Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
Newcastle Herald
Newcastle Herald
Simon McCarthy

'Close the borders': Taylor Swift fans get serious as Eras pre-sale fever sets in

The Swifties are getting serious.

A Frontier Members pre-sale for Taylor Swift's much-anticipated Sydney leg of her Eras tour opened at 10am on Wednesday.

The pre-sale for her Melbourne concerts - the only other city the star will visit in Australia on her first tour since 2018 - begins at 2pm.

An earlier limited pre-sale on Monday offered the most expensive tickets - ranging from just over $300 to as much as $1200.

On Wednesday morning, Premier Chris Minns posted a message he had received from one fan, desperate to secure a seat at the show.

"Hey love your work," the message reads, "As you may be aware Taylor Swift is coming to Sydney. Would it be possible to close the borders to other states and New Zealand. To stop them stealing our tickets."

The Premier responded that while border closures would not be an option, both NSW and Victorian state governments had moved to prevent ticket scalping.

Victoria had declared Swift's Melbourne show as a major event to prevent unscrupulous behaviour; a move that prevents resellers from advertising tickets for more than 10 per cent above their original value.

"Fans who just want to enjoy a show shouldn't be ripped off," Mr Minns said in a reply tweet Wednesday morning.

There were reportedly hundreds of thousands of the hopeful in the queue, as one fan revealed why they thought the hysteria had set in so firmly.

"I think it all came from the COVID lockdown," one reluctant fan Kahli Rain said, "She was one of the only artists who released new music during the lockdowns and an artist her size would tour their music but she couldn't.

"Now she is basically touring her entire discography."

She pointed to the artist's multiple transformations - from country star to mega-pop, Americana to folk - and her apparent receptiveness to the whims of her most dedicated fans as reasons for Swift's massive hype.

"Look at the Lana Del Ray song (Snow on the Beach)," she said, "What other artist would re-record a duet just because her fans wanted it?"

The epic reach of the Eras tour as well - covering four as-yet untoured albums including Folklore, Evermore and her most recent opus Midnights, as well as a handful of smaller releases - has fans wondering about the artist's legacy as they race to secure tickets.

"It's not just potentially not being able to see her again, her discography is so big even if she does tour again, she is probably only going to tour one album. This is the chance for her fans to see most of her music.

"She's playing for three hours - and she could play for another three hours.

"It's the kind of thing that artists do when they are at the end of their touring. It's like a greatest hits tour."

Traffic through ticket websites was expected to be even higher than earlier this week, as fans flooded Ticketek to secure their spot.

The details of this report are developing. It may be updated.

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.