Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (2023)

October 25, 2023 5:41 PM

Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour is a 2023 American concert film produced by singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. Directed by Sam Wrench, the film documents the Eras Tour, Swift's 2023–2024 concert tour in support of her discography.

Filming occurred in August 2023 at three shows at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, on a budget of $10–20 million and with SAG-AFTRA permitting the production to proceed amidst its 2023 strike.

posted by edencosmic (22 comments total)

I was a pretty late Swiftie -- I really only got into her during her pandemic albums and came around her her earlier stuff.

But wow, this was an experience. I am someone who generally gets bored about 90 minutes into something, but I was enthralled during this entire thing. The 2.5 hours went by like nothing for me.

It's an imperfect concert movie. If you pay attention, some of the edits are obvious, but it's also such a good time! I was more impressed with this than expected to be. I don't know if it will convert anyone but it's an incredibly entertaining concert movie.
posted by edencosmic at 5:45 PM on October 25, 2023 [3 favorites]

I got into Taylor when 1989 released and we were fortunate to get tickets to that tour for a reasonable ~$300 all told, and at a venue only a 10-minute drive from us, too! We then caught her when she played the 2016 Formula 1 USGP.

Nowadays I think we’re priced out of her tours, and certainly not looking forward to the headache of attending one, so this was a perfect fit. It really captured the energy, complete with the group of 10yos immediately to my left who stood the entire time and sang their hearts out, every word. Their chaperone kept gesturing at them to give me space but I was loving the vibe. They were living their best lives and I was there for it 100%.

Good show.
posted by potent_cyprus at 6:02 PM on October 25, 2023 [6 favorites]

Our showing was a second-week show on a Sunday and we definitely had some teens and preteens that were having a blast but it also felt like everyone there just wanted everyone to have the experience they wanted. If you want to get up and dance and sing along, you could! If you just wanted to sit and experience it in your own way, that was cool too!

I've often talked about how the metal shows I've been to have been more about everyone having a communal experience. Everyone is supposed to have a good time and everyone around you is going to make sure that happens! That's vastly different than a lot indie rock shows I've been to where everyone is just about making sure they're having fun with disregard to everyone else.

I'm definitely into the idea that a Taylor Swift show is much more like a metal show. In a lot of weird ways, I think she'd agree.
posted by edencosmic at 6:12 PM on October 25, 2023 [7 favorites]

Anyone know what the plans are (if any) to bring this to streaming? I’d love to see this, but going to a theater just isn’t gonna happen.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:29 AM on October 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

Swift's original agreement with theaters stated that she is free to sell the film to streamers after 13 weeks, which puts the earliest possible date it could show up for streaming at January 12th. No streamer has announced plans to take her up on that yet, but I'm sure her people are watching the box office numbers and talking to streaming companies behind the scenes. Hell, at this point I wouldn't be surprised if she just sets up streaming it directly from her.

Btw, Hollywood Reporter had an interesting piece looking at what worked well (I mean, its huge) and what didn't work so well (adding a last-minute Thursday night showing, which pissed off fans who'd bought opening night tix for Friday and wanted to be first to see it, and also pissed off theaters who had less than 2 days to adjust their schedules and ramp up staffing). It's a good read.
posted by mediareport at 6:41 AM on October 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

Great article, mediareport (eponysterical!), thanks for sharing. I had been wondering if the total box office gross seemed a little low considering how well the tour sold, so it was interesting to see the ways they may have left money on the table.

I attended the concert in NJ in May and bought a group of tickets to the movie for opening night (the REAL opening night, Friday) the second they went on sale. I actually bought too many and it was a bummer for me I couldn't return some! The theater at 8pm was mostly full, with groups of teens and kids singing and dancing, dressed to the nines, even sharing bracelets. My group of 14, which included my 4yo daughter, had a great time.

