By Frank Cannistra
One of the hottest acts in all of music makes its way to Tampa next weekend as Taylor Swift brings “The Eras Tour” to Raymond James Stadium. The tour will take over the Raymond James Stadium from Thursday, April 13 to Saturday, April 15.
The concert has students at The University of Tampa extremely excited, with many members of the student body attending next weekend’s shows. Kylie Brewer, a senior at UT, was lucky enough to get tickets to Thursday’s concert, and she’s incredibly excited.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been as excited for a concert as I am for this one”, said Brewer. “The tour has been getting insanely good reviews, and she’s my favorite artist, so it should be an amazing night.”
This tour has been the topic of conversation for quite some time now as Ticketmaster, one of the main ticketing distributors for the tour, suffered mass technological failures and crashes when the tickets were first released to the public. The site assured Swift that they could handle the onslaught of her fans who were sure to flock to the website, but they ultimately were unable to keep up.
Swift was understandably upset by the whole ordeal, saying “I’ve brought so many elements of my career in-house. I’ve done this SPECIFICALLY to improve the quality of my fans’ experience by doing it myself with my team who care as much about my fans as I do. It’s really difficult for me to trust an outside entity with these relationships and loyalties, and excruciating for me to just watch mistakes happen with no recourse.”
Kelly Willett, a student at the University of Tampa, was able to survive the trials of Ticketmaster during its most unreliable period. Willett, an avid fan of another outrageously popular artist, Harry Styles, had been through this ordeal before, and was more than ready this time.
“The thing that had everyone so caught up was having to enter their information in as they were trying to buy tickets,” said Willett. “My roommate and I filled out all of our information days ahead of time and were ready to buy in seconds once the tickets dropped.”
She also stated that she’d woken up hours earlier than normal to ensure her purchase, another testament to the popularity of Swift.
For those who are still interested in seeing Swift in action next weekend, you still can, but it’ll come at a hefty price.
At the moment, Friday’s show offers the cheapest tickets of the weekend. That “cheapest” distinction should be followed with an asterisk though, as currently it sits at $449 per person. Tickets to Thursday or Saturday nights shows will run you at least $510, all of this before the inevitable fees and accompanied expenses.
While the price tag is high, Swift has been coming through for her fans on the tour so far, as reviews of the shows that have already happened are overwhelmingly positive.
The Guardian’s review of Swift’s first show raved about it, stating “The electrifying start of the singer-songwriter’s first tour in five years saw a mammoth, fan-pleasing 44-song set and extravagant staging.”