I went to the opening weekend of the Taylor Swift Era’s Tour in Glendale Arizona. It was everything I hoped for (except the 2nd night snub of Tim McGraw from the setlist). I’ve been a die-hard fan of Taylor for years and years and years at this point. I’ve been to multiple shows on every headlining tour she’s ever embarked on. Additionally, I’ve also purchased at least one Taylor Swift merch item at every one of those tours. And I can honestly say, never seen anything like the merch debacle currently going on. I arrived at the venue 3 hours before Taylor was scheduled to take the stage at 8 pm. Long story short I waited over an hour inside the venue and the vast majority of things were sold out by the time I got there.
I had someone tell us that they had sold through three 18-wheelers worth of merchandise the first night. You read that, correctly, now just picture how much merchandise that truly is. And yes The Era’s Tour is the biggest tour of the year. It sold out instantly and the saga of getting tickets has been well-documented and is even being reviewed in court. I flew 4.5 hours across the country so I wanted something to have as a souvenir from this trip. So I purchased a t-shirt. I wasn’t able to get the long sleeve or crewneck sweatshirt I was hoping for. And the shirt was in a size a color that wasn’t my first choice either. I still wore that shirt proudly in the airport and to work when I returned.
I’ll get plenty of use out of it, but I also immediately took to her website to order two other items I wanted- a limited edition Glendale Arizona show poster and a crewneck (but not THE crewneck) sweatshirt. So your next question is probably why are people waiting in line for so long when they could just order this stuff online. Well, that’s the problem. Some of the most highly desired merch items are only available at the shows. Venues and Taylor’s team have been trying to combat these lines but so far it’s only getting worse.
This weekend Taylor will play 3 shows in Arlington Texas at AT&T Stadium beginning tonight, Friday March 31st. So they announced that the Taylor Swift Era’s Tour merch would be available for purchase yesterday March 30th before the show. And absolute chaos ensued.
