Some Taylor Swift fans are out thousands of dollars from her canceled Vienna concerts—yet there isn’t much bad blood.
Swift abruptly canceled three concerts earlier this month, over threats of a terrorist attack. The last-minute cancellations affected more than 150,000 fans—many of whom had flown thousands of miles, and spent thousands of dollars, to travel from the United States and other countries.
It started out as a way for many Swifties to snag a bargain. Tickets to the blockbuster Eras tour were generally a lot cheaper in Europe than in the United States, where they’re still reselling for thousands of dollars each. So, some fans—including this reporter—decided to buy the cheaper tickets and splurge on traveling to Europe for a concert.
It’s not just tickets, there’s hotels, flights & more
That made a lot of financial sense…up until the Vienna concerts evaporated. The concert organizers have said they will refund the tickets. But for many travelers, who had already landed in Vienna by the time the concerts were canceled, those refunds won’t make up for all the associated travel costs, including international flights and peak-tourist-season hotels.
Given the enormous popularity of the Eras tour, and the superstar appeal of Swift, some fans went all-out to see her abroad. Dan and Lynda Dickerson, retired first responders from Rochester, NY, arrived in Vienna hours before the concerts were canceled. For Dan, she’s “the Elvis of this generation,” so they splurged on the experience, buying first-class airfare and spending about $10,000 just on travel costs.
“It’s not the ticket costs, it’s everything above that,” he told me. “But I understand. I’d rather have it get canceled than walk into something and have someone get hurt.”
We spoke in downtown Vienna, at one of the spontaneous Taylor Swift singalongs that broke out throughout the city that weekend. The Dickersons said they were still glad to be there, to celebrate and commiserate with other Swifties.
“We’re missing the concert, but this is also something we wouldn’t be able to reproduce,” Lynda told me.”
‘We just want the experience’
Swift hasn’t said anything publicly about Vienna, disappointing fans who want some acknowledgement of what they missed out on. But even their dismay is a testament to the fierce loyalty that has become part of Swift’s economic superpower.
Business experts don’t expect Swift to experience any long-term backlash from canceling the concerts. Terrorist threats are a pretty iron-clad reason: “This is something where she was clearly not at fault in any way,” says Brittany Hodak, author of Creating Superfans: How to Turn Your Customers Into Lifelong Advocates.
And most Swifties I spoke with in Vienna were more upset about the opportunity cost than their financial losses.
“The only thing that we would want is an opportunity to get tickets somewhere else,” said Mary Ashmead, a Dallas-based surgeon who had cashed in frequent flier points and spent an additional $6,000—not including the concert-ticket costs—to take her family of four to Vienna.
On the morning of the second scheduled Swift concert, Vienna was full of disappointed Swifties. Many of them filled the seats of a morning horse show at the Spanish Riding School, where Ashmead watched her 10-year-old daughter trade friendship bracelets with a couple of women from Oregon.
“We just want the experience,” she told me. “We just want to go and be with all the Swifties and sing our hearts out.”
Swift has nurtured her fans, who are an economic powerhouse
Swift’s extraordinary business impact continues to break records: The Eras tour generated an estimated $5 billion in consumer spending in North America alone last year. Swift herself earns some $14 million from a single concert, Variety reported earlier this summer. (She herself isn’t likely to feel much financial pain from the canceled concerts: Her insurers will take that hit, according to Reuters.)
Individual cities also reap enormous benefits when Swift comes to sing: For example, London’s government estimates that its economy is growing by almost $400 million from her eight concerts there.
Vienna also managed to get a tourism boost this month, in part because Swift canceled her concerts after many fans had already arrived in the city. Hotels still saw huge year-over-year growth in their average daily room rates and revenue per room, according to data provider CoStar.
“The hotels did okay—and the restaurants probably did better the nights of the concerts, because people needed something else to do,” says Jan Freitag, CoStar’s national director of hospitality analytics.
Which means that the financial burden of the canceled concerts falls largely on Swift’s fans. They’re economic powerhouses in their own right, and ones that Swift has put a lot of effort into nurturing.
“We’re beyond fandom at this point, right? These are people who subscribe to an identity,” says Dr. Marcus Collins, a marketing professor at the University of Michigan who’s had some personal experience maintaining the relationship between a superstar musician and her devoted followers: He used to run digital strategy for Beyoncé.
