayers wondered, why did people spend thousands of dollars to fly around the world to attend a meticulously choreographed show that was virtually the same every time, aside from the costume variations and surprise songs? What was it about the Eras Tour?

It’s simple to point to Swift’s much-discussed intense relationship with her fan base, or the success of her music, with its ultimate relatable themes about growing up and life and love, or the fact that she hadn’t toured in five years; but in reality, the reasons go deeper.

The Washington Post went straight to the people who know best - the ones who attended the shows, who watched the live streams, who read the endless stories about the tour published since it started in March 2023. We asked: what did the Eras Tour mean to you? We received nearly 600 responses and, most illuminatingly, the answers spanned generations. (Some responses have been slightly edited for length and punctuation.)

Preteens

A young fan reacts after receiving a hat from Taylor Swift on February 16, 2024 in Melbourne. Photo / Getty Images

“It meant everything to me because I’ve been dying to go see Taylor Swift since I was 5 years old. I am inspired by her music and her as a person. I think she’s done amazing things to this world.”

- Josey Preiss, age 8

One reason Swift’s gargantuan fan base continues to grow is that she has spent the past 18 years forming an intense bond with her fans. She makes them feel like her friends, then those listeners play Swift’s music for their kids, and the fandom just keeps multiplying. Young Swifties told the Post they learned to love her songs from their older siblings and parents (one reported that her mom started playing Shake It Off for her when she was an infant) and loved the tradition of trading friendship bracelets with other concertgoers.

Teens

“The Eras Tour meant to me a place of whimsy and celebration … It meant being able to see the woman onstage who got me through the hardest and most fun parts of my life without even knowing it.”

- Stephanie Woodie, age 19

Swift broke out as a country music star in the early 2000s by writing songs about what it was like to be a teenage girl, and her lyrics still resonate deeply with those in middle school, high school and beyond. Teens described Swift as a hero and a role model, and they said the concerts felt like a bonding experience in which, no matter what you had been through, you were surrounded by tens of thousands of people who were feeling the same sense of joy.

20s

“It was my entire childhood wrapped into the best 3.5 hours. There is truly nothing better than screaming the songs that got me through the teenage heartbreak that I thought I’d never move on from or the feeling of falling in love for the first time … The Eras Tour was a sense of nostalgia, magic, new friendships and a feeling of being understood.”

- Andi Morris, 28

The concert celebrated each “era” of Swift’s career, and her fans said that inspired them to think about their own journeys. As Margot Hughes Pavone, 29, told the Post, “There comes a time in every girl’s life, so early on we can’t even pinpoint it, when we’re told … that the girly things we’ve grown to love aren’t cool anymore.” One of those subliminal messages is that bubblegum pop music is shallow, she said, so as they get older, girls often turn to music that is considered “cooler”.

Swift taps into how your 20s shape your identity (the song 22 marvels at being “happy, free, confused and lonely at the same time”), and Pavone said that attending the concert was like “therapy” for her younger selves. “At the Eras Tour, we all embraced the girls inside us, because instead of shaming them and telling them how dumb and uncool and embarrassing they were, Taylor told them they were all right … That what they went through was real and valid, not cringey or shameful, but worth singing and dancing and laughing and crying about.”

Other women echoed the sentiment: “The Eras Tour to me meant a chance to unapologetically celebrate girlhood! For the first time in a long time, it felt like girls and women were given a venue to come together and be ourselves without being ridiculed,” said Katie Michalak, 25. “Taylor has sung about so many things myself and so many other women have felt, and because of her we can feel seen in a world that doesn’t want to acknowledge our value,” added Christine Brown, 22.

