B.C. fans to Taylor Swift: Why you gotta be so mean? | CBC News (2024)

CBC News

· Posted: Aug 04, 2023 8:38 PM EDT | Last Updated: August 5, 2023

Taylor Swift fans across the country rejoiced on Thursday when their wildest dreams came true with the announcement of six Canadian concert dates for the record-breaking Eras tour.

But on the west coast, Swifties were left with a blank space on their calendars as all six nights, scheduled for November 2024, will be in Toronto.

"Someone told me the other day that she was going to announce Canadian tour dates and I just didn't believe them," said fan Laryssa Vachon, 29.

Although she plans to attend a show in Los Angeles next week, she says she would purchase tickets if Swift came to Vancouver.

While fans are disappointed with the news, Vachon says several of her friends are desperately hoping to get tickets for a Toronto show. Ticketmaster has already said it expects there to be a high demand for tickets, which go on sale Aug. 8.

The Eras tour has made waves worldwide,with fans attending the Seattle concert last month believed to have caused a 2.0 magnitude earthquake. The tour has nearly 150 stops on five continents, and fans are spending thousands on tickets, flights and accommodations to see her wherever they can.

WATCH | Vancouverites ask Taylor Swift "Why you gotta be so mean?"

'It's always just Toronto'

In recent weeks, government officials and fans on social media have tried to grab the singer's attention in hopes of adding a west coast stop.

In July, B.C. arts and cultureminister Lana Popham tweeted at the pop star, suggesting she add a date for B.C. Place.

That was after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted asking her to come to Canada, in general.

But for Vachon, the Vancouver snub comes as no surprise.

"I feel like with big [music] artists, they kind of do this thing all the time where they say they're going to Canada and it's always just Toronto," she said, describing Toronto as "the downtown of Canada," with fans in other cities being overlooked for concert dates.

All about the money

But University of Toronto business professor Daniel Tsai says the announcement all "comes down to money."

"The big issue here is you need scale. You need to have enough people in the seats to justify a trip," he said.

"This is across the border as well, so she's got a huge entourage. She's got a lot of logistics and freight. They have to assemble equipment to do a custom show everywhere they go."

While Toronto's Roger Centre holds 49,000 seats, B.C. Place boasts 54,000. And if that space doesn't work, Vancouver's Rogers Arena holds about 19,000 seats.

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Swift's Eras tour is estimated to gross over a billion dollars and support local economies in touring cities, as people spend bignot just on concert tickets, but on hotel rooms, meals, shopping and other travel-related expenses.

The online research group QuestionPro crunched the numbers and found the Eras Tour will generate billions of dollars in economic activity in the United States.It said the average concertgoer was spending about $1,300 per show.

Vachon expects to spend more than $1,500 on her trip to L.A. for the concert.

"If the current spending pace continues through the end of the tour, the Eras Tour will have generated an estimated $5 billion [USD] in economic impact, more than the gross domestic product of 50 countries," QuestionPro wrote in a news release.

Even though she's got tickets to one tour date, Vachonremainshopeful Swift will add more Canadian shows soon.

"Her big thing is that she cares about her fans a lot … and so to be able to accommodate more fans, she should go to more cities."

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