I feel confident it'll be on streaming ASAP after the theatrical release is done! And I have a hard time believing it's gonna play in theatres the whole 13 weeks.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 8:12 AM on October 26, 2023 [3 favorites]

Yeah, I'm not sure how much of the "left money on the table" stuff is coming from whiny studios who swear they could have done it better, but I think there's at least a bit of a case there. And we'll see about the theatrical release duration, but we are coming up on the holidays, when lots of young people will have time on their hands, so who knows how long AMC and other theaters will decide to keep it up. They had to commit to at least 4 weeks of weekend showings.
posted by mediareport at 9:40 AM on October 26, 2023

I assume the grosses in the article does not include the sales of the branded merchandise (AMC had totes, glow sticks, popcorn buckets and cups; other chains had similar items), which would surely make up the difference if not blow it out of the water.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 9:44 AM on October 26, 2023

The last two movies I've seen in the theaters have been Barbie and the Swift concert; I now only want to go in-person for an event! The gauntlet has been thrown, movie industry!
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 9:46 AM on October 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

Dan Murrell : My Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour Experience!
posted by Pendragon at 11:53 AM on October 26, 2023

I think Taylor is a really talented songwriter and producer, and while I was curious about The Eras Tour, I didn’t have the money to go. This seemed like a good opportunity to see the tour, and as an experience it was a lot of fun. I wish the film had been better. I kept thinking about Wesley Morris’s comment about Sam Wrench being “unclear whether he’s making a movie or a salad.” The editing was a bit dizzying and the shots of the fans felt like they were dropped in when he didn’t have a good shot of Taylor, and I wished they’d either taken a bit more time with this or splashed out for a better director. (I’m not thinking about an auteur, but honestly: it would be fun to see what Sofía Coppola would do with a TSwift concert movie.) It’s a nice souvenir for fans and for people who couldn’t make it, but I wish it was a better movie.

I attended a Sunday matinee with no fewer than three birthday parties for grade school-aged kids, who danced in front of the screen. There was some of the call-and-response chants and the flashlights during (I think?) “Cardigan,” which was a lot of fun.
posted by pxe2000 at 12:26 PM on October 26, 2023 [4 favorites]

I just saw this today, mostly to see what my adult daughters and nieces were all excited about. I truly had not realized just how many songs and phrases from her songs seem to have entered general lexicon..."it's me; I'm the problem"; "You play stupid games, you win stupid prizes". And all of Antihero and You're On You're Own, Kid just resonate with me.

I'm doing a YouTube dive tomorrow for covers by other artists as I really want to hear some of her angrier/more cutting songs done with a stronger voice.

And her costume and shoe changes must have been logistically extraordinary! I did appreciate how she started out in heels, was in flats mid-way through, then ended back in slightly more stable high heels for the end.

And while her hair has a lovely wavy mind of its own, her make up held up beautifully given the limited time to refresh it over three hours of constantly being on stage.
posted by beaning at 4:31 PM on October 26, 2023 [2 favorites]

I was speaking with an acquaintance yesterday, who went to an opening-day showing with her middle-school-age daughter. She loved both the movie as well as the audience. Her description really brought home the atmosphere of community and shared-experience throughout the audience. They both had a great time.

The two of them had gone to an actual Eras concert earlier in the year, so they kind of knew what to expect from the show. Seeing it all up-close, though, was like a whole new experience.

As an aside, she showed me some video she shot with her phone at the Eras concert. It was one of the shows Swift did down in Nashville (not the rain one). I’ve never been to a stadium concert, and it looked insane and great fun. What they did with the wrist bands on the audience was a pretty simple, and damned impressive, bit of community-building.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:13 AM on October 27, 2023

It’s a nice souvenir for fans and for people who couldn’t make it, but I wish it was a better movie.

I agree as a non-Swiftie. I know it was her album sequencing, but it got kinda boring towards the end, the sets were nice but not amazing, and the audience seemed pretty sedate, so the fans shots were just kind of there. There was no shot of the entire place bouncing or anything for example.

