The Eras Tour (Dir. Sam Wrench, 2023)
If, like me, you consider yourself a ‘Swiftie’ (the name for those of us who self-confessionally love the music of Miss Taylor Alison Swift) then you might just have heard about the ‘Eras Tour’. This record-breaking global music tour explores seventeen years and all ten albums of Taylor’s music. The tour is unprecedented in terms of Taylor’s (and most artists) approach to performing. Historically, the singer has released a new album and embarked on a tour with the same name that is themed around its music and concepts. For example, her 2017 Reputation Album led to the 2018 Reputation Stadium Tour which utilised imagery of snakes and the colours black, silver and gold were prevalent in the staging and set design for the show. However, due to the pandemic, Taylor has not toured since 2018 and has released four brand new studio albums as well as re-recordings of four of her previous albums. Due to this, the question of how to approach her next tour was one that loomed as she released her latest album, ‘Midnights’, in 2022. The solution was the ‘Eras Tour’, a three hour and fifteen-minute-long show which is her most ambitious tour yet conceptually and practically.
Both fortunately and unfortunately the tour has been a victim of its own success. The tickets are like gold-dust and there could never be enough to go around for all the swifties – especially considering the lofty price that comes along with them. Ticket prices range from around £60 to £660 so for some people even the cheapest seat in the house is unattainable. Not to mention the laborious and precarious process that one must partake in when using Ticketmaster. You must register well in advance so you have the chance to receive a code that will grant you access to buy tickets and do all this with no guarantee of obtaining one by the end. Needless to say, for some people this process was not something they wanted to willingly subject themselves to or they sadly missed out despite their best efforts. In addition to all this rigmarole, as I highlighted before, there could never be enough supply for the demand. Not only is this a Taylor Swift tour – this is the ‘Eras Tour’! Will she ever explore all her music in the same way again? By the very nature and concept of the tour you must question whether she’ll embark on something as expansive and ambitious as this again. It makes this show by one of the most popular artists in the world, with famously dedicated fans, even higher stakes in terms of ‘experiencing’ the Eras Tour. To be there is to be a part of ‘history-in-the-making’ for herself and her fans. That being said, since it would be impossible to accommodate everyone, Taylor has transformed the magic of the tour into a film that can be viewed by people all over the globe, as many times as they like and at just a fraction of the price. This begs the question – is it worth a trip to the cinema?…
While it might sound, from my self-confessed Swiftie-status, like I am biased in this review (I am), I have tried to be as objective as I can. One bone I do have to pick with this film would be the pricing. Tickets range from £13.13 to £19.89. To non-Swifties this might come across as strange and quite frankly, expensive, and I can’t say they would be wrong in that assessment. However, to those of us who love Taylor this is not surprising and, if anything, expected. She has become known for her affinity to leave ‘Easter eggs’ and self-referential content in her work which gives the insatiable Swifties something to chew on while we wait around for her next cryptic Instagram caption or announcement. It is widely known that thirteen is Taylor’s lucky number for various reasons but mostly because it is her birthday (13th of December) and 1989 is the year of her birth as well as the name of her fifth studio album (recently re-released on the 27th of October 2023). So, while it is a nod to the fans who understand this information, it also comes across as unnecessary and nothing more than a way to drive prices up. Surely, she could have added this nod to fans without the need to change the entire price. Tickets could have simply been £8.89 minus the extra ten or £7.13 and I am pretty sure we still would have got the reference. In saying that, I am no expert in the pricing for film production or distribution. However, I highly doubt that the exact amounts she needed to charge in order to break a profit were miraculously £19.89 or £13.13.
Despite the pricing, if you are willing to fork out for a seat, I can say that it is worth it. I recommend the cheap seats, even I feel uncomfortable spending almost £20 on a cinema ticket and truly it is more about the music than anything else. What is great and worthwhile about the film is that it allows you to sit in every seat in the stadium. The range of long shots and close-ups makes the film something you could not obtain from even the most expensive VIP package. You are positioned wherever the action of the show is and the details of the elaborate set designs, dancers and Taylor herself are the focus. If you have a ticket to the tour in the nosebleeds (the seats highest up and furthest away from the stage) then this film will fill in the gaps of what you will inevitably miss from such a distance. If you don’t have a ticket, then this is the next best thing. Some songs have been cut from the film for the sake of, what I would suppose are, time constraints and wanting to save some experiences for those who have tickets. However, clocking in at two hours and forty-five minutes you are not missing a lot. The staging, the dancing, the costumes, the visuals and Taylor herself deliver a non-stop quality and engaging performance that is a love letter to such an enduring career in music.
I do have some top tips for maximizing and making the most of your £13.13…
- Take a water bottle with you because you will (hopefully) be having so much fun belting the songs that water is needed to avoid a sore throat.
- This goes without saying but definitely use the toilet before the film starts! With it being nearly three hours long you should give yourself the best chance of not having to make the difficult decision of which song to miss while you go to the toilet.
- Snacks! Again, the film is loooong so have something with you to snack on. Although, in saying that, I didn’t have a spare minute to eat because I was a bit too engrossed in the singing along.
Overall, The Eras Tour Film is a high quality and essential experience for any Swifties out there who want to be at The Eras Tour minus the expensive ticket and battle with Ticketmaster. It is also for those that want to see the staging and Taylor close-up or simply want a good sing-along to her biggest hits! You will not find yourself bored or disappointed by what truly feels like history-in-the-making, not just for the fans but for popular culture at large too. The Eras Tour takes live music and performance to a new standard with it being engaging, nostalgic and tightly rehearsed, yet organic, personal, and gargantuan. You might feel overcharged, but you won’t feel shortchanged.
Edited by Molly Stevens