Even if you weren’t one of the tens of thousands of people to have a ticket to the biggest show of the summer, you probably have seen or heard of Taylor Swift and how she took the world by storm this past year. Her influence on fans has given each city she goes to a grand boost to the economy, but Swift hasn’t stopped there. She is now helping movie theaters across the globe, including right here in Carbondale.

A film version of Swift’s “Eras Tour” will be released on Friday, available to see in movie theaters such as AMC University Place 8 and VIP Carbondale 8 in Carbondale, and AMC Classic Illinois Centre 8 in Marion. The movie will provide an opportunity for Swifties who couldn’t catch the tour on its U.S. leg to view it for the first time.

The Eras Tour, which kicked off in March and finished its U.S. run in August, limited its venues to NFL stadiums. This meant that in order to attend, southern Illinois residents would need to travel elsewhere. The closest venue was in Nashville, Tennessee, with other Midwest stops including Chicago and Cincinnati.

On top of that, high demand made tickets difficult to obtain, leaving many fans left ticketless with no way to get the tour experience.

Swift wanted to give all fans a chance to experience the show and announced on Aug. 31 that the show was coming to theaters.

“The Eras Tour has been the most meaningful, electric experience of my life so far and I’m overjoyed to tell you that it’ll be coming to the big screen soon…” Swift wrote on her Instagram to announce the movie and ticket sales.

Much like the actual tour, the film has a runtime of two hours and forty-eight minutes, and is furthering Swift’s boost to the economy. The film is currently expected to make at least $100 million on its opening weekend, having already surpassed that amount in ticket sales.

Sony Pictures Entertainment CEO Tony Vinciquerra told Deadline.com that her movie is a “massive, unexpected rescue” to movie theaters following the writers’ strike that had spanned from May 2 to Sept. 27.

AMC University Place 8 in Carbondale has little to no available seats for the Oct. 13 opening night, but local fans can buy tickets for any day after in order to see what The Eras Tour has to offer.

Swift, a 12-time Grammy Award winner, is in the international portion of her overwhelmingly successful Eras Tour, and is set to visit 15 different countries over the next year.

Being no stranger to world stadium tours, Swift has been on five in the past; but none have come close to the impact that her current shows have made on fans and the economy. Having done hundreds of shows prior, what makes this tour so special?

The three hour long set list, which features songs spanning her entire career, is filled with theatrics, dazzling choreography and surprises. Fans even took the liberty to make and trade Swift themed friendship bracelets at each show.

Only being a fraction of the way through, the tour is expected to be one of the highest-grossing tours to date.

Economist Aaron Szyf for the U.S. Travel Association wrote in a piece titled “The Taylor Swift Impact – 5 Months and $5+ Billion” about just how impactful it’s been.

“Swift fans – ‘Swifties’ – averaged $1,300 of spending in local economies on travel, hotel stays, food, as well as merchandise and costumes,” Szyf wrote. “That amount of spending is on par with the Super Bowl…”

The U.S. Travel Association estimates that fans have already spent 5 billion and the total impact is expected to exceed 10 billion by the tour’s stopping date.

Cities such as Pittsburgh and Los Angeles saw the biggest impact in their local economies in a while after Swift visited the cities.

According to Szyf and the U.S Travel Association, Pittsburgh hosted Swift for two nights and saw $46 million in direct spending. 83% of Pittsburgh show attendees were not from the area and caused an 106% increase in hotels average daily room rates. The city had the second highest weekend occupancy in hotels with 95% capacity.

Los Angeles saw Swift for six nights total and it had a $320 million impact on the economy. Her six shows created 3,300 jobs in the area as well as made $9 million in hotel sales tax and $20 million in sales and sales tax.

The cities Swift stopped in saw a huge economic boost in part because of how few cities she visited, with just 17 stops in the United States.

SIU has students from all over the country enrolled, meaning many had the opportunity to see the infamous show close to their own hometowns in their time off of school during summer break.

That’s exactly what SIU junior swim and dive athlete Teigen Detta did when she saw the show in Seattle on July 22 with her mom.

“100% easily would do it again,” Detta said. “..We went on the Reputation Tour [that] was in Seattle as well. It was her and I and so that’s, like, kind of our thing now, is concerts.”

The weekend with her mom cost a good amount of money between tickets, hotels and extra spending.

“It was probably a $600 weekend,” Detta said. “I think my mom said [the tickets were] like 90 a head, so two of us, like 180, so it wasn’t too bad.”

Fans dedicated a good portion of their weekend funds on unique outfits themed around different albums, inside jokes or even past outfits worn by Swift.

“I wore a big and bright pink baby doll dress and I had sparkly cowgirl boots,” Detta said. “Probably $250 with all the accessories and stuff.”

Between Swift’s concerts and the MLB All-Star Game earlier in the month, the Seattle area received a huge boost due to the influx of travel and accommodation needs.

“I heard from a few people that it was, like, the biggest weekend Seattle’s had altogether in quite a while,” Detta said. “…but everything in Seattle was pretty much booked between baseball and Taylor and just all of the above.”

Detta wasn’t the only SIU student who tried to get tickets, and some of her SIU swim and dive teammates encountered scammers in their ticket buying process.

“There’s two, there’s one swimmer and one diver that attempted to go I guess,” Detta said. “Like went to the show and then like got [their tickets] scanned and [they didn’t work]. I think they bought them after pre-sale. So, they would have had to have re-bought them. So, they just sat and watched from the outside.”

The July 22 show in Seattle set the attendance record for Lumen Field, previously held by U2 which welcomed more than 70,000 fans to the stadium in 2011.

Even those who weren’t able to get tickets still flocked to the stadium to enjoy the festivities. The streets around Lumen Field flooded with the ticketless crowd who gathered to listen from the outside.

“So, that in of itself probably generated a ton of money.” Detta said. “So, where we were in Lumen, we were kind of up but we could see through the arches and, like, I – there was probably a few 1000 people out there, like, it was packed.”

For those who still want to see the Eras Tour in-person, Swift will be returning to the United States for a few extra shows in late 2024. This includes a stop in Indianapolis, just a four-hour drive from Carbondale, scheduled for Nov. 1-3, 2024.

Fan or not, it’s clear to see the Taylor Swift phenomenon is making a respectable impact 17 years into her career that some artists will never see in their lifetime. With a once in a blue moon type support system, Swift will continue to take stadium stages for hundreds of thousands of fans as well as millions more in theaters across the country. In turn, that will continue to have a ripple effect to help boost the local economies wherever Taylor Swift can be seen; on stage or on the screen.

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