The End Of An Era: Taylor Swift Concludes Record-Breaking Tour In Vancouver

Photo Credit: Jennifer Gauthier/Reuters

There’s glitter on the floor after the party, or more specifically, after Taylor Swift ended her multi-million dollar The Eras Tour in Vancouver in early December. The final shows marked the end of the pop culture spectacle which spanned 149 shows over five continents, and became the first tour to gross over a billion dollars.

For Swifties, this had been a long time coming, as Swift announced the Vancouver shows last November and it's estimated that over 30 million people registered for Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan presale for tickets to the Canadian leg of the tour, according to BC Business. According to a petition calling for concert ticket resales regulation in Canada, “thousands of tickets were immediately bought by resellers and offered up for profit on sites like StubHub, with prices exceeding face value by more than 1000 per cent.” 

For the “Lucky Ones” who managed to score tickets, the next year was filled with excitement, outfit planning and friendship bracelet making, and to those who couldn’t get tickets, you’re not on your own kid, because many Hamberites didn’t survive “the great war.” 

For Brittany Lau (11) seeing Swift live would have been a life-changing experience, but she wasn’t able to get tickets. After trying to get tickets at the last minute, Lau decided to “Taylorgate” and stand outside the stadium in order to hear the concert. “Although it couldn’t compare to being inside, it was worth it because I had a really great time with my friends,” she shared. Lau added that “during the concert, I saw some people leaving halfway through which made me kind of upset, and made me wonder how I lost tickets to people like them.”

Although many Swifties didn’t get a chance to attend any of the three nights of the show, Vancouver made sure that they didn’t miss out, with businesses holding themed events all over the city leading up to the concerts, like trivia nights, drag brunch, and crafting events. While Swift’s musical ability could be likened to magic, she still found a way to infiltrate Vancouver’s science scene, with events being held at both Science World and the HR Macmillian Space Center.

To take advantage of the Swift-mania, many Vancouver landmarks and tourist attractions were rebranded to entice those both travellers and locals looking for pre-concert fun, including The Eras Food Tour (Granville Island’s Version), Canyon Lights (Taylor’s Version) at Capilano suspension bridge and the Taylor Swift Karaoke Trolley Tour, put on by the operators of the famous Stanley Park trams. Restaurants all over the city also offered discounts for ticket-holders, and themed specials, like Glowbal’s Eras brunch. 

Even without these events, Vancouver’s hospitality industry got an economic boost, with the average fan spending $1,840 on tickets, transit, merch and food according to a study from GlobalNewswire. Ian Tostenson, the president of the BC Restaurant and Food Association, told City News that Swift’s tour would generate $40 million per day for Vancouver’s hospitality industry. “This [is] more than 10 times the impact of a Canucks playoff game. People don’t care. We’re going to go…and we’re going to spend it,” he said.

Swift kicked off the first night, Dec. 6, by telling the crowd why she chose to hold the finale in Vancouver. “We spent the entire year of 2024 travelling the world… and we thought to ourselves: Where have the crowds been so generous, so welcoming, so warm-hearted — where they know every single word, they not only sing them, but they scream them? Oh, we’ve got to go back to Canada. And so now here we are in beautiful Vancouver.”

For Ms. S. Lemmon (LLC), who was in the audience that night, the concert was “absolutely magical. I just got swept up in the sea of Swifties and all their amazing energy.”

Although she attended the Eras Tour once before in Paris, she managed to get last minute tickets through a friend and found that “Vancouver just seemed to have a higher percentage of true Swifties. There were more people with costumes and glitter, singing and dancing their hearts out.”

Ms. Lemmon’s favourite moment from that night was “singing, screaming, yelling and cheering” through the performance of “All Too Well 10 minute version”.

On the second night Swift brought out opener Gracie Abrams and played a mashup of Abrams’ “I Love You, I’m Sorry” and Swift’s “Last Kiss” on guitar. This was the fourth time Abrams joined Swift on the stage in the acoustic section of the Eras Tour. 

Many fans speculated that the finale, Dec. 8, would include a surprise from Swift. On all three nights of the show, fans were quick to notice the cameras filming Swift on the stage, as well as drone cameras, leading to speculation about a second concert movie or documentary. However, Swift did not announce a film on the final night. According to Daily Hive Canada, “hopes included a new album or another major announcement to close out the end of the tour, which didn’t come.”

During the acoustic set of the final show, Swift played  "A Place In This World" from her debut album mashed up with "New Romantics" from 1989 on guitar. On piano, Swift played “Long Live” from Speak Now, “New Year's Day” from Reputation and “The Manuscript” from The Tortured Poets Department, singing “it was the end of an era, but the start of an age”.

Like many other Swifties around the world, Violet Juby (10), who was in the upper bowl on Dec. 8, thought Swift was going to announce the re-release of her studio album Reputation for the final show of the tour. Juby speculates that Swift most likely did not because she “ended up just wanting a regular show that celebrated the end of the tour.” Juby had started making friendship bracelets since she had known that she would be attending the concert in the spring. “Overall, I think [Swift] put so much effort and energy into making this show so amazing, and it was,” Juby remarked. “It was so cool to experience and so much fun to be there and feel the community she has created with her music.”