I spent $340 seeing Taylor Swift in the US twice, now I'm dropping over $1,700 to see her in Europe 2 more times

04.08.2023 - 19:17 / insider.com / Taylor Swift / In Europe

I've been a Taylor Swift fan for a long time, so when she announced her Eras Tour in the US, I did everything I could to grab tickets. 

I live in New York City, but I registered as a Ticketmaster "verified fan" for the Massachusetts show at Gillette Stadium because I thought I'd have a better shot at scoring tickets in a smaller city. My dad lives in the Boston area, so I was willing to take the Amtrak.

On the day of the sale, I waited in the Ticketmaster queue for hours. When I finally got through, my computer screen froze — the tickets sold out right before my eyes. Three hours later, I logged on in desperation and snagged two obstructed-view nosebleed seats for the Friday show for $50 each.

Luckily, one of my friends had an extra ticket in a better section for the Sunday show, and I paid her about $200 for that club-level seat.

With my $90 round-trip train ticket, my total for the two-show weekend came to $340, and it was absolutely worth it.

After seeing the Eras Tour twice in Massachusetts, I knew I wanted to experience it again with my mom and my boyfriend. But the US resale market was upselling tickets for thousands of dollars. 

I decided it would be more economical — and fun — to join the European leg of the tour. The face-value tickets were cheaper, so I figured I could use the rest of the money I would've spent on resale tickets to get flights and accommodations.

I registered for all the European presale dates and received codes for both Milan and Paris. 

The Milan show tickets were sold through TicketOne, a site I registered for in advance. On the day of the sale, I joined the queue when it opened at 6 a.m. ET. I was through checkout in less than an hour with two tickets for $147 total.

Once I secured the tickets, I booked an Airbnb in Milan for two nights for $324. My boyfriend and I don't have flights yet since the concert isn't until July 2024, but I'm expecting to spend around or under $800 for my round-trip ticket.

The Paris show used Ticketmaster. I'd already had a lot of problems with the site, and the sale time was 9 a.m. local time, which is 3 a.m. ET.

I joined the queue with over a million people despite tickets only being available to verified fans with a code. This caused the site to crash, and Ticketmaster ended up pausing the queue and rescheduling the sale.

The new sale was spread out over four days, one for each night of the Paris tour in May 2024.

I woke up again at 3 a.m. for the first-night sale. That time, I made it to the checkout only to have my card declined due to potential fraud since I'm based in the US. I called my bank so I could override any fraud-protection measures for international purchases for the next few days.

For the second sale, I set another 3 a.m.