During her promotion of Midnights in October 2022, Taylor publically started hinting at an upcoming tour. Shortly after, on November 1, she officially announced her sixth concert tour, describing it as “a journey through the musical eras of [her] career” on Good Morning America and through her social media accounts. At first, she announced a modest 27 shows across 20 US cities, beginning in March 2023 in Glendale, Arizona, and ending in August 2023 in Inglewood, California. The opening acts were Paramore, HAIM, Phoebe Bridgers, beabadoobee, girl in red, MUNA, GAYLE, Gracie Abrams, and OWENN, each two of whom shared a tour date. Messina Touring Group, an Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG) partner, served as the tour’s promoter.
On June 2, 2023, Taylor announced the first Latin American shows of “The Eras Tour,” with Sabrina Carpenter and Louta as opening acts. Shows in Asia, Australia, and Europe were announced on June 20. Up until February 2024, a large number of new shows were added to the tour: In the Asia-Pacific region, the total number of Singapore shows were increased to six, and two extra shows were announced in Australia. In Europe, eight shows were added initially, followed by seventeen more; Paramore was announced as the European opening act. Several politicians and government officials demanded the tour be brought to their country or city, Canada, Chile, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand and Hong Kong being among them. The former was successful, bringing “The Eras Tour” to Toronto and Vancouver for its nine final shows in November and December 2024, with Gracie Abrams returning as the opening act.
“The Eras Tour” was met with unprecedented, record-setting demand, tickets at every venue sold out in minutes. Sales were handled by various ticketing agencies around the world. Jay Marciano, CEO of AEG, confirmed that Taylor refused to impose dynamic pricing on the tickets in the purview of her fans.
Due to the record-breaking demand, sales faced technical malfunctions in many countries, especially the US; bulk purchases of tickets by scalpers and bots were reported at numerous venues, resulting in tickets being listed on resale platforms for exorbitant prices. StubHub noted that “The Eras Tour” ticket sales were “tracking to be the best-selling of any artist [they’ve] seen”. During the tour’s first US presale on November 15, 2022, Ticketmaster’s website crashed following “historically unprecedented demand with millions showing up”, halting the presale. Greg Maffei, chairman of Live Nation, stated that Ticketmaster prepared for 1.5 million verified fans but 14 million showed up: “We could have filled 900 stadiums.”
Various US lawmakers, including attorneys general and members of the US Congress, took notice of the issue, which became a subject of multiple congressional inquiries. Bloomberg journalist Augusta Saraiva termed the phenomenon “Swiftonomics”—a microeconomic theory that explains Taylor’s supply, demand, fanbase and political impact following the Covid-19 pandemic. I-D dubbed Taylor the last remaining “real” popstar for “[s]hifting more albums and filling more stadiums than her contemporaries” and “creat[ing] a hysteria unseen since the industry’s golden era.” Pitchfork asked, “Is there any other artist who could force urgency into the federal investigation of a music industry monopoly just by going on tour?” Taylor herself was not pleased with the presale, despite tickets to the tour selling out immediately. She released a statement on the matter on November 18, 2022:
Ahead of the second North American leg’s presale on August 11, 2023, Ticketmaster estimated that, once again, more than 14 million users were vying for roughly 625,000 tickets. Astonishingly, an estimated 31 million people registered for the Toronto Verified Fan presale, equal to over 77 percent of Canada’s population.