I personally was pretty impressed that she actually sings (hence the walking, sitting, and lack of wild dancing for herself) and that the sets were fairly simple, and that she went on for so long - she's really all about the songs. I find that refreshing for her level of fame.


The light things in the audience were wristband things that changed color on their own.

I wouldn't say it was the best concert video I've ever seen, but I'm not mad about the ticket prices. The souvenir cups we got were kinda ugly. Maybe I'm mad about that. Nah.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:04 AM on October 27, 2023

The tour merch in general was pretty ugly. Definitely surprised she doesn't hire somebody with better vision on that!
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 9:03 PM on October 29, 2023 [3 favorites]

I took my husband to it on Saturday of opening weekend, and it was full of girls and women of all ages screaming their hearts out, and an all-age dance party at the front of the theater for most of the show. I thought it was fantastic and fun, and a great alternative to actually going to the show. As my husband said, "It'd be awesome if we could get reclining seats at concerts". Some of the editing was meh, and I'd love to see some of the backstage/behind the scenes, or choreography rehearsals leading up to it. But, I also think that's a different movie altogether. I am really looking forward to the Beyonce Renaissance movie as well, it'll be interesting to compare the two.
posted by Sparky Buttons at 8:02 PM on October 30, 2023

My wife and I went last Sunday, and I was familiar with more of the songs than I thought I would be. What was weird to me:

The pacing of the show — I know there needed to be some time for set changes, but I'm not accustomed to that much downtime.

There were a lot of references to THIS IS THE ERAS TOUR YOU GUYS! too. The sincerity was surprising to me.

The song order — I don't really know which of her songs is considered to be THE song right now, but the set did not build to an amazing finale in my opinion.

She's just so damn charming and self-effacing all the time that it was all forgivable.

I thought there would be more people in the theater when we saw it, but there were only about 10 people including us. I was definitely the only guy in there, but the ticket-taker who assured me I'd enjoy it wasn't wrong.
posted by emelenjr at 8:51 AM on November 1, 2023

The moment that blew my mind when I saw the concert in Santa Clara this summer, and did as well in the movie, is when she gets to the 1989 era and knocks off one mega hit after another AT THE THREE HOUR MARK OF THE SHOW, and it’s not like the setlist to that point had been deep cuts from the vault. Just an insane level of output for someone her age.
posted by dry white toast at 10:31 PM on November 2, 2023

The thing that hit me when I saw the setlist for this show was that given the show's structure, the ending era being Midnights meant that this was a well-established artist closing their show with a bunch of music from the new album, which is kind of a bold move. To continue the thread of comparing the Eras tour to metal shows, I saw Metallica in 1998, also 17 years into their career, and they ended the show with Enter Sandman and Creeping Death, not (thankfully) six songs from Reload.

I thought it was a serviceable film of a really well produced mega concert. Had a great time! My mother, almost 80, saw this a couple of weeks ago, knowing nothing about her and really enjoyed it too.
posted by Superilla at 9:28 PM on November 4, 2023

Eras Tour film available on streaming December 13th - rent on demand on various services
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 8:29 AM on November 27, 2023

Just streamed it online and… it reduced my swift eras ticket fomo by like 75%. Maybe because the spectacle was lacking, the dancers under utilized, those clouds on push carts (!!). I watched it with three Swifties so I wasn’t alone but… I probably should have seen it in the theater. It just seemed to be missing something, maybe because I wanted to hear more of her chatting and being casual and connecting with the audience. I was left underwhelmed. I did like the staging of last great American dynasty and where she sings to the guy at the table… like if she had acted out more songs like mini music video / music theater then it would have been more satisfying. I say that as a medium level swiftie. Maybe it is about the community.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 5:50 PM on March 2

But what I will add is when she first came on stage… and just stood there… you could see she was taking it all in…. That all these people are here to see me. You could tell that she just doesn’t get used to it, or take it for granted.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 6:42 PM on March 2