Imagine you set your alarm for 9.30 in the morning, make coffee, and sit down on the couch just to get tickets to one of Taylor Swift's Chicago shows for her era's tour. That's how Medill Jr. Brielasic started her day on November 15th, waiting in a queue of hundreds of thousands of other Swifties with presale codes. Of course no one in how stressful it's going to be.
From the Daily Northwestern, I'm Isabelle Uterra. This is Pod Culture, a podcast about arts and culture on campus and beyond. Unless you've been living under a soundproof, swiftie-resistant rock, you probably heard that Taylor Swift is back, with her sixth tour known as the era's tour, with huge demand and for the singer who hasn't toured since 2018. It seems like almost no one was able to get tickets for her 52 shows across the United States, including myself.
Today, we talk to the lucky ones who did. Lassick was one of them. Obviously it's not my fault that I have them, but at the same time, I just know how many people have wanted to go and say, well, you just don't want to rub it in people's face. I did survive the war, like I did get them.
And the war she's talking about? Lassick and other fans expected to spend a while in the Ticketmaster queue, but they didn't expect a weight of over six hours. What if we're driving to class or walking to class and whatever the internet cuts out or whatever it is really. We're staying on the couch.
We did it for six hours. My boyfriend brought us lunch and coffee at two different points. It was a whole deal. Madill Sophomore, Brooklyn Moore, similarly spent eight hours staring at her laptop, watching Ticketmaster's blue bubble move across the screen as she slowly progressed through the queue.
She did all of this while sick with a fever. I don't deny that it's crazy. I understand that and I understand that most people wouldn't be going to do it, but it's my own crazy. I'm okay with that.
Like other Swifties, when Moore logged into Ticketmaster, she received a notification that the queue was paused due to extraordinarily high demand. Ticketmaster later pushed back the ticket sale for West Coast cities and canceled general ticket sales because of insufficient inventory. Ticketmaster left people like Moore frustrated, especially with many resalerers buying tickets and listing them at prices upwards of $30,000. Some Swifties even filed a lawsuit with the LA County Superior Court alleging that Ticketmaster has a monopoly on primary and secondary markets that violates antitrust laws.
Moore was lucky though. Here are tickets for herself and her sister for the April 23rd Houston show. What made it worth waiting eight hours to get tickets for Taylor Swift? Moore had tickets to love her fast.
Swift's concert scheduled right before the pandemic. Since then, Swift released three new albums. Her most recent album, Midnight's, broke Spotify's record from most streamed album in a single day. As a musician, Taylor Swift is known for her deeply loyal fan base that connects online over hidden meanings in her discography.
Weinberg's sophomore Kate Payne wrote about the connection that Taylor has with her fans for a final project. We're my religion class. That was on cults and new religions, so I kind of talked about the religion of Taylor Swift. While Payne doesn't worship Taylor Swift, she admires her songwriting ability and dedication to her fans.
She just listens to her fans and doesn't write songs about her exes or things like that. She wants to connect with people and has all these Easter eggs and special hidden things in our albums. Payne not only appreciates Swift's songwriting, but also how she uses her platform for good. She's really empowering for young women and is not afraid to speak her mind.
In the past, though, Swift was criticized for her political inaction, only recently coming out politically during the 2018 election cycle. Now she encourages her fans to vote and she speaks out often about the struggles of being a woman in the entertainment industry. If there's one thing we can be sure of is that Taylor Swift resonates on Northwestern's campus. Group Me of Taylor Swift fans, called the NU Taylor Swift Society, has over 200 members.
When new albums are released, Northwestern spaces on social media are flooded with Swifties discussing the new music or planning listening parties. Last year when Brad Taylor's version came out, my roommate and I we just like lied on the floor and we're like, hey, I went to the bathroom one point and I heard the other girl doing it on my floor too and I was like, this is so real, this is so universal. That was Weinberg's sophomore, Sam Cliss. She remembers dancing to Taylor Swift's music all the way back to her Fearless album.
I think part of it is just like having grown up with her. I feel like even if you're not a huge fan, there's some nostalgia to all of it because it's just something that everyone's grown up with. For members of Gen Z, Taylor Swift has been producing music for literally our entire lives. According to Market Research website, Audience, about 40% of Taylor Swift listeners are between ages 18 to 24.
Taylor Swift's debut album came out in 2006 when most current college students were not yet in kindergarten. Or, as Moore puts it, Taylor Swift begins the era's tour in March 17th in Glendale, Arizona. She'll perform three shows in Chicago as Soldier Field from June 2nd to 4th. Big at Master and Taylor Nation have yet to announce any additional ticket sales after general admission sale was canceled.
Long story short, this is me trying not to be jealous of everyone who gets to see Taylor Swift live. From the Daily Northwestern, I'm Isabelle Betera. Thanks for listening to another episode of Pod Culture. The audio editor of the Daily Northwestern is Erika Schmidt.
The digital managing editors are Joanne Hayner and Olatunji Osha Williams, and the editor in chief is Alex Perry. Make sure to subscribe to the Daily Northwestern's podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or SoundCloud to hear more episodes like this.