Taylor Swift’s $2 billion Eras tour is coming to an end

After 149 shows in 53 cities on five continents, more than 10 million fans and several broken records, Taylor Swift has ended her globe-spanning Eras Tour.

The US pop star played the final show of her tour in rain-soaked Vancouver, where she told her audience that the shows were “the most exciting, powerful, electrifying, intense and challenging” experience of her life.

Swift, 34, began the Eras Tour back in March of last year at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona. In a five star review for The IndependentCritic Kelsey Barnes noted that the singer seemed “more liberated than ever” as she delivered a set list of 44 songs over three hours and 15 minutes.

The Grammy-winning artist performed this 148 more times, accompanied by a dance troupe whose members became stars in their own right, and with elaborate staging, pyrotechnics, confetti, dance routines and multiple costume changes.

In Vancouver, Swift told the audience that the tour’s “lasting legacy” would be the friendship bracelets fans made, inspired by a lyric from her song “You’re On Your Own Kid.”

Since that first show, hundreds of thousands of handmade friendship bracelets have changed hands, including from Swift’s celebrity audience members such as Sir Paul McCartney, Selena Gomez, Lupita Nyong’o, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon.

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“I never thought that writing a line about friendship bracelets would lead to all of you making them, making friends, and bringing joy to each other,” Swift said.

“That is the lasting legacy of this tour. I couldn’t be prouder of you.”

Swift’s tour has made international headlines, not least because it was the first tour in history to exceed $1 billion (£786 million) in ticket sales.

In conclusion Forbes reports that this figure will have exceeded $2 billion (£1.5 billion). The goods are estimated to have brought in an additional $400 million (£314 million).

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Demand for tickets was so great that Ticketmaster’s systems crashed, leading to a hearing into the company’s practices in which U.S. senators attacked executives with Swift’s own lyrics.

Last January, Democrat Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut told Joe Berchtold — president of Ticketmaster’s parent company Live Nation — that he had accomplished the “stunning feat” of uniting both parties behind a common cause.

Featuring lyrics from Swift’s 2022 hit AntiheroThe 76-year-old added: “Ticketmaster should look in the mirror and say, ‘I’m the problem.’ It’s me.'”

The Eras tour also sparked a diplomatic row in March this year after Singapore promised Swift a lucrative six-day residency, at the expense of his disgruntled neighbors in Thailand and the Philippines.

Pop and politics intersected again in August when Labor leader Sir Keir Starmer was given £4,000 worth of Swift tickets during his general election campaign.

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Then, in October, reports emerged that the singer’s mother, Andrea Swift, was pushing for a special police escort after a foiled suspected terrorist attack in Austria.

The Metropolitan Police are said to have felt pressured after discussions with Home Secretary Yvette Cooper and London Mayor Sadiq Khan about protecting the pop star at two of her Wembley Eras Tour appearances.

A Met Police spokesman said at the time: “The Met is operationally independent.

“Our decision-making is based on a thorough assessment of the threat, risk and harm and the circumstances of each individual case.

“It has been our long-standing position that we do not comment on the specific details of security arrangements.”

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But amid the political strife, Swift herself won praise for her generosity during this tour, donating hundreds of thousands of pounds to food banks in the cities where she performed.

Throughout the tour, she also made sure to have plenty of surprises at each show, from “secret songs” that were only on her set list for one night to surprise guests.

At her eighth and final Wembley show, she brought in British pop star Florence Welch for a rendition of “Florida!” from her eleventh album The Tortured Poets Department.

She also invited her longtime partner Jack Antonoff to the stage for an acoustic duet of 2019’s “Death by a Thousand Cuts” and 2017’s “Getaway Car,” both co-written and produced with the Bleacher frontman.

Her boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, has attended many of her shows since they began dating in the summer of 2023. But fans were shocked when he appeared on stage as a circus ringleader during a skit that preceded it TTPD Song “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart.”

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Swift said after the show that she was still “freaking out” and “swooning” over the American football star’s cameo: “I’ll never forget these shows,” she wrote.

A lot has changed in Swift’s personal life since that first concert in Arizona. She is believed to have broken up with her boyfriend of six years, British actor Joe Alwyn, right around the start of the tour, which many fans believe was the reason for some particularly emotional performances of songs like “Champagne Problems.”

The Eras tour included a number of hits believed to have been inspired by Alwyn, including the title track from her 2019 album lover. Alwyn also collaborated with Swift on her albums Folklore, always And midnight under the pseudonym William Bowery.

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A few weeks after news of the split broke, Swift briefly dated The 1975 frontman Matty Healy, to the dismay of some of her fans who objected to the British singer’s series of controversies. According to reports, they separated after just a few weeks.

Swift then wrong-footed her audience with her release The Tortured Poets Department In April 2024, many songs appeared to be inspired by Healy rather than Alwyn, including “But Daddy I Love Him” ​​- an ironic anthem about being with someone others consider “wrong” for them.

Others seemed to resent Healy for misleading them about the nature of the relationship, such as “Fortnights,” “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived,” “Down Bad” and “The Black Dog.”

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But Swift also apparently addressed the fallout from her split from Alwyn in “So Long, London,” which she performed for the first time at her recent Wembley show.

She released three albums during the Eras Tour: her re-recorded versions of Speak Now And 1989, as part of their ongoing mission to win back their masters, and TTPD, which was nominated for a number of awards at the 2025 Grammys.

In December 2023, her stunning achievements in the music industry were recognized by Time magazine, which named Swift its Person of the Year as she also acknowledged her many ups and downs. “Make no mistake,” she told the publication in a rare interview, “My career was taken away from me. I have been hoisted on the flagpole of public opinion so many times in the last 20 years. I was given a tiara, then it was taken away from me.”

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In the same interview, she revealed herself in her Time In an interview, she began reflecting on the artistic transitions fans saw during her Eras tour in 2009. “I realized that every record label was actively working to replace me,” she said. “I thought instead I would replace myself with a new me first. It’s harder to hit a moving target.”

What’s next for Swift? She celebrates her 35th birthday on December 13th – fans in Vancouver serenaded her with the refrain “Happy Birthday”. Many believed she would use her final concert to announce her next career move, with a “Taylor’s Version” of her sixth album. Call, at the top of their list.

However, Swift decided to end the show of her own accord, with a set that spanned 18 years of songwriting.

“I want to thank each and every one of you for being a part of the most exciting chapter of my entire life so far – my beloved Eras Tour,” she said as she prepared to perform the final song of the set, “Karma.”

As the final notes sounded, she hugged her dancers as they left the stage together.