Former college roommates Lizzy Hale, 34, who lives in Los Angeles, and Mitch Goulding, 33, who lives in Austin, Texas, already had tickets to see the Eras Tour in Los Angeles last summer when they decided to try to get ones for Paris, London or Edinburgh, Scotland, too. They saw a Europe concert trip as a make-up for travel plans they had in May 2020 to celebrate Goulding’s birthday but had to cancel due to the pandemic.
Goulding managed to secure VIP tickets for one of Swift’s three Stockholm shows. He, Hale and two other friends scheduled a 10-day trip that also includes time in Amsterdam and Copenhagen.
“As people who enjoy travelling and enjoy music, if you can find an opportunity to combine the two, it’s really special,” said Hale, who is pregnant with her first child.
FOR STOCKHOLM, 120,000 SWIFTIES CAN’T BE WRONG
The local economic impact of what the zeitgeist has termed “Swiftonomics” and the “Swift lift” can be considerable. Airbnb reported that searches on its platform for the UK cities where Swift is performing in June and August, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Cardiff and London, increased an average of 337 per cent when tickets went on sale last summer.
Not to be outdone when it comes to trend-spotting, the property rentals company cited the demand as an example of “passion tourism,” or travel “driven by concerts, sports and other cultural events”.
In Stockholm, 120,000 out-of-towners from 130 countries, among them 10,000 from the US, are expected to swarm Sweden’s capital this month, Stockholm Chamber of Commerce Chief Economist Carl Bergqvist said. Stockholm is the only Scandinavian city on Swift’s tour, and airlines added extra flights from nearby Denmark, Finland and Norway to bring people to the May shows, he said.
The city’s 40,000 hotel rooms are sold out even though prices skyrocketed for the tour dates, Bergqvist said. Concert visitors are expected to pump around 500 million Swedish kroner, or over US$46 million, into the local economy over the course of their stays, an estimate that does not include what they paid for Swift tickets or to get to Sweden, he said.
“So this is going to be huge for the tourism sector in Sweden and Stockholm in particular,” Bergqvist said.
Nightclubs, restaurants and bars are seizing the opportunity to cater to fans with Taylor Swift-themed events, such as karaoke, quizzes and after-concert dance parties.
Houston resident Caroline Matlock, 29, saw Swift more than a year ago when the Eras Tour came to the Texas city. Now she’s making more friendship bracelets and trying to learn a few words of Swedish as she prepares to see the three-and-a-half-hour show in Stockholm. The idea of seeing Swift in Europe was her friend’s, and Matlock needed some persuading at first.
“I was like, ‘I only want to go if it’s a country I haven’t been to. I’ve seen Taylor Swift,’” she said.
Visiting the Swedish cities of Oslo and Gothenburg are on their itinerary. The concert is the last night of the trip and Matlock looks forward to interacting with Swifties from other countries: “Americans tend to have a very obsessive culture, especially Taylor Swift-related, so I’m curious if the crowd will be more toned-down.”
