Taylor Swift Eras Tour last show: ‘The Eras Tour is over and I hope we never see anything like it again’ | OPINION

OPINION: Taylor Swift‘s Eras Tour has finally come to an end and I hope we never see anything like it again.

Don’t get me wrong, what Swift has achieved over the last 21 months is nothing short of incredible and she deserves all the praise in the world.

I even attended the Eras Tour in Sydney and loved every second of it.

Watch the video above.

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At the same time, I think it would be unfair to expect other artists to follow in Swift’s footsteps and start performing 3.5 hour setlists and charging top dollar for it.

Swift’s Eras Tour came at a pivotal time for the live music industry, kicking off in March 2023 after years of lockdowns and losses during the COVID-19 pandemic.

It was intended as a catch-up tour of sorts, a way for Swift to reconnect with fans who hadn’t seen her on a stage for more than four years since the Reputation Stadium Tour wrapped in 2018.

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In the time between, she released four original studio albums and two ‘Taylor’s Version’ re-records, so she had a lot of material to cover as she returned to the stage and reconnected with her fans.

Fans were willing to pay premium prices to see her perform after such a long absence, but in a cost-of-living crisis, it’s unlikely most Aussies would be able to afford to see their favourite artists if every one was charging Eras Tour prices.

Swifties were also OK with dropping hundreds or even thousands of dollars on the Eras Tour because they were guaranteed 3.5 hours of music from every single one of Swift’s albums to date.

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Most artists typically tour one album at a time and slip a few old favourites into setlists that usually run for about 90 minutes and Swift went above and beyond just to get herself to the point where she could physically perform for that long every other night.

She sang on a treadmill every day in the leadup to the very first show, trained with weights and took dance classes and conditioned herself for months before she ever set foot on stage.

In fact, Swift was so strict about her physical and vocal training during the tour that she refused to “talk before or after her shows because she has to save her voice”, according to boyfriend Travis Kelce.

While I have no doubt there are plenty of artists out there who are just as dedicated to their music as Swift, it would be unfair for fans to expect every one of their favourite artists to start planning 3.5-hour shows covering every era of their musical career.

Not only would it put massive physical and emotional strain on music artists, it would put additional financial stress on them too because these kinds of tours cost so much money and it’s often on the artist to sell enough tickets to cover those costs.

Swift is one of the biggest artists on the planet and can afford to take a calculated risk like that; smaller artists, not so much.

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Would it be fun to see some of my favourite artists return to Australia for ‘Eras Tours’ of their own after long tour hiatuses during the COVID-19 pandemic? Of course.

But should we expect it? Probably not.

And honestly, that’s a good thing, because it makes Swift’s Eras Tour a true once-in-a-lifetime moment that will be remembered for decades to come as a pivotal moment in not just her career, but the music industry at large.

So no, I don’t want to see ‘Eras Tours’ become a new concert trend. I don’t even want Swift herself to feel like she ever has to do a tour like this again.

Instead, I want the Eras Tour to go down in history as the kind of rare experience that can never be recreated and will live on forever in the hearts and minds of everyone who watched Swift perform from a front-row seat, the nosebleeds, or even on a livestream at home.

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