After Tayor Swift’s massive “Eras” tour is packing stadiums to the point her shows are causing earthquakes (even though bad seats are often going for $1,000 or more), Swift isn’t just resuscitating the post-Covid live music industry, she’s threatening to help rescue America’s flagging theater business.
It was recently announced that she struck a deal with AMC theaters to show a three-hour concert film from her smash tour for the millions of people who couldn’t get tickets. It starts showing in October, AMC is charging higher ticket prices than normal — which are already absurd — and the presale figures for the movie tickets are already breaking records. Based on some back-of-the-envelope math gleaned from some speculative news reports, Swift might make something close to half a billion dollars off this tour and all the related revenue.
And it’s not just that Swift has conquered the unwashed masses, America’s elite tastemakers have also become unrepentant Swifties. This summer, The New York Times covered Swift with an enthusiastic zeal not reserved for any other figure since maybe Obama — even going so far as to publish a distasteful meditation on internet randos’ lesbian fantasies about her.
Most recently, The New Yorker issued its high-toned blessing by publishing a remarkable essay, “Listening to Taylor Swift in Prison: Her music makes me feel that I’m still part of the world I left behind.” There was a time when we imagined that everyone in the prison yard would stand around overwhelmed by
