Finally, it’s almost here. On Thursday, Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour — the two-year, 51-stop, 149-show, five-continent, multibillion-dollar behemoth — arrives in Toronto. Swift will play six sold-out shows at the Rogers Centre spanning two weekends in the second-last stop of her career-defining tour.
Eras, the highest-grossing tour of all time, has spawned the highest-grossing concert film ever and made Swift the most famous entertainer on the planet.
The megastar’s impact on Toronto will be no less impressive. The city is anticipating up to 500,000 visitors and more than $282 million in economic impact during her 10 days here.
The entertainment district will grind to a standstill. Roads will close. Hotels will be full, with guests paying up to $2,000 for a standard room. The subway will be packed with an anticipated 20,000 extra riders each night. The GO Train could be even busier. Tickets on resale markets will sell for $3,000 on the cheap end. People will come from all over the world, just to breathe the same air as their idol.
The city has already said it will activate its emergency operations centre in preparation for Swift’s arrival.
It will be a cultural moment with little comparison in this city’s history.
This moment has been a long time coming.
Swift has been a superstar for nearly two decades. In 2006, she released her debut album as a country artist, and has been at the forefront of pop culture ever since. “Love Story” and “You Belong With Me” were early hits. “I Knew You Were Trouble” and “Shake It Off” — which has more than 1.5 billion Spotify streams — followed. Last year, “Anti-Hero” became Swift’s longest running number one single, topping the Billboard 100 for eight non-consecutive weeks.
The Eras Tour represents even greater ambition. When Swift’s “Lover” tour was cancelled after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic — and she released three new albums in the years that followed — Swift decided to wrap all her music, new and old, into one mammoth show. It was to be a “journey through all of my musical eras of my career,” she told Good Morning America at the time.
And so the Eras Tour, running three-and-a-half hours and featuring a set list of more than 40 songs, began. It opened in Arizona in March 2023 and criss-crossed the U.S., then dipped into South America. In 2024, Swift visited Asia, Australia and Europe. Last month, she returned to North America for her final leg: Miami, New Orleans, Indianapolis and, now, Toronto. The tour will conclude in Vancouver in December.
At many stops, Swift broke records. She has performed to the largest audiences of her career and set attendance benchmarks at venues around the world. At one of her stops in Texas, fans used more AT&T cell data than any other event at any venue that year. Meanwhile, the concert film, released last October, has grossed more than $260 million (U.S.).
The tour itself is the first-ever to gross more than $1 billion (U.S.). It passed that benchmark in December 2023. Swift has performed more than 70 shows since.
Some of that money is now en route to Toronto. Destination Toronto, a marketing organization for the city’s tourism industry, estimates the Eras Tour will add almost $300 million to the local economy. That includes $152 million in direct spending: Uber rides, hotels, restaurants. There will be Swift-themed cocktails at bars, friendship bracelet-making events and a Taylgate event at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre that’s projected to attract 20,000 people.
Hotel rooms are either booked up or expensive enough to make any bank account shudder. When Swift went to Philadelphia, the city had its strongest hotel revenue since the start of the pandemic. When she went to Chicago, the city broke its all-time hotel revenue record. Experts anticipate a similarly massive injection of money in Toronto.
That’s even after fans spend thousands on tickets, most of which were sold last August but have since hit resale platforms at huge markups. Some seats in the 500 level at the Rogers Centre — the nosebleeds from which Swift will be little more than a speck — are selling for $4,000 each. Some fans have resorted to entering hundreds of ticket giveaways instead, spending hours each day hunting for a real-life golden ticket.
Swift’s arrival is so anticipated that the city has renamed the path from Nathan Phillips Square to the Rogers Centre as Taylor Swift Way.
With the potential for 500,000 visitors comes the potential for chaos, too.
The Rogers Centre will establish a security perimeter around the venue, into which only ticket holders will be allowed. Those without tickets are being told not to travel to the stadium at all, but some still plan to. On concert days, condos directly adjacent to the Rogers Centre will be accessible only through a police checkpoint.
Bremner Boulevard will close in the hours leading up to the concerts. So, too, will portions of Front, John and Windsor streets in the hours after. Exits off the Gardiner Expressway will close at 11 p.m. to stop cars from entering the area. More closures may follow, the city warns. And on concert days, across a large chunk of downtown — south of King Street between Jarvis and Bathurst streets — the city is banning any construction or filming that requires road occupation.
Toronto is activating its emergency operations centre and the TTC expects 20,000 extra riders on concert days. Metrolinx is adding service to its GO network. Bike Share is adding more bikes and stations near the Rogers Centre.
By themselves, these measures are not unprecedented. More than 75,000 showed up to see The Who at Exhibition Stadium in 1980. Toronto hosted SARSStock and the Rolling Stones — with nearly 500,000 fans — in 2003 at Downsview Park. Millions crowded downtown streets for the Raptors’ 2019 championship parade.
In some ways, Taylor Swift’s Toronto run will be similar. In more ways, it will be different. Big concerts have happened, but few with as much momentum or anticipation as the Eras Tour. Huge stars have come here, but few as vaunted or famous as Swift. The city has mobilized for events before, but none have had preparations as expansive or extensive as this.
Toronto fought hard to get these shows. The Eras Tour feels like a stamp of international acceptance, a signal that a city is big enough and important enough to host the world’s biggest star.
Toronto got that nod. The world is coming. Let’s see if we’re ready for it.