Taylor Swift performs onstage at Estadio Más Monumental Antonio Vespucio Liberti on November 9, 2023, in Buenos Aires during the Eras Tour. Photo / Getty Images

The shows also helped people who were going through upheaval in their lives. Florencia Maggio, 24, told the Post that during the time span of the tour, which she saw multiple times around the world, her marriage started to unravel. “Every concert I attended, every city I travelled to, became a way to reflect on who I was, who I had been, and who I was becoming,” she said. “The moments of joy I shared with strangers in stadiums, the quiet moments of reflection while alone in a new city, and the deep, powerful sense of fulfilment when I stood in those concert crowds - it all served as milestones in my personal healing process.”

30s

“The Eras Tour reminded me it is not silly to want to get dressed up and like sparkly things and to cherish girlhood. Which may sound trivial, but in a world where I felt like I’ve had to bury those parts of me to be taken seriously, it reminded me of the beauty of duality … And that was an incredibly potent lesson I needed and wouldn’t have seen without this tour, to accept all the intricate sides of yourself and allow yourself joy for the sake of joy.”

- Sydney LoPrimo, 30

Swift pours detail into her songs (training fans to look for “Easter eggs” and clues within her work) and her concerts (with specific costume combinations and different acoustic medleys each night), and for that reason, the tour became an all-consuming experience online for many Swifties even after they had attended in person.

“It’s hard to explain the joy that the Eras Tour has brought to my life. I never thought I’d be watching live concerts from terrible livestreams on TikTok each weekend - but I did, on repeat, joyfully texting my friend about the surprise songs, outfit choices, ‘errors tour’ moments,” said Cherisse Onderko, 37. “Female empowerment, love and acceptance of all people, joy in doing things you love … so sad this is about to be over.”

This was particularly important to fans who were experiencing personal challenges. Many found great happiness and distraction as much in the glittery costumes as the cathartic pop songs.

“I was diagnosed with Stage 3 breast cancer just a few weeks before I was supposed to move across the country and start my dream job. Through six months of chemotherapy in my hometown of Jackson, Mississippi, I woke up each morning anxious with anticipation of what the next grainy livestream would reveal,” said Molly McMillan, 33. “The Eras Tour was the soundtrack to the montage of me beating cancer.”

Lacey Quadrelli, 35, told the Post that she attended in New Orleans on the third anniversary of her Stage 3 cancer diagnosis, and that “being there meant replacing one of the worst days of my 35 years with one of the happiest. I got to feel intense joy and have truly not felt more alive than when belting out the bridge to Cruel Summer with 63K of the best people I haven’t fully met.”

Carmen Kaarid, 30, called the tour a “truly life-changing event” after being a Swift fan since middle school. “My husband and I had been trying to have a baby for over a year and had just suffered another failed fertility cycle a few days before my show. Being able to lose myself in Taylor’s music was a saving grace for me in what was one of the darkest periods of my life,” she said. By the second time she saw the show, she was the mom of a 5-month-old baby. “Seeing Taylor during both my lowest lows and my highest highs made the journey all the more unforgettable.”

40s

“It’s also meant so much to me as a middle-aged woman! Covid and subsequent world events have been so difficult, having a shining and beautiful thing like the Eras Tour and her music releases … have given me something to look forward to, to brighten my days.”

- Suzy Berberian, 47

While many people told the Post that the show represented a safe place to indulge in celebrating girlhood, others found hope and healing in seeing so many different people at the tour.

“The kindness is contagious. Everywhere you look, something special is happening. The father/daughter dynamic is what touches me. But it’s everyone: moms/children, siblings, strangers, best friends, bf/gfs, husbands/wives, everyone has this shared love and appreciation for her music that spans across the most monumental moments of our lives,” Nicholas Xouris, 40, told the Post.

“The Eras Tour entered my life when I needed it most, becoming a source of healing and connection in the wake of profound loss. After losing my mother to pancreatic cancer in February, 2023, I was consumed by grief and almost skipped my first show in Pittsburgh in June,” said Amy Johnson, 43. But the show became a source of healing: “The stadium pulsed with energy as we screamed the bridge of Cruel Summer. During Marjorie, I let my grief for my mom pour out in tears, and during Lover, I felt hope for the LGBTQ community as Taylor’s dancers swayed as same-sex couples onstage … The love, hope, and safeness in that stadium were indescribable.”

