The Swifties Are Invading Europe
Collage: Channing Smith; Photos: Getty Images
Chelsea Nicholson had daydreamed about going to France, but before this week she had never left the US. When she describes how her bucket-list trip—a multiday jaunt through Paris with stops in Lyon, Giverny, Versaille, and Normandy— came to fruition, it feels appropriate for her to do so using Taylor Swift lyrics.
“What if I told you none of it was accidental, and that Lyon chose me?” she tells me over email.
Nicholson, who lives in Green Bay, Wisconsin, has already seen the Eras Tour (in Chicago last June), but as a lifelong Swiftie (she even has a lyric tattooed on her biceps) she was dying to see it again, describing the show as a “life-changing” experience that’s carried her through the last several months.
“When the second leg of her tour was announced, I knew I needed to get that feeling back, so I signed up for all three US locations, as well as Paris and Lyon,” she says. “At the time, signing up for the France shows was more for fun than anything, just to see if I would actually get picked.” After enduring the grueling Ticketmaster debacle that faced fans seeking tickets for the US legs, Nicholson thought her chances were small. But to her surprise, she was able to get tickets for the show in Lyon, a medium-size city in France’s Rhône region. It was the sign she needed to finally take the plunge and book what she calls her Wildest Dreams vacation to celebrate her 40th birthday.
Fine people of Europe, gird your loins and get your “Blank Space” ready. After spending most of 2023 galloping through the US, the American Swifties are now conquering Europe. Like an invading army landing on the continent’s shores, the fandom is rolling from town to town in country after country in a blaze of glitter, friendship bracelets, and red lipstick. Their goal? Following Swift around the globe and catching the Eras Tour, which boasts a newly updated Tortured Poets Department–infused set list for the international Taylor’s Version. Like Nicholson, some Swifties heading abroad have never left the US before. Some aimed for a certain country to visit when plotting their Eras-cation, and other picked their destination based on whatever show they got tickets for. Parents are bringing their kids on lavish Swiftie-centered European extravaganzas; daughters are bringing their mothers on a bonding trip of a lifetime. One Vanity Fair staffer even tells me she incorporated the show into her honeymoon in Scotland. A Glamour contributor saw the show for the second time in Paris.
The reasons why Swifties are choosing to see the show abroad vary. Many swear that even with the round-trip flights to Europe and the hotel accommodations, attending Eras across the pond is cheaper than securing one of the highly coveted US tour tickets, so it made economic sense. And for those who lost the Hunger Games–esque Ticketmaster lottery to see Swift stateside, the renewed chance was too good to pass up.
“I lived vicariously watching friends attend [Eras] and quite literally cried because I thought I was not going to be able to see her live,” Sanna Root, a 50-year-old Swiftie from Florida, tells me. “When tickets were on sale for the new dates in the US, I tried again to get a code and was waitlisted. I did the same for Europe and we were able to get tickets to the concert in Lyon.”
For Root, it felt like kismet.
“Visiting France was one of the destinations my family wanted to visit, so I used Taylor’s concert as an additional excuse to plan our summer vacation,” she says. “I figured, what better? A European vacation with a purpose.” She took her 21- and 18-year-old stepdaughters, or as she refers to them, bonus daughters, with her to the show, and the trio is then heading to to Paris and Burgundy.
Others have already seen the show and want to go back for more. Kristin Luna, a 41-year-old Swiftie from Nashville, has seen the concert twice, but when she realized the Lyon date aligned with her already planned vacation to see the Roland Garros tennis tournament in France with her mother, she jumped on it.
“In the end, within 20 minutes of the sale starting, I had two floor tickets with VIP access that cost us much less than a single resale ticket for nosebleeds would have in the US,” she says, noting that this concert will be even more special with her mom as her date.
“My 74-year-old mom not only introduced me to Taylor 17 years ago but also sparked my love for travel as a child,” she says. “I would love to take one of my five nieces.. They’re all incredibly jealous of our trip. But my mom has always done so much for me and given me the world that it’s fitting I get to take her on this experience.”
And just as in America, local business owners and travel companies are taking notice of all the friendship-bracelet-clad masses on their shores—and seeing dollar signs. After Swift single-handedly helped raise the economic profile of cities she stopped at in the US, generating an estimated $10 billion of revenue, everyone wants in on the gold rush. Especially because, let’s face it, some of the first-time travelers from the US may need a little help.
“A lot of the Americans who are coming could not point out Lyon on a map,” Caroline Conner Fazeli, an expat from California who now lives in the French city, tells me. “They’ve never heard of it. They don’t know anything about it. They’re coming here because it’s where they were able to get tickets. And I want them to at least experience a little bit of it because it’s such a wonderful place and it’s so off the radar.”
Fazeli, who has lived abroad for more than a decade, has her own business hosting wine tours in Lyon, as well as running an Instagram account dedicated to wine and travel. When she realized Swift was coming to her corner of France, she sensed it would be big.
“It’s just an unmissable opportunity,” she says. “I was thinking, What am I going to do? It would just be so stupid if I didn’t do anything, when I have this huge opportunity to really raise up the numbers of my business.”
Fazeli ended up throwing two pre-parties featuring a drag brunch and transportation to the shows on June 2 and 3, the dates Swift played in Lyon.
“I'm definitely going to sell out 200 spots per brunch,” Fazeli tells me. “And we’re working with Lyon’s best drag queens, which is pretty cool.”
She also threw a garden blowout at a French chateau on June 4, just for fun.
“I was like, Why don’t we throw a castle party for the Swifties? Because Swifties are crazy and they want to do all this fun stuff,” she says.
It’s not just local businesses—travel companies as big as Marriott are jumping aboard the Swiftie-cation train. A spokesperson for Marriott Bonvoy tells me the hotel chain is going all in on Eras, for which it is a touring sponsor in select cities. The brand is not only offering packages members can redeem via points to see Swift both stateside and abroad in places like Stockholm, Madrid, and Vancouver, but also offering various sweepstakes, like their newly launched Mobile Check In sweepstakes, for fans to be automatically entered for the chance to see Swift in Indianapolis.
“My dad was on the Marriott Bonvoy Moments website every Wednesday trying to get one of the Moments packages in any city,” Alex O’Conner, tells me. “He finally got one in Stockholm and gave it to me in a gift bag on my birthday."
And Contiki, a company that plans group trips for young adult travelers, launched a whole Taylor-themed tour to coincide with Eras Tour’s European dates. They can’t get you tickets, one of the company’s “Swiftie tour managers,” Ruby Stevens, tells me, but are providing everything else you could possibly need.
“One thing we tried to do is leverage the destination she talks about in her songs,” she says. “So for instance, in London, the trip managers will be able to share destinations that she mentions in the song, what to go see, Camden Market, all of that stuff.”
Fazeli also established herself as a sort of tour guide for Americans before the concert in Lyon, starting a Facebook group for the concert that ballooned to more than 17,000 members. In it she shared tips like how to get to the show, where to stay, and advice such as “A little ‘bonjour’ goes a long way.” She’s also been coaxing Swifties to drop some of their Yankee tendencies. Like, guys, you really don’t need a car.
“People are like, ‘Oh, how do we drive in Lyon?’” she says. “I’m like, ‘Ugh. Chill, breathe, eat, and enjoy your time here.’”
As is common in Swift-themed online spaces, the group soon morphed from logistics and questions to the collective sharing of emotions and excitement about the experience. Fanatics are nearly universally emotionally invested in both Swift and her music, and for many, the chance to embark on such a big excursion is extra special because it’s tied to her.
Some have planned their trips to honor loved ones. One member of Fazeli’s group, Rosell Novelliere, traveled with her brother Alex, himself a mega-Swiftie, to the June 2 concert as a tribute to their mother, who died last year. They brought along Rosell’s husband and two young children, as well as some family friends, to the show.
Rosell tells me that none of the family members were able to purchase tickets in the US, so her brother went on the hunt to get a ticket for an international show.
“My mom, her nurse, my brother, and I all laughed at the lengths he was going to,” she says.
After their mother passed away last summer, it all came together. Rosell was able to snag tickets on what would have been their mom’s 63rd birthday.
“This trip is a way to honor our mother and to say goodbye to her,” the siblings tell me. “We know that it will be a very emotional trip, but we are hoping to make a memorable one that will bring some healing.”
Nicholson put it simply when asked what the trip meant to her. “Le monde entier. ‘The whole world.’ Seriously, pinch me because I must be dreaming,” she says.
Originally Appeared on Glamour
