Two weeks ago Taylor Swift opened the first night of her highly anticipated ‘Eras’ Tour in Glendale, Arizona. She performed her third and fourth nights of the show last weekend here in Las Vegas, and the show has already broken records and is expected to break many more. With the show and Swift herself continuously breaking records, its large coverage through social media, and the fact of it being the infamous artist’s first appearance back since 2018, the ‘Eras’ Tour is all everyone is talking about. 

Swift’s performance is three and a half hours long and follows a 44-song setlist. The songs are carefully selected from past albums throughout her career to showcase a little bit of each of her previous albums, known as “eras.” The tour has two openers for each concert that varies depending on the location of the shows. Openers include music artists, GAYLE, beabadoobee, Phoebe Bridgers, Paramore, OWEN, Gracie Abrams, girl in red, MUNA, and HAIM.  This past weekend she opened with acclaimed artists GAYLE and beabadoobee. With the show already getting loads of publicity and anticipation all over the news and social media, the artist additionally made local headlines as the first woman to headline Allegiant Stadium. As she greeted the audience on Friday night’s show, Swift proudly addressed the accomplishment.  “You’re making me feel like… I’m the first woman to headline Allegiant stadium,” Swift said. “But mark my words Vegas, I will not be the last.”

When ticket sales went up in November of last year, many problems arose with the company the tickets were being sold through, Ticketmaster. The site was not able to handle the extremely high demand for tickets and experienced a series of malfunctions, leaving many fans without or struggling to find tickets. Swift addressed the struggle, greeting her fans with how happy she was they were able to be there and noting the effort it took them to get here. But even between the ticket fiasco, Ticketmaster has recently announced that the show broke the record for most tickets sold with over 2 million tickets purchased. Additionally, Swift has broken the record for the most-attended female concert on opening night with over 69,000 people, passing the previously held record of 63,000 attendees, held by Madonna. (Taylor Swift Breaks Madonna’s Record For Highest Attended Concert By A Female Artist – That Grape Juice.)

Swift had toured five times prior to the 2020 shutdown and had planned her next one,  ‘Lover Fest,’ but the show was canceled due to the pandemic before tickets ever went on sale. Amidst the pandemic and restrictions that have only very recently been lifted, Swift still continued to release music. She released award-winning albums ‘Folklore’ and ‘Evermore’ throughout the shutdown and during this time also released two re-recorded studio albums, ‘Fearless (Taylor’s Version)’ and ‘Red (Taylor’s Version.’) So as the Eras Tour debuts, she is performing many songs from albums for the first time: ‘Lover,’ due to the album’s tour cancellation, ‘Folklore’ and ‘Evermore’ with restrictions lifted for the first time since their production, and her new album ‘Midnights’ released just last year, has already won three awards. 

Taylor Swift has kept a reputation throughout her career with her outstanding achievements. She is the second most awarded artist ever in the American Music Awards (AMA) history, has won 11 Grammy awards, eight Academy of Country Music (ACM) awards, and with 23 awards, holds a record of the most Billboard Music Awards, and the list goes on. In total Swift has been nominated for over 500 awards and has won over 300, and just last week received the Innovator Award at the iHeartRadio Music Awards. With the ‘Eras’ Tour already breaking records and expected to break many more, Swift continues to dominate the music industry.