A money-making machine named Taylor Swift

The only time the American Taylor Swift performed in Spain was on March 19, 2011 at the Palacio de Deportes de la Comunidad de Madrid, the current WiZink Center, on the occasion of her Speak Now World Tour. Despite the fact that he has already won several Grammys – including Album of the Year for intrepid, his second book published in 2008 – barely 4,000 people attended the event, a figure well below the just over 15,500 that the venue can accommodate. The same thing happened in most of the other concerts scheduled in Europe.

At that time, in hindsight, she was considered an innocuous country singer-songwriter, a commodity for teenagers yearning to find their Prince Charming. Underestimating her was the usual tonic. The proof was verified at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards: The Night Kanye West burst onto the stage declaiming that the award for Best Female Video went to Beyoncé for Single ladies (Put a ring on it)and not her for You belong With MeSome defended the words, not the forms, of the rapper. Much, too much, has rained since then.

Like Shania Twain did in the mid-’90s, Swift decided to step away from her country roots to embrace mainstream pop. He did it timidly in 2012, with the help of the all-powerful Swedish producer Max Martin – the creator of shots as …Baby againby Britney Spears, or I kissed a girlby Katy Perry–, on the album Gate. The reception reserved for this reinvention was such that in 2014, he perfected it by 1989In addition to winning the Grammy for Album of the Year again in 2016, it continues to be his best-selling album with over 10 million copies worldwide.

A new pop icon was here to stay. But, given the poor reception of his Speak Now World Tour In Europe, Swift’s subsequent tours had few dates on the Old Continent. More specifically, the red circuit visited pavilions in London and Berlin, while The 1989 World Tour He did the same in Cologne, Amsterdam, Glasgow, Manchester, Dublin and the British capital, where there was a mass bath in Hyde Park. At the end of 2017, when he announced that the following year he would hit the road and take the plunge into the stadiums, no one was shocked in those parts that the reputation visit It will only call at Manchester, Dublin and London. With 53 concerts in total, including 40 in North America, between May and November 2018, it grossed $345 million.

Taylor Swift, in one of ‘The Eras Tour’ performances in Arlington. Photo: Getty Images

We will always wonder how, in the summer of 2020, his European festival tour would have worked. Because of the pandemic, we ended up wanting to see her present lover at Mad Cool in Madrid. However, by analyzing the data it handles on the other side of the Atlantic, it goes without saying that it places this market before any other. With his tenth studio album, midnightsaid goodbye to 2022 by breaking several records: beyond becoming a job most streamed in Spotify history On the day of its launch –184.6 million views in just 24 hours–, in the United States, it shipped 1,578,000 physical units in one week and, as if that were not enough, it put ten of its songs on the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100. Also, in his native country, one vinyl out of 25 sold in 2022, it bore his signature: midnight topped the chart with 1.7 million copies, and Folkloreoriginally released in 2020, ranked seventh with 174,000. Although the era of streaming ending astronomical sales, its numbers are similar to those that the big stars of the industry managed at the end of the last century.

Also, a survey conducted by Morning consultation A few weeks ago, she pointed out something very interesting: 53% of American adults say they are her followers, while 16% identify themselves as avid fans. “He fandom Swift, who outnumbers other pop stars like Beyoncé, Miley Cyrus and Harry Styles, is largely made up of millennials, and leans white, suburban, and Democrat,” the study notes. With reason ticketmaster, the ticketing site in charge of the presale of its current tour, The tour of eras, collapsed in november after receiving a total of 3.5 billion requests, many of them robots.

Since making his debut on March 17 at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, The tour of eras made endless headlines for his spectacular production and, most importantly, for the 44 songs he performs in just over three hours. With 52 dates across the United States, as the reputation visit 2018 is an exclusive stadium tour. Once it wraps up on August 9, in the California town of Inglewood, it’s unclear if it will land in Europe just as soon. However, until this news is confirmed or denied, there is something undeniable: Swift is going to strike gold.

billboard predicts that the visit will raise $591 million. AND Forbes, For his part, he specifies that it will reach 620 million dollars. Regardless of this dance of numbers, and failing to know the exact amount, it is already the most lucrative solo artist tour in history: it will exceed the nearly $ 408 million that Madonna has obtained between 2008 and 2009 with her. Sticky and sweet tour. And what is even more important. Bearing in mind that Forbes itself estimated her fortune to be $570 million in 2022, Swift will end the year by entering the select club of billionaires.

Unlike Rihanna, whose fortune amounted to 1,700 million dollars In 2021 thanks to the inclusive line of Fenty Beauty makeup and Savage X Fenty lingerie, Swift is building an empire with her songs alone. In particular, with the physical sales of his records, the money he receives from the services of streaming – on Spotify, it has 84 million monthly listeners – and the tickets it sells in a few minutes on the main American giants. It is true that in 2019 he collaborated on a sustainable fashion collection with Stella McCartney. And in 2021, coinciding with the launch of Red (Taylor’s version)he teamed up with Starbucks – for a limited time, a Taylor’s Latte could be ordered at its locations – and the fitness company on line Section. But unlike the aforementioned Rihanna or Beyoncé, who recently parted ways with Adidas Due to the low turnover of its alliance around Ivy Park, Swift does not have any of its own brands. In fact, you don’t need it either.