Taylor Swift Eras Tour: Star plays biggest ever crowd in Melbourne

Saturday, 17 February 2024

Taylor Swift at the MCG singing ‘you need to calm down’; advice which seemed to fall on deaf ears in the crowd.

Almost 100,000 excited Swifties saw Taylor Swift open the Australian leg of her Eras Tour in Melbourne
Swift herself said it was the biggest crowd she’d ever played
It’s the first time the global megastar has played in the country since 2018

Taylor Swift took to the stage in Australia for the biggest show of her career to date.

There’s been 600,000 tickets sold, months of excitement, and now her record-breaking Eras Tour has finally kicked off in Melbourne at the MCG.

Coming out to a huge reception from 96,000 fans, the US pop icon seemed emotional when she announced that it was the biggest show she’d ever done.

“I have to be honest with you about something; if I seem a bit like I’m losing my mind, it’s about the fact that there are 96,000 people here tonight – it’s true.

“This is the biggest show we’ve done on this tour or any tour. So that’s the version you get of me tonight; the version of me that’s completely starstruck that you wanted to hang out with me on a Friday night in Melbourne.

“We’re going on an 18-year journey one era at a time.

“My name is Taylor Swift, thank you for joining us on the Eras tour.”

Despite packing vast sporting areas to the rafters with Swifties in the States, the opening night of her Aussie tour has smashed records, with the Mail Online reporting that Swift has never performed to a crowd larger than 74,000.

Swift has joined an illustrious club – artists who had played to their biggest ever crowds at the MCG – including Billy Joel in 2022 and Ed Sheeran, who crammed in 109,500 for his show in 2023.

Putting on a typical high-energy performance, she gave the crowds her 2008 hit Love Story from Fearless, and fans are reporting hearing it from nearby suburbs.

“I can hear the ecstatic crowd of Swifties from the MCG here at my flat in Fitzroy – here’s a toast to sheer unadulterated joy!” Richard Watts wrote on social media platform X.

And Ticketless Swifties are not going to let a little thing like a ticket stop them from having the time of their lives.

As well as the crowds inside the venue, huge numbers also stood