As Taylor Swift approaches her UK and Ireland Eras Tour leg, experts at Greenly have assessed how much emissions could be produced by mass fan movements to concerts across the globe
The alleged cost of Taylor Swift’s record breaking tour has been laid bare by a climate charity.
Over the next two months Swift has 20 concerts planned across the UK and Ireland, bringing in fans from across the globe and increasing the tour’s carbon footprint significantly.
The singer-song writer will arrive in Edinburgh, Scotland on June 7 after beginning her Eras Tour back in March 2023. With an ambitious 21-month long tour, spanning 151 shows, the singer — and her fans — have done and are doing a lot of travelling.
Whilst many love belting out a Swiftie tune every now and then, the TIME Magazine’s Person of the Year 2023 travels across the globe are certainly leaving a mark — just not necessarily a good one for the environment.
With a large number of spectators planning to attend multiple concerts across continents, carbon counting platform Greenly surveyed 143 Swifties planning to attend the Lyon concerts on 2 and 3 June. With nearly a third (31.5%) planning to fly to Lyon for one of her gigs, the carbon footprint is already considerable.
Do you have a crazy Taylor Swift travel story? Email us at webtravel@reachplc.com
Some of the criticism directed at Swift over the years regarding her carbon emissions, has focused on her preference of travel via private jets. Whilst the mega-celebrity probably needs extra security to travel, some have questioned why it would not be possible for her to fly first-class.
During the nearly-year-long American leg of her tour, Swift travelled nearly 60,000 kilometres, generating 77.5 tonnes of carbon emissions, it has been claimed by Greenly. For her South American leg, Taylor’s travels emitted 61.6 tonnes of carbon emissions, having travelled 47,000 kilometres. As a result, the North American and South American legs of the Eras Tour have emitted 139 tonnes in carbon emissions.
This would equate to over 60,000 commercial round-trip flights between Paris and New York or the same amount of carbon emissions produced by 28 Brits in a year. By switching to commercial flights, Greenly estimates that Swift could easily reduce her travel emissions in North and South America to 13.7 tonnes — an impressive 90% reduction.
When it comes to the fans, even the seemingly harmless process of purchasing a concert ticket entails a significant carbon footprint in terms of electricity consumption. In France alone, the digital queue for concert reservations in July 2023 stretched to as many as 900,000 people, many staying in the queue for over two hours to get a ticket for one of the four planned shows in Paris.
Greenly estimates the booking process used consumed 90 Megawatt-hours of power, emitting 4.7 tonnes of carbon emissions in the process.
In addition to the emissions created by fans travelling to gig locations, if half of all concert-goers bought a souvenir t-shirt, each event would emit an average of 130 tonnes of carbon emissions. This would total 19,760 tonnes of carbon emitted for the 151 shows.
In terms of round-trips between Paris and New York, such a footprint would be the same as a little over 11,000 trips.
Tommy Catherine, carbon methodology expert at Greenly, said: “While not strictly representative of the audience attending the two concerts in Lyon, this sample provides a snapshot of the potential carbon footprint of their travel to the concert, should the general trends of the sample be sufficiently reproduced in the entire audience. The aim is not to provide a random figure, but to make people aware that taking a flight is not without harm to the climate.
“The environmental impact of even a small proportion of a gig’s attendees flying to Switft’s concerts is significant. For a stadium filled with 50,000 spectators, if a third were to fly 500 km to get there they would be responsible for nearly 2,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent being released into the atmosphere.”
Back in February 2024, Swift’s publicist told BBC News that Swift does use carbon offsets to compensate her private jet travel. Her publicist also told The Associated Press, in February, that “Taylor purchased more than double the carbon credits needed to offset all tour travel” before her tour began, but did not provide any details.
If you do fancy seeing Swift, it may still be possible to grab a ticket – despite the enormous demand.
How to get hold of Taylor Swift tickets
Taylor Swift resale tickets are available from a number of online retailers right now. Although the below sellers, including viagogo and Vivid Seats, are not “official” retailers, they do have a number of strict terms and conditions in place to keep ticket buyers and ticket sellers safe.
Eras Tour hopefuls can choose exactly where they want to sit or stand in their stadium of choice – but there is a catch. Ticket prices are set by the sellers themselves, so fans may see some Taylor Swift Tickets priced much higher than they might expect.
Here’s the full breakdown below:
These websites specialise in selling tickets that fans no longer want, but viagogo recently assured fans: “V iagogo is a regulated marketplace where fans have the freedom to buy and sell tickets to their favourite live events, safely and securely, backed by a guarantee.”
There are also resale tickets available directly from Ticketmaster. Here’s the link you need:
TICKETMASTER – Buy Taylor Swift resale tickets here
The Mirror has contacted Swift’s team for comment.
Check out more of Daily Mirror’s latest travel stories by signing up to our free weekly newsletter.