Zerene Gurian, 44, said the tour “remained a constant” during difficult times, including “a very, very stressful year of politics and now being scared for my future, and for the future for all of us that aren’t a cis White man. There were thousands of memes, GIFs, and posts on Instagram that were so relatable to me and all Swifties,” she said. “It’s been a constant source of joy, happiness, love and laughter. Community and friendship, equality and support.”

50s

“I went to the show with my two teenage daughters. Like a lot of dads of Swifties, I didn’t know much about Taylor Swift ahead of time, but I relished the chance to have something special to share with them at an age when kids typically pull away from their parents … It literally brought a tear to my eye. I don’t really know why. Maybe it was because it was just incredible to be able to be there in the stadium with them, and you never know how many of those opportunities you’re going to get.”

- Cale Jaffe, 52

People a couple decades older than Swift, who turns 35 on December 13, wrote in to say they didn’t know they would relate to Swift’s music as much as they did, and some spoke of how special it was to be able to go to the show with their kids or younger family members. Others were delighted to find they were welcomed along with everyone else.

“I’m what you’d describe as an ‘ageing hipster’, much to my chagrin. I’m a die-hard indie/folk/prog fan, with a quiet love for well-crafted pop music,” said Alexandra Kogan, 54. “That quiet love really got me through the pandemic, where my nearly daily grocery store visits were supplemented by quietly singing along under my mask to Taylor Swift songs.”

When Kogan got tickets with an “ageing Goth” friend in Los Angeles, she wasn’t sure what to expect. “We both joked on the way to the show that we’d be the oldest people there. Shockingly, we weren’t - and that’s ultimately what the Eras Tour was for me,” she said. “We were enveloped in an ocean of all-ages/all-gender/all-orientation fellow Swifties, who all got our outfits (and even gave us compliments). We arrived bare-wristed and left with more friendship bracelets than I could count … I will treasure these memories just like the music that got me through the pandemic; and I am not just an ageing hipster anymore … I’m a proud Swiftie!”

60s

“Attended [in Seattle] on my 65th birthday with my two daughters (27 and 33), in July of 2023 - our first foray into a huge crowded space since the pandemic. It felt like freedom and community, positivity, and hope … I’ve been to many concerts since my teenage years, but I left this one feeling lucky to have experienced a one-of-a-kind event in my lifetime. Was grateful to share this with my girls.”

- Cyndee Lord, 66

Multiple respondents in their 60s compared the hype around Swift to Beatlemania - and were pleasantly surprised by how much they enjoyed the show, particularly when they accompanied young concertgoers. Some were especially impressed by the scope of the tour, and how even in a stadium show, Swift has the ability to make it feel like she’s talking right to you.

70+

“Our niece and her 8-year-old daughter met us in New Orleans for the show. It was the little girl’s first concert (of course she is a huge fan). Seeing the world through her eyes for a moment was forever memorable.”

- Rob Brenner, 71

Some aged 70 and older said that they did not attend the tour, but read plenty about it as it took over the news cycle. Earl Rose, 88, wrote in to say, “My husband is besotted with Swift and her romantic life. I am indifferent. But in the light of all the publicity attendant to her engagement and all, she and her tour have become a daily staple of conversation. I was/am forced to figure what all the fuss is about.”

“First, she is a great entertainer. I do remember her early videos. Second, she is a business woman with some great talent to bottle her appearances and albums and keep them fizzy and current and very very profitable. I’m a retired entrepreneur. Gotta admire that,” Rose continued, adding that he also admires how much her parents have supported her.

Even as the tour concludes, Swift continues to fascinate fans and non-fans of all ages. Amid the hundreds of responses the Post received, one phrase stood out in dozens of entries. This is what people would want you to know - the Eras Tour, they say, meant everything.