It’s been a long time coming.
Taylor Swift is set to embark on the international leg of her Eras tour this fall through next summer, and some of her Israeli fans – well aware that their favorite artist is skipping Tel Aviv – are already planning ahead in anticipation of getting tickets.
“I think it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and I don’t want to miss it,” said Lior Degabli, 36.
There was a huge demand for tickets to the American leg of the Eras tour. Swift’s performances in the US were so eagerly awaited, that the Ticketmaster website saw over 3.5 million people pre-register for tickets, according to them.
On ticket pre-release day, the website received millions of requests with all of the tickets selling out, leaving Ticketmaster with no option but to cancel the general sale that was originally planned.
Resale websites like StubHub, TickPick, and SeatGeek were flooded with people and bots reselling tickets for thousands of dollars due to such a high demand.
Talia Rapps, who lives in Efrat, flew to America to see Swift’s concert in New Jersey.
“There is a strategy to it all – for example, you have to wait patiently in the queue and remember not to refresh the page. Pick your seats and check out quickly.” Rapps said.
Some fans, like Eliana Hirsch, have never seen her perform before at all. Hirsch said she believes that the experience would be beyond her wildest dreams. “I know the lyrics to almost every Taylor Swift song by heart,” she said, “I also go through phases where her music is the only music I listen to; it’s become a security blanket of sorts.”
The international leg of the Eras tour will see stops in South America as well as the United Kingdom, France, Sweden, Portugal, Spain, Singapore, Ireland, and more.
Hirsch is hoping to get tickets to see Swift on her international leg, possibly in the United Kingdom, Switzerland or Singapore.
As for the price of the excursion, Hirsch said that in total she would be willing to pay upwards of $1000. Depending on the location of where she ends up, she might even extend her trip.
No matter the cost Taylor Swift is worth it
DEBBIE ECHOED the sentiment that the ability to see Swift perform in concert is worth a lot of money to some hardcore fans. “I know that me and several people I know would go to great lengths to go see her in Europe and spend a lot of money!” she said.
Originally, on the American leg of the tour, the majority of concert dates were on Friday and Saturday nights, prompting calls by Jewish observant fans to add dates during the week so they could go.
A lot of Israeli fans who keep Shabbat were worried about this happening on the international leg too. Mimi Borowich-Milstein said she factored this into the dates she tried to get tickets for: “I signed up to be a verified fan as soon as the Europe dates were announced, but because I’m shomer Shabbat, I only picked a couple of locations that were not going to be on a Friday night or Saturday.”
Some fans have been trying to “Shake It Off” – the fact that Swift is not coming to Israel. Sadly, this decision means her Israeli fans will have to pay a lot more to see her perform.
Keren Bailey said she and her brother, Gili, are planning to travel to Madrid together because Swift is not coming to Israel.
“I am not surprised she isn’t coming to Israel; she is very specific with her mentions of politics. Additionally, I don’t think we have any place big enough to hold her concert. Park Hayarkon wouldn’t quite cut it for the Eras tour, ” Bailey said. “We are trying not to get our hopes up too high, but I’ve definitely already started thinking about my Eras tour outfit!”
THIS WEEK also marks the re-release of Swift’s third studio album Speak Now, which originally came out in 2010. After some “Bad Blood” with her old record label Big Machine Records, she is about to be one album closer to owning all of her master rights.
Swift tried to reach an agreement with the record label to own the rights to her masters, but they were ultimately sold to Scooter Braun, giving him ownership of them.
In February 2021, Swift released her first re-recorded single of her song “Love Story”, which started her re-recording journey, in an attempt to devalue her original work to which she does not have the master rights, and to rally her fans around the re-recordings. Since then, fans have marched behind her in her effort to reclaim her work, as shown by their willingness to invest their time in listening to the new versions.
“I will probably listen to it on repeat. I’m excited to hear the vault tracks,” said Debbie, 29. The vault tracks are previously-unreleased tracks, a way of adding songs that were cut from her original albums and left unreleased, onto the new versions – so that fans will have something new to listen to.
The re-release of Speak Now comes in the middle of Swift’s American leg of her Eras tour, her first leg of performances in five years. This was in 2018, as her previously planned Lover Fest tour for 2020 was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Since then, Swift’s music has exploded in popularity and her fans have been yearning for the chance to see her perform live.
Swift’s tenth studio album, Midnights, broke the record for the most streamed album on Spotify in 24 hours, with 184.6 million streams on its release day, according to Spotify.
