The concert success story of Taylor Swift is nothing short of sensational. From improving economies of countries to raving reviews across the world, it’s a story that must be shared.
This story is meant to inspire event planners worldwide to achieve similar success in concert planning.
The playlist, costumes, and Taylor Swift’s presence have left everyone spellbound. However, that’s not all this article will teach you.
Read till the end to know how a concert can be trending news for months.
A. Fans behind the concert success story of Taylor Swift
Before we discuss the technicalities and intricacies of this success story, it’s important to note the role of fans.
Taylor Swift calls her fandom “Swifties” and they have played a huge role here. They’ve constantly upheld her popularity since the 2000s.
There was conscious and continuous effort over the years to keep this fandom intact. From personal connection to positive PR, this fandom was in place well in advance.
However, meeting the expectations and then exceeding them was done at the concert.
How?
You’ll learn in the next section.
B. Online fan interaction
When you think of concerts from an attendee’s point of view, they’re mostly just crowds witnessing loud artists.
But that feels so much like a one-way interaction. So much like worshipping.
That’s not the case with Taylor Swift concerts.
The event planners here have gamified the experience.
You too can communicate with the artist without disrupting the show.
How?
The fan interaction begins months before the concert.
Social media handlers and event promoters played a huge role here.
Taylor Swift too took it upon herself to wish special followers or surprise fans with interactions.
Such PR activities hold huge viral potential.
So make sure you invest time in marketing the artist and not just the event tickets.
C. Interaction during the concert
When you enter a concert, you know you’ll be watching and hearing the artist.
But, the concert experience elevates significantly when the audience also feels seen and heard.
The concert success story of Taylor Swift would be incomplete without attendee engagement strategies.
This concert had synced LED wristbands and themed areas within the venue. These help attendees experience the concert and not just witness it.
D. Storytelling within the concert
If you’re into any type of marketing, you know that storytelling is a skill you must have.
Here, it wasn’t just the marketers telling stories but Taylor Swift did it too.
Taylor Swift, through her Eras Tour Concert, told the story of her evolution as a singer. She took up various albums and fans were quick to put two and two together.
E. Insane concert production
While Taylor Swift’s stage presence is quite impressive, the stage too had a presence of its own.
Taylor Swift’s stage designs are so complicated that you’ll get a headache if we get into details.
But if you know EventTube, you know we’ll be getting into it anyway.
The concert production wasn’t just flashy lights and expensive decor.
Rather, Taylor Swift’s storytelling was also woven into the production.
The immersive lighting and visuals aided the storytelling in her songs.
They used projection mapping to switch up the mood and appearance of the concert very quickly.
While Swift kept everyone’s auditory senses busy, the production and pyrotechnics were a visual and sensory delight.
F. Fake scarcity
There can be a scarcity of water. For natural resources, maybe even of engineers.
But, here we witnessed a scarcity of event tickets.
This scarcity was artificially and very cleverly created.
We’ll break it down in steps.
- Step 1: Partner with many relevant artists and companies to create the buzz
- Step 2: Capture behind-the-scenes to let everyone know something big is about to happen
- Step 3: Don’t launch all the concert tour dates at once. Do it one at a time so the attendees don’t get too many options at one point
- Step 4: Launch pre-sale of tickets so that attendees are afraid about the show getting sold out at this stage
As you can tell, this also follows the old-fashioned show-and-then-tell practices.
However, they’ve added a few more steps to create a sense of scarcity and urgency.
This was definitely a factor that helped justify the huge price tag the concert tickets came with.
G. User experience
In the concert success story of Taylor Swift, nobody seems to be talking about the website.
Taylor Swift integrated an event ticketing tool on her website.
From the user’s point of view, they could see clear and concise information.
They saw the dates, and the location, and then got directed to the ticketing page. While booking tickets, the price and details were mentioned clearly.
This makes the user’s journey of learning about the concert and purchasing tickets quick.
Releasing the tickets on your own website also comes with the advantage of the user’s focus and lack of choice.
If you list your event on an event listing platform, the users only see your event as one option out of the many.
