On Oct. 13, “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” debuted in theaters around the world, allowing viewers to experience her sold-out world tour without the hefty concert ticket fee.
For fans who were not able to make it to one of the Eras Tour shows, Taylor Swift has given them a way to watch her latest tour from the comfort of a movie theater. Her three-and-a-half-hour concert was condensed into an almost three-hour movie, with only a handful of songs not making the cut.
After seeing last year’s high demand for Swift’s concert tickets on Ticketmaster, theaters knew to expect an influx of “swifties” wanting to purchase a ticket to her movie.
The movie amassed $92.8 million during the opening weekend alone, which makes it the highest-grossing domestic concert film ever, surpassing “Justin Bieber: Never Say Never,” which brought in $73 million in 2011.
The Drexel Theater, located on East Main Street right across from the university, has frequent showtimes for any university students who want to immerse themselves in the Eras Tour experience.
When discussing how the theater prepared for the influx that accompanied “The Eras Tour” movie, Cora Ams, a junior university student and Drexel Theater employee, said, “For opening weekend, we made friendship bracelets so we could trade with people. We had a ‘Lavender Haze’ popcorn special.”
Swift encouraged movie-goers to treat this like a concert experience, telling fans to wear their friendship bracelets, their “Eras Tour attire,” to sing and dance.
“It was just wonderful to see people of all ages come in their Swiftie gear, like people dressed up and we have a trivia box question where you can put in your answer and your number and name. It was sold out on opening nights. People were singing and getting into it. It was just a great community experience for sure.” Ams said.
COVID-19 shutting down theaters for an extended period of time and the rise of popular streaming services has had major effects on the movie-going experience.
“Movie theaters in general took a huge hit when COVID-19 happened. And so now there is this strategy to make movies more of an event, that way there’s something more novel to go see them because today you can just stream everything and why not wait until it’s on streaming? So there’s more of an emphasis to make things an event. And that’s exactly what Taylor Swift has done,” said Ams.
It is unclear how long the Drexel plans to show the film, but students should take advantage of the experience while they still can.
