Fans of mega-star Taylor Swift, so-called 'Swifties', walk along Olympic Way outside Wembley Stadium in London on Aug. 15, ahead of the first of five concerts Swift played at the stadium.HENRY NICHOLLS/Getty Images
Lauren Brown grew up in Collingwood, Ont., listening to Taylor Swift but never had the chance to see her in concert. When the Eras Tour was announced, the 25-year-old family therapist hoped that opportunity had finally arrived, but she failed to score tickets for any of the superstar’s North American dates. Resale tickets for the Toronto shows cost a minimum of $2,000, and $7,000 or more for good seats. Desperate, Brown signed up online for an early access code for shows in Britain. This time she got lucky and bought tickets for Swift’s June concert in Liverpool.
Tickets in hand, Brown and her partner, Julian Lankstead, 26, built a 15-day European vacation around the concert. The couple visited family in England and flew to Portugal. “The Liverpool tickets were more affordable, even with travel, than resale in Canada,” Brown says. “Plus, we were able to take a trip and visit a country we had never been to before.”
Brown’s Swiftian vacation is an example of “event tourism” – any trip prompted by attendance to a concert, sporting event or festival. The Eras Tour, which hits Toronto and Vancouver in November and December, has triggered so much travel it’s been dubbed the “Taylor tourism effect.” A June, 2023, study by QuestionPro found the tour likely generated US$5-billion for the American economy, with Eras concertgoers spending around US$1,300 each on travel, tickets and merchandise.
“Event tourism has always been popular, but it has exploded in recent years,” says Wendy Paradis, president of the Association of Canadian Travel Agencies. “Out of the pandemic we saw a desire to come together, to choose experience over things, and to be mindful of how we spend our money.”
The term “event tourism” was coined in 1987, but it’s been around for as long as people have travelled, says travel scholar Donald Getz, a professor emeritus at the University of Calgary. The first documented event tourists were those who attended the original Olympic Games on Mount Olympus, both as participants and audience.
“Events,” he says, “especially sport, offer an authentic experience not available in mass tourism, because the outcomes are unpredictable.”
The Second World War produced an unintended wave of what could be considered event tourism. Allied soldiers on leave became sightseers. In 1944, the Canada Club published a 24-page booklet entitled See Rome in a Day intended for servicemen. It promised a “rapid but complete” view of the city. After their tour, the travellers were advised to send the booklet home to “your best girl, or your friends who on the other side of the water are thinking of you and awaiting your victorious return.” Overseas experiences such as this led to the blossoming of international tourism from the 1950s onward.
Events provide an ideal reason to travel. Paradis cites the Era Tour as a perfect example. “Travellers had always planned on going to Europe. The Taylor Swift concert became the catalyst for the trip. I’ve had travel advisers tell me they have built entire two-week family itineraries around a single concert.”
I’ve been “event touring” for years. I just referred to it as “going somewhere to see something.” My catalysts are sports and theatre. I routinely attend the U.S. Open Tennis Championships and once flew to New York to see Gatz, a Tony Award-winning six-and-half-hour production of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. This November, I’ll head back to see Cole Escola’s hit Oh Mary! and Our Town starring Jim Parsons.
Most recently, I fulfilled a lifelong event travel dream by going to Wimbledon in England. In November, 2023, my friend had a winning draw in the tournament’s public ballot, which randomly allocates seats for Centre Court and Court 1, 2 and 3 matches. Each September, hopefuls enter the lottery for the chance to purchase two tickets at face value. (The odds are 1 in 10.) The practice started in 1924 to ensure fair ticket distribution. Once my friend secured a pair of seats for the July 9 quarter-finals – £165 ($297) each – we started planning.
Taylor Swift's tour, which included stops in Germany (above), became a catalyst for many people's planned trips.Martin Meissner/The Associated Press
Today’s event tourism surge is a postlockdown trend powered by technology. Secure online ticketing, while it may at times gouge buyers, provides instant access to international events along with safe purchasing. Until 2019, the Wimbledon public ballot was mail-in; since it went online it has seen a record number of entries.
Some people like to hire travel agents to create pricey event packages – or simply buy ones already designed. British company ACC Aviation, for example, offered fans round-trip private jet charter, premium concert tickets for Swift’s Miami October dates and a choice of luxury accommodations. Starting price: US$50,000.
I prefer to do things myself. For Wimbledon, I purchased my uncomfortable and inconvenient flight to Gatwick with reward points and, since London hotel prices were high, opted for an Airbnb in Marylebone, which was so damp and clammy that I thought the dehumidifier would expire from overexertion.
The weather in England was familiarly abysmal. When friends and family living in London told me, “This is the worst summer ever,” I was not surprised. This is what they say when the weather is poor. It’s what I said when I lived in London. If the weather had been wonderful, they would have said, “You should have been here three days ago, it was even better.” This reminder of Brits’ conflicted relationship with the weather was endearing. It made me realize that Wimbledon, aside from a terrific experience, had given me an excuse to reconnect with people I’d been meaning to visit for years.
Of course, event tourism can also have unintended negative consequences. “This growth is not without problems and limits, as we have seen an increase in many destinations in anti-tourism and anti-event sentiment,” Getz says. “Overtourism usually refers to mass tourism, but large events aimed at generating tourism are potentially destructive as well, giving rise to housing shortages, inflation, crowding and loss of cultural authenticity.”
Brown looks forward to travelling again to see Swift. The Liverpool concert was “everything I had imagined plus more,” she says. “So many like-minded people with the same intense joy. The weather itself was crummy – cold, wet and rainy – but people’s spirits were too high for that to matter. Both my partner and I left the show considering buying tickets for the next night.”