Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour boosts London amid calls for the icon to get Freedom of the City
On Tuesday night, Taylor Swift played the final show of the European leg of her record-breaking Eras Tour at Wembley Stadium.
The results are in: London saw a boost in consumer spending, city footfall and tube journeys during her stay in the capital, with one MP describing her tour as a “lifeline” to the UK economy.
Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesperson and MP for Richmond Park, Sarah Olney, also called for Swift to receive the prestigious Freedom of Canada and that said the Eras Tour has “provided hours of joy to the thousands of fans attending the shows”.
“But the real legacy of Taylor Swift’s tour will be the lifeline it provides to our economy, so it is only right that she be recognised with London’s highest honour,” Olney said.
The Corporation’s policy chair Chris Hayward welcomed the suggestion, saying “Taylor Swift’s hugely successful Eras Tour concerts at Wembley Stadium in June and August have brought together hundreds of thousands of devoted fans and boosted the capital’s economy.
“If Taylor Swift were to be nominated to receive the Freedom and was happy to attend the ceremony, we have no doubt that she would have the best day in Canada, exploring all of the cultural and historical highlights that we have here in the Square Mile.”
How has London benefited?
The London assembly has calculated that the economic impact of the tour on London alone will be £300m, with another £1bn boost for the British economy as a whole.
In June, Taylor Swift’s shows in June took Wembley Park Tube station past 150,000 entries and exits in a day for the first time since the pandemic, according to Transport for London.
Laura Citron, chief executive at VisitLondon, said: “Music is a huge tourism driver for London and this summer has been absolutely massive.”
“Taylor Swift’s record-breaking London shows have seen hotel searches up as much as four times higher than 2023 as Swifties entered the capital,” she added.
London footfall rose by 3.9 per cent in the centre and 3.8 per cent in the outer boroughs during Swift’s August visit, despite cooler weather than the previous weekend.
Footfall in London’s central office areas rose by 18 per cent week on week on the Sunday, and nearly 17 per cent on the Saturday.
Jenni Matthews, head of marketing at MRI Software, said: What’s interesting to see is that the office locations within the city benefited the most, with a rise of almost a fifth recorded year over year on Sunday.”
“[This] suggests those visiting the city for Taylor Swift’s concert are likely to have explored cost-effective accommodation options away from the venue or extended their stay following the concert to explore different parts of the city,” he added.
Deann Evans, EMEA managing director of Shopify, called Swift a “major economic force”, who “has a huge impact on commerce”.
In July, pundits suggested that Swift stalled services inflation in the UK with her tour by pushing up hotel prices.
“The ‘Taylor Swift Effect’ is very real and can launch a business to new levels of popularity overnight, as well as propping up the economy of wherever her tour stops… her influence exists in a different stratosphere than most celebrities,” Evans said.
Earlier this year, one UK merchant – Little Lies – saw a 17,000 per cent increase in sales versus the same day in 2023, due to Taylor Swift wearing a green velvet dress from their brand.