I admit that I am a fan of Taylor Swift. I am not a Swiftie per se, because I don’t really have time to follow her every move, thought, outfit or boyfriend. But I have her albums and like her music. I also admire her tenaciousness. She is one tough broad from a business perspective. Her taste in men might need a bit of fine tuning, but how to make money and keep fans interested, the woman just knows.
New Zealand is not always on the concert tour circuit, particularly Wellington. And that played out here. While she was coming to Southeast Asia and the Pacific part of the world, she was not coming to New Zealand, not even Aukland. She was playing Japan, Singapore and Australia. My plan was to find tickets at one of these locations and do a little sightseeing along the way. Those were the location options.
Could tickets really be that hard to get? Well, Japan was completely out of reach price wise. Singapore was more affordable, but the dates were not good and there were not many tickets available on resale sites. That left Australia. Sydney or Melbourne. I decided to try Melbourne. We had never been to that city and the concerts, there were three, fell on a weekend so Matt would not have to use too many vacation days. Flying to Australia from New Zealand is relatively inexpensive, certainly cheaper than flying to Japan or Singapore. In addition, in certain states in Australia, it is illegal to charge more than 10% above a ticket price for resale. If I could snag an Aussie ticket, I would not have to take out a loan. In terms of scams, I was protected because Stub Hub guaranteed the tickets would be valid. Plus, Tay Tay was protecting the tickets from scammers by withholding release.
I plunged in and, incredibly, I found reasonably priced tickets, much less expensive than the thousands of dollars people were paying, as many news stories reported. With tickets bought, we made our plans to visit Melbourne and the AU state of Victoria. This was September 2023.
Six months later, February 2024, we boarded the plane bound for Melbourne. Approximately 99.9% of the people on board were going to the show. There were Swifties everywhere—preteens, teens, young adults, and mature women like myself. They wore decorated cowboy hats and friendship bracelets and Taylor tees. Many were dressed in pink. The captain announced that we were on Air New Zealand Flight 1989 and the passengers erupted in cheers. He said he did not know why everyone was so excited about the Flight number but her would ask his daughter who was a Swift fan. (It’s a clever reference to a Swift album.)
Matt was one of the few men on the plane and certainly one of the few men going to the show. He kept telling people the best thing about going to the show would be the lack of line for the men’s room. Little did he know that the women would take over the men’s rooms.
There were three shows. The stadium was configured to seat 96,000 people, which means that she would play to 288,000 people in three days. She could easily have filled it three more times. The entire city was abuzz. As we traveled around Melbourne, we saw women headed for the stadium. I soon realized that I was not prepared in the least to go to this show. Women were dressed in full-on Swiftie fashion. The costume of choice was sequin dresses, white cowboy boots or white go-go boots, and faces adorned with lots and lots of glittery makeup. I don’t think I have ever seen so many women in sequins. But I had no time to find sequins anything, so I let it go.
On the day of the show, we arrived fairly early because 96,000 people is a big crowd. Plus, reports were that tens of thousands more planned on sitting outside of the stadium to listen. Sure enough, the grounds were packed but well organized. Large tents were set up for merch sales. By the time we got there, there was not much left. Swifties are mostly tiny teens and preteens and all they had left were size XL and up. I opted for an XL. Matt was elated he could get a shirt in his size.
As we entered the stadium, we were handed lighted wrist bands. We had no idea why. After waiting for about two hours in the blazing sun, it was time for Taylor. The three-hour marathon concert had begun and 96,000 of my closest friends sang every word of every song. The three teens and their mother sitting in front of us knew every song, every line, every move. It was cute at first but then I started to get annoyed. I came to hear Taylor Swift perform, not three screaming teens and their mum from Melbourne. But there was not a thing I could do about it.
Our seats were not bad. We could see everything and, of course, her stage set up and cameras were perfectly situated. She was also miked perfectly. I could hear every word she sang and uttered. I knew most of the songs, but certainly not all. Those wrist bands we were given were part of the show. They would light up and blink in a specific color, or all colors, according to the song/mood. You will see in the pictures that the entire stadium seems to be lit in red. That is the wrist bands for the Reputation songs. This was a fun addition and made it sort of participatory, aside from all the singing.
I would not call it a great show. She was good. It was a good show. I reserve the word great for a Prince concert. That man put on a great show. Or maybe U2. They always put on a great show. But Taylor put on a good, entertaining show. I took an unofficial poll of every tween I saw coming back from a show, many for whom this was a first concert. Just about everyone said it was wonderful or even magical.
And I was there. Matt was there. I’ll remember it all too well. (Stupid Taylor joke).
Was it worth the trip? Sure. Because in addition to the concert we got to see Melbourne and a small part of the south coast of Australia.
A Yank Among the Kiwis 