Beyoncé and Taylor Swift have been two of the most influential women of the music industry and pop culture for almost two decades. However, their popularity arguably hit an all-time high in the spring of 2023 when they embarked on their new world tours.
For Swift, she began “The Eras Tour” on March 17 in Glendale, Arizona. The tour is a three and a half hour phenomena and has become one of the most influential tours of all time. It is a musical journey through Swift’s ten musical “eras,” or albums, and highlights a few of the big hits or fan favorites from each one.
“The unique structure of the Eras Tour is one of the main reasons why it is so incredible,” Gigi Ricci, seventh grade theater major said. “The tour has a little something for everyone, whether you liked her earlier or new music or both.”
On the other hand, Beyoncé’s “Renaissance World Tour” began on May 10 in Stockholm, Sweden and came to a close on Oct. 1 in Kansas City, Missouri. Her set is around two and a half hours long, and while she still performs hits from her whole discography, unlike Swift, her tour is primarily centered around her most recent album, “Renaissance,” which was released in July 2022.
“Renaissance” was a totally different musical direction for Beyoncé and arguably boosted her back to the peak of her popularity. The album has been critically acclaimed and has also received a lot of accolades celebrating its excellence.
However, it was really this tour that confirmed to the world that Beyoncé was still one of the queens of the music industry.
“Beyoncé is obviously one of the best and most talented singers and performers in the world,” Jordan Kosou, eighth grade dance major said. “However, I think that the ‘Renaissance Tour’ has just put her on a whole other level.”
Back to Swift, “The Eras Tour” is a much longer tour than Beyoncé’s, as the last show is not until Nov. 23, 2024 in Toronto, Canada. Before this tour, Swift had not gone on tour since 2018 and after the release of “Midnights” in October 2022, many fans were ready for her to finally return to the stage.
However, after this tour was announced, way more people started hunting for tickets than had ever been seen on Ticketmaster, one of the most popular online ticket-selling sites. This caused the site to break down and crash on the day that tickets opened for sale for the tour, Nov. 15, 2022. This caused many fans to miss out on tickets to see their favorite artist in the world because of Ticketmaster’s flaws and mistakes.
According to Greg Maffei, the Live Nation and Ticketmaster chairman, “We could have filled 900 stadiums as 14 million people were onsite trying to get tickets.”
This process helped alert the music industry and the public that Ticketmaster’s system was flawed, especially for higher demand shows and artists. It got so severe that even the U.S. government stepped in and investigated Ticketmaster for being a fraudulent company. The government never reached a formal decision about Ticketmaster, but they did recognize that Ticketmaster is a site with issues that need to be addressed.
This demonstrates just how big of an impact this tour had on the world right from the get-go. Swift’s fans, commonly referred to as “swifties,” are some of the most powerful in the industry, and this series of events definitely proved that to be true.
The Renaissance Tour did not have nearly as many ticketing problems, but the impact of the tour and Beyoncé’s fanbase, “The Bey-Hive” are arguably just as strong as Swift’s.
In fact, both tours have actually impacted far more than just culture. These two women are so impactful that they are actually boosting the economy of the cities they play in.
According to The Entrepreneur, in regards to the Renaissance Tour’s impact on the economy of Sweden, “The surge in demands for hotels and restaurant meals, driven by her [Beyoncé’s] tour, led to a lower-than-expected drop in the inflation rate in May.”
These tours have been so economically impactful that the global leaders of many international countries, including Canada, Australia, Thailand and Chile, have eagerly reached out to these women, specifically Swift, urging them to include cities in their countries on their tours.
According to Forbes, “Chilean President Gabriel Boric recently took to YouTube to make a plea to the renowned artist [Swift]. In a video shared with the public, he expressed his desire for Swift to include Chile in her Latin America tour.”
Overall, these tours have been incredibly successful and have impacted pop culture and the economy tremendously over the last few months. They have truly cemented Swift and Beyoncé as pop legends. It is hard to believe that the world will ever have two such groundbreaking tours occur at the same time again.
