Taylor Swift’s American fans, recovering from ticket price shock in search of tickets to the Eras Tour, could pay much less to see her in Europe, even if airfare and hotel are included.
According to route calculated by CNN, a trip to Sweden from New York to see Swift will cost about $1,300. This includes $300 for a concert ticket, $700 for round-trip airfare and $300 per night at a four-star hotel.
Of course, an American tourist is unlikely to stay in Sweden for just one night and fly back to the US the next day. The cost of food, drinks and souvenirs will also be added to the bill.
But that compares with ticket prices for Swift’s upcoming concerts in Miami, New Orleans and Indianapolis ranging from $2,000 to $8,500, according to prices on StubHub cited by CNN.
Many Swifties in the US have already counted. In fact, Swift’s concerts this month in Paris, where the European leg of the Eras Tour began, drew five times more Americans than bookings for the Paris Olympics this summer.
The upended economics of traveling abroad to get a better concert deal is partly due to the strong U.S. dollar, which has fueled a wave of American tourism abroad.
That’s because the Federal Reserve’s aggressive rate hikes and “higher for the long term” policy have strengthened the dollar against major global currencies, which have fallen as other central banks are expected to cut rates soon. As a result, the dollar is rising overseas, making foreign vacations less expensive for Americans.
In addition, several European countries and the European Union have restrictions on markups from ticket resellers, CNN noted, with prices for the Swift Eras Tour in Portugal, Spain and Germany being around $300-$400.
Meanwhile, Swift’s high ticket prices in the US have caused such outrage that the “Taylor Swift Bill” was signed into law in Minnesota to protect online ticket buyers from hidden fees and dodgy resellers. The Justice Department is also reportedly preparing an antitrust lawsuit against Living Nation Entertainmentparent company Ticketmaster as overall industry practices come under greater scrutiny.
At the same time, the surprise release of Swift’s double album last month added to the hype around her tour, which has already earned Swift a $1.1 billion fortune, putting her on the Forbes list of billionaires for the first time