H. Tourism contributed to the concert success story of Taylor Swift
Imagine a concert so successful that it drove tourism to so many cities.
Yes, that’s how interesting this concert success story of Taylor Swift is.
But, how was this achieved?
Usually, Taylor Swift’s concert tour would be launched all at once.
However, the dates of this concert were rolled out in a phased manner.
Since the fans were unaware of the scale and duration of the tour, they acted on the first opportunity.
They would rather fly to another country than miss the concert.
There was also a lot of uncertainty about whether the tour will come to every city or not.
The event planners managed to to keep this uncertainty alive by skipping a few states and countries too.
As a result, people flew from around the world to attend the concert wherever they could.
This became a domino effect where people felt others were doing so much to attend the concert, and they should too.
Combining an overseas or intercity trip with a concert experience truly enriches the whole experience.
This definitely worked to advantage for the concert success story of Taylor Swift.
I. Strategic sponsorships
Concerts are not the most financially responsible music discovery platform.
But, what could be?
It starts with S.
Yes, Taylor Swift’s team collaborated with Spotify. Her music was categorized into the different eras of her tours on the music streaming app.
Additionally, Spotify also created personalized posters for listeners as they do for Spotify Wrapped. However, here listeners could share their favorite Swift era/playlist on social media.
This wasn’t the only masterstroke sponsorship idea the team had.
They even partnered with a credit card company called Capital One. Through this sponsorship, the card users could get exclusive access to presales.
Needless to say, these strategic sponsorships contributed a lot to the concert success story of Taylor Swift.
J. Sponsorship domino effect
By having few expensive and noticeable sponsorships and collaborations, this started a marketing domino effect.
Influencers saw the scope of their content going viral by attending this “exclusive” concert.
A lot of them snagged the tickets at whatever cost it came at and made content about them.
Their content did go viral.
And, as a result, the concert too became more popular with each post.
So, your takeaway from this section of the concert success story of Taylor Swift is to make calculated investments.
The investment here saved the event planners from multiple collaboration costs with influencers.
K. Don’t neglect technology
Event technology has come a long way since you last checked.
The concert curators used many AR and data analytics technologies.
For example, the ticket pricing strategies were using these latest tools.
Connect with us on LinkedIn so you can see the latest event technology.
L. Bang for your buck
We can’t conclude this article without giving the artist the due credit.
This concert didn’t become a success from marketing and strategy alone.
If you create similar hype but fail to deliver then you won’t be receiving similar results.
Keeping this in mind, we must say Taylor Swift really pulled off each concert in the tour.
She performed for three hours straight and that’s really commendable for any artist.
So, remember to always deliver or even overdeliver on your event promises.
This helps instill confidence and gets you repeat attendees/clients.
M. FAQ
1. How many shows is Taylor Swift doing for The Eras Tour?
Taylor Swift did 152 shows across 54 cities worldwide in The Eras Tour. In each show, she performed for three hours straight.
These numbers definitely contributed to the concert success story of Taylor Swift.
2. Who is the creative director of The Eras Tour?
Ethan Tobman is the creative director of The Eras Tour. He pulled off the stage production with a lot of event technology integrations.
3. How much are Taylor Swift-era tickets?
Initially, the ticket prices were listed as USD 49-499. However, they quickly sold out and entered the resale market.
Due to the demand and hype, the tickets were resold at USD 11,000 too. Since Taylor Swift didn’t announce all the tour dates and locations, people quickly caught this opportunity despite the heavy price tag.
N. Summarizing the Concert Success Story of Taylor Swift
This concert will serve as a blueprint for event and concert planners across the world.
If not an inspiration, then it’ll serve as an aspiration for many.
The correct investments in technology, production, and emotional marketing are nothing new but simply well-executed.
With consistency and the right tools, you too could have such triumph in the event industry.
Your first step here should be to focus on community engagement. Let the attendees help you with marketing, that’s definitely a doable takeaway for you from this concert success story of Taylor Swift.
If you found this article insightful, head to our public event planning guide so you can get started.