Collins also doesn’t expect to see any long-lasting consequences to Swift’s reputation—or to her business—from how she’s handled the canceled Vienna concerts.
“Because of her relationship with her fans, there was a level of ‘we get it’ that probably wouldn’t be extended to another artist,” he says. “I don’t think it’s going to have a massive impact.”
Transcript:
A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Taylor Swift wraps up the final leg of her European tour today with a sold-out show in London. This is small comfort to the hundreds of thousands of Swifties who plunked down a lot of money to see her perform in Vienna. Two weeks ago, all three of those shows were canceled after threats of an alleged terrorist plot.
NPR’s finance correspondent Maria Aspan was one of those fans. Joins us now to talk about the impact of those canceled concerts. Maria, you must be pretty disappointed, I’m assuming. So what’s been the fallout so far?
MARIA ASPAN, BYLINE: Hi. Morning, A. It was sad, and frankly, it was pretty expensive for a lot of us who flew around the world to see Taylor Swift perform. But what I was really surprised by, at the time and since I’ve gotten back from Europe last week, is just how relatively little blowback there’s been against Swift. You know, people were sad in Vienna, but they weren’t angry.
There were these big spontaneous street parties in downtown Vienna where people were singing and dancing along to Taylor Swift songs, and at one of them, I started chatting with Dan and Lynda Dickerson. Dan’s a retired firefighter who calls Swift the Elvis of this generation. So when they decided to fly from Rochester to see her in Vienna, they splurged.
DAN DICKERSON: We flew first class, staying at the Marriott. So we were out about 10,000 bucks to get here and have a place to stay and go back. It’s not the ticket cost. It’s everything above that.
ASPAN: But, he added, they understand. And look, so did I. Nobody wants to wind up in the middle of a potential terrorist attack. I was very glad to be safe and to have avoided that.
MARTÍNEZ: But still, I mean, there were some hefty costs of Swift canceling those concerts.
ASPAN: Oh, absolutely, on a lot of fronts. I mean, let’s start with Taylor Swift herself. She makes $14 million every night she performs…
MARTÍNEZ: Oh, wow.
ASPAN: …According to one report.
MARTÍNEZ: Gosh.
ASPAN: So right there, that’s more than $40 million lost from those three concerts, although some of that will probably be covered by insurance. It doesn’t seem like there was a huge economic impact to Vienna, which surprised me at first. You know, we’ve heard so much about Swiftonomics and the huge lift in tourism and spending to the cities where she tours. London right now thinks it’s getting $400 million from her eight performances there.
But in Vienna, it was kind of a timing thing. The shows were canceled just a day ahead of time, so many of us were already in the city and still needed hotel rooms and places to eat and all of that. The big impact really is on the fans. Those of us who traveled to see Swift are out a lot of money, in some cases thousands of dollars or more. The concert organizers did say they’re refunding our tickets, but that’s just a little bit.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. But if the fans are out so much money, I mean, has there been a lot of backlash?
ASPAN: Not as much as I expected. Some people are upset that Swift hasn’t said anything about the cancellations. But in Vienna, I heard a lot from fans like Mary Ashmead. She’s a surgeon who brought her two kids from Dallas to Vienna for their first Taylor Swift concert, and they just want a chance to go to another one.
MARY ASHMEAD: We just want to go. We just want to go and be with all the Swifties and sing our hearts out.
ASPAN: You know, this is starting to become a supply-and-demand problem. The Eras Tour is ending later this year, and the remaining tickets are reselling for thousands of dollars apiece. But that’s what people are upset about – the missed opportunity to see Swift more than the money that they lost. And this was something that business experts and economists say – this is a superpower for Taylor Swift. Marcus Collins used to run digital strategy for Beyonce, and he says he’s not surprised about how the fans are handling their disappointment.
MARCUS COLLINS: Because of her relationship with her fans, there was a level of we get it that probably wouldn’t be extended to another artist.
ASPAN: Now he studies this as a marketing professor at the University of Michigan and basically is saying even though some of us are still sad about not getting to see Taylor Swift, there’s not going to be any bad blood.
MARTÍNEZ: Glad to hear you’re able to shake it off. That’s NPR’s Maria Aspan.
ASPAN: Thank you, A.
