Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour had a significant impact on several public companies this summer. The pop star’s concerts fueled sales of merchandise, vinyl albums, hotel rooms, and credit cards. Bosses blamed the “Swift effect” for weak furniture demand and said it didn’t help clothing sales. Loading Something is loading.
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The incredible success of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour marked a post-pandemic comeback for concerts this summer.
The pop star’s shows were so popular and such a big part of the zeitgeist, that many bosses of public companies gave her a shout out for helping or hurting their businesses — or just because they wanted to identify themselves as Swifties.
Here’s some of the best comments, sourced from earnings-call and conference transcripts provided by AlphaSense/Sentieo:1. “Knowing how our guests can’t get enough of Taylor Swift, we proactively secured an exclusive vinyl offering that Swifties bought in droves.” — Christina Hennington, Target’s chief growth officer.
2. “In July, Taylor Swift launched her Eras Tour merch shop with us experiencing unprecedented volume sales and site visitors on launch day, and we were ready for it.” — Harvey Finkelstein, Shopify president.
3. “Merchandising revenue grew 12% in the quarter, with growth in direct-to-consumer revenue fueled by a strong performance from Taylor Swift, more than offsetting a decline in touring revenue.” — Boyd Muir, Universal Music CFO.
4. “The return of concerts and entertainment events such as a Taylor Swift tour … benefited about a third of our markets during this quarter.” — Leslie Hale, RLJ Lodging Trust CEO.
5. “A big thank you to Taylor Swift. When you think about Taylor Swift, just a visionary, she’s a rolling Super Bowl.” — Pebblebrook Hotel CFO Raymond Martz.
“Chicago had its highest RevPAR day I think ever the weekend that she was there. We have all kinds of promotions at our properties related to Taylor Swift as well. It’s pretty meaningful in these markets. It’s a big demand driver.” — Pebblebrook CEO Jon Bortz.
6. “Taylor Swift has really given us a big, big advantage,” said Wee Ee Cheong, CEO of Overseas Bank, which offered its cardholders exclusive access to Eras Tour presales. “Our credit-card applications grew 45%. Our debit-card applications grew 131%. So people want to get our credit card to apply for the concert.”
7. “The extreme example would be like a Taylor Swift concert, which is an example of what can happen if you’re not using Akamai Bot Management.” — Akamai Technologies CEO Thomson Leighton, referring to bots buying up tickets for Swift’s concerts before fans could.
8. “While she is an amazing performer, we actually don’t see massive swings in our business from Taylor Swift.” — Boot Barn CEO James Conroy, after saying in June that the western-clothing retailer’s ladies business was down despite Swift’s concerts.
9. “Folks aren’t buying as much patio furniture when they’re spending hundreds or thousands of dollars to go to Taylor Swift. It’s just people are doing different things today than they were doing during the pandemic.” — Overstock.com CEO Jonathan Johnson.
10. “I’m a big music fan. I saw over the last decades the best of the best, I’m very, very fortunate. Rolling Stones, U2, Madonna, Prince, and this Taylor Swift performance was at a whole different level. I’m a Swifty as you can probably tell.” — Forward Air CEO Tom Schmitt.