This night is sparkling. After close to two years of sequins, sparkles and friendship bracelet swaps, Taylor Swift entered the Eras tour stage for the last time in a dazzling display of colour in Vancouver Sunday night.
“We get to play one last show for you here tonight in beautiful Vancouver,” Swift said after playing her first couple of songs.
Later, during the performance from her Red era, Swift admired the passion and kindness fans have showed throughout the tour.
“That is I think the lasting legacy of this tour, the fact that you have created such space and joy and togetherness and love.”
The show is a well-oiled machine that began at exactly 6:45 p.m. PT with Gracie Abrams. Swift began her set about an hour later.
Abrams voiced what many fans are feeling, calling Sunday’s final show “history,” and saying she cried earlier.
“I’m not ready for it to be over,” she said.
Thousands of fans from around the world have travelled to Vancouver to see Swift’s final three performances. Officials said up to 70 per cent of ticket holders were not from the Vancouver area, including about 40 per cent who were international travellers.
The pop superstar began her tour in Glendale, Ariz. in March 2023, and has since pulled off 149 shows across the U.S., Canada, Latin America, the Asia Pacific and Europe.
The set list for the shows has changed over the 21-month tour with the release of Swift’s latest album, The Tortured Poets Department, in April 2024.
With tickets to her final shows sold out, resale tickets for Vancouver were being listed for $2,000 online. However, in a last-minute surprise during the week before her Vancouver shows, Swift’s team released a chunk of $16 tickets for seats behind the stage.
B.C Place, where Swift is performing in Vancouver, erected fences around the venue to prevent ‘Tayl-gating’ parties — where fans without tickets usually show up to soak up the vibes and sing along.
But that hasn’t stopped ticketless Swifties from gathering outside the fences.
Those who do have tickets have been given special, light-up wristbands upon entry to the stadium.
The wristbands flash different coloured lights throughout Swift’s performance, creating a twinkling effect in the stadium.
On Friday, Swift told the audience there was a reason Canada and Vancouver were chosen as the final stop on her five-continent tour.
“Where have the crowds been so generous, so welcoming, so warm-hearted? Where do they know every single word? And they not only sing them, but they scream them? Oh, we’ve got to go back to Canada, and so here we are in beautiful Vancouver,” she said.
A film crew spotted on stage with her fuelled speculation that a new documentary may be in the works.
B.C. Place stadium bathrooms were temporarily modified ahead of the shows because up to 95 per cent of concertgoers were expected to be female.
The Swift shows will have an estimated economic impact of $157 million for the city, according to Destination Vancouver. In Toronto, where Swift played six shows prior to heading to the West Coast, the concerts brought in around $282 million.
Touring trade publication Pollstar projected last year that the tour will gross about $2.2 billion in total — an all-time touring record.