What is Taylor Swift’s highest-grossing tour?

All in all, 2023 is turning out to be quite a year for Taylor Swift. A reissue of her 2020 stripped-down, acoustic album Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions, pressed on coloured vinyl, was by far the top selling release of this year’s Record Store Day, meanwhile her Eras Tour - a whistle-stop trek across the globe to look back on her career so far, looks set to smash not only her own previous best-selling tours but very likely will become the highest-grossing tour of all-time by any single artist or group.

Road trip

The Eras Tour kicked off at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona on 17 March and will continue zigzagging across the United States until next month when Swift and her entourage head to Latin and South America. It will reach its conclusion with three nights at London’s Wembley stadium in August 2024.

The three and a half-hour show sees the American singer delve into her repertoire, performing 45 songs from her back catalogue split into 10 acts - including tracks from her 2008 release Fearless right up to the most recent works, Speak Now and Midnights. To keep it fresh, Act XI has Swift knocking out a couple of ‘surprise songs’ every night - one on piano and one on guitar, sometimes accompanied by guest stars. As she has moved from state to state, she’s been joined by Gracie Abrams, Marcus Mumford, Aaron Dessner, Phoebe Bridgers and Jack Antonoff.

Kansas City here I come

The 33-year-old singer is now 39 dates into her 120-show tour. After a few days off to rest, she will be back on stage on Friday for the first of two nights at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City. But much of the rest of the tour is already sold out which prompted promoters to add another 14 dates to the European leg of the tour next summer.

Billboard Boxscore, which compiles concert tour attendance data and sales, estimated that Swift’s Eras tour would gross $590 million - based solely on the initial 52 dates of the US leg. It has been expanded since then, so when the Eras Tour comes to an end in London next year, sales will most probably be double that - some estimates predict sales to be somewhere between $1 billion and $1.4 billion.

That will dwarf Swift’s most successful stint on the road - the 2018 Reputation Tour, 53 shows across four continents, raked in $345,700,000 which is her highest-grossing tour to date. The Eras Tour is more extensive with more than double the amount of shows plus ticket prices have been subjected to inflation during the past five years - so while Swifties might have forked out upwards of $49 to see their idol on the Reputation Tour, tickets for the Eras Tour range from $50 to $899.