For Taylor Swift, it's the end of the 'Eras'

Vancouver: Anyone with an ear tuned to the world of pop music knew the Eras Tour was going to be a big one.

It was Taylor Swift's first tour in almost five years, the longest gap of her career. And Swift, long the biggest star in pop music, had become even bigger, transcending the Top 40 to become a cultural phenomenon.

Now, almost two years later, Swift started the final show of the tour Sunday night in Vancouver, British Columbia, with her standard opener, Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Prince.

"It's a pretty cool night to be in Vancouver, huh?" she asked.

Meghan O'Keefe of Philadelphia was attending her fifth Eras show Sunday night. She paid only $15 for the tickets, but they came with a catch. No view. "They're behind the stage, but I am here," she said. "I totally didn't expect that." (She ended up being allowed to move to a full-view seat.)

The tour included extensive music, not just from Swift's most recent album, The Tortured Poets Department, but from her entire career, from the country of Fearless to the pop of 1989 and the indie pop of Folklore.

While the set list stayed fairly static, Swift added "surprise songs" every night; at Sunday's final concert they were A Place in This World, New Romantics, Long Live, New Year's Day and The Manuscript.

The first concert came in March 2023 in Glendale, Arizona, and it was even bigger than anyone imagined: 3 hours, 15 minutes without intermission and more than 40 songs.

Tickets vanished in seconds, then quickly popped up on the secondary market at 10 times the price. Fans who couldn't obtain or afford tickets came to the venues anyway, content to commune with others like them and sing along with the amplified music coming from inside.

And the excitement just kept building, with frenzied anticipation in every city, attendance records broken and vast economic impacts in regions and even entire countries.

Destination Vancouver, a tourism agency, estimated the concert series poured $157 million into the local economy.

"It's turned the city upside down," said Jarrett Vaughan, a business school professor at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. "For one person to have such a big impact, it's really unprecedented."

Dozens of downtown businesses jumped on the Swift bandwagon, advertising drink specials tied to the Eras tour. Overhead signs at the nearest transit station, Stadium-Chinatown, were temporarily styled in a Swift-inspired friendship bracelet font.

The Terry Fox Memorial in downtown Vancouver, which honors a college student who lost a leg to cancer and who ran halfway across the country with an artificial limb to raise money for cancer, was overshadowed by a towering tribute to Swift's album "Red." Fans lined up to pose for photos with the giant glowing red sign. Twelve similar pop-up installations took over scenic spots across the city.

A few blocks from the concert venue, BC Place, on Saturday night, the perimeter was barricaded with dump trucks and lots of police officers.

Sequin, fringe, fur, cowboy boots and flower crowns could be seen in every direction. A group of fans wearing matching pink tinsel arrived on a local water taxi. Some of the boats were outfitted with oversize friendship bracelets draped over the sides.

Outside a maze of pink tape where concertgoers waited to be let into the venue, a woman held a cardboard sign that said "I need a ticket." By 7 p.m., the spectacle was in full swing, as screaming fans could be heard more than a block away.

Melissa Pallin, 39, of Portland, Oregon, said she spent about $1,900 per ticket for a family of four but that it was worth it. Her family drove nine hours to celebrate her daughter's 16th birthday, which comes on Dec. 12, one day before Swift's.

Val Iddings, 43, of Rapid City, South Dakota, said her family has followed the Eras tour across several time zones, from her home state to Cheyenne, Wyoming, to Denver, and now Vancouver. Her daughter Kaylee, 18, attended her first Swift concert at age 2.

As much as the tour's success was expected, much happened over its course that could not have been anticipated.

Ticket snags led to lawmakers demanding that Ticketmaster clean up its act and even threatening to break the company up. The Justice Department opened an antitrust investigation and a Senate subcommittee held hearings.

Things changed during the tour.

When it began in March 2023, Swift was still in a six-year-long relationship with British actor Joe Alwyn. But a month later, reports began to circulate that the relationship was over.

NFL star Travis Kelce attended one of the Eras concerts but said he did not get a chance to give Swift a friendship bracelet with his phone number on it. Nevertheless, by the fall dating rumors were swirling and Swift began to attend Kansas City Chiefs games.

She popped up often enough that some football fans hyperbolized that she was being shown on TV more than the players. Swift and Kelce remain together.

In July 2023, she released Speak Now (Taylor's Version) and in August onstage in Inglewood, California, she announced 1989 (Taylor's Version), which was released in October.

In October 2023, some of the fans shut out by high ticket prices and sold-out concerts were able to see the film Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour, which Swift got into theaters through AMC, a theater company, rather than a movie studio. It grossed more than $250 million worldwide.

The Eras Tour got a shake-up in April 2024 when Swift released The Tortured Poets Department. When the tour resumed in May after a two-month break, she had added a new era.

In a darker twist, promoters in August canceled her three scheduled concerts in Vienna after two men were charged in connection with plotting a terrorist attack targeting the tour. Fans made the best of it, trading bracelets and gathering on Corneliusstrasse, an allusion to her song about New York City, Cornelia Street.

Even a presidential election was not untouched by Swiftmania. Swift, who in recent years has become more outspoken on political issues, endorsed Kamala Harris in September.

The list of celebrities attending the tour almost seemed to be longer than the list of those who did not.

A sampling of those at one or more shows: Bradley Cooper, Flavor Flav, Selena Gomez, Hugh Grant, Mindy Kaling, Alicia Keys, Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Lawrence, Simu Liu, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Katy Perry, Julia Roberts, Paul Rudd, Emma Stone, Sydney Sweeney, Justin Trudeau and Prince William.

In Vancouver on Saturday night, Kelly Rogers, 42, and Bac Walker, 32, said they hadn't planned to come to the show but they drove from Everett and Kent, Washington, after scoring tickets Thursday night.

They threw together last-minute costumes inspired by the Anti-Hero music video. They wore flowered sheets over their heads, along with heart-shaped sun glasses. "We didn't have time to put together something super cute," Rogers said, "so we decided to stay warm."