2024-01-09 06:00:18
Taylor Swift fans at Gillette Stadium during a game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the New England Patriots, attended by the singer, on December 17, 2023, in Foxborough, Massachusetts. SARAH STIER / GETTY IMAGES VIA AFP
For the Taylor Swift concert, Philippine, a 15-year-old schoolgirl who lives in Le Havre (Seine-Maritime), is still hesitant about her outfit. “It will be a tribute to one of his albums, either Reputation [2017]either Lover [2019] », she says. Phew, she has her place to see the most listened to singer on Spotify in 2023, of whom she says she has been a fan since she was 9 years old.
But everything didn’t go as planned. Because Philippine will not go to see Taylor Swift in Paris, two hours from her home, where the American will perform in May. Accompanied by her mother and two friends, she will attend her concert two weeks later… in Madrid. “We had pre-registered for Paris, but we were not chosen”she regrets.
Chosen? In fact, Philippine did not receive the “code” issued in a draw by Ticketmaster, the ticket purchasing platform, to access the Parisian sale. “But I managed to get a code for Madrid by getting one from someone on Twitter. » And then, it will be the opportunity to visit Madrid for three days, she says.
Plane tickets, hotel nights, on-site expenses… This is, in concrete terms, the Taylor Swift effect on European tourism. Expected as the messiah by her fans, the 34-year-old megastar, “personality of the year 2023” for the magazine Time, will perform in the spring in eighteen cities across the continent. In France, from May 9 to 12, it will fill La Défense Arena (35,000 seats sold per evening), and then the Groupama Stadium in Lyon (57,000 spectators per evening), on June 2 and 3.
A tour that Arnaud Meersseman, director of AEG France, which produces Taylor Swift’s concerts in Paris and Lyon, readily describes as ” extraordinary “. “We’re doing six dates, but we could have done twelve,” estimated the producer. He will oversee hellish logistics: 90 semi-trailers and 300 people will accompany “The Eras Tour” – the official name of the tour. In total, in Paris and Lyon, more than 250,000 people will listen to the author and performer of Cruel Summer (2019) or Shake It Off (2014). This is barely less than Coldplay, who brought together 300,000 people in four evenings at the Stade de France in 2022 – the record for a French tour.
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But apart from the number of spectators, the specificity of these concerts lies in the intensity of the travel they generate. Because the fans are ready for anything, and because the ticket purchasing system pushes irrationality. On July 11, 2023, when tickets for Paris and Lyon go on sale, “there were up to 1.2 million people on the waiting list”, remember Arnaud Meersseman. TicketMaster’s servers failed, causing disappointment and anger among fans, and fueling even more pressure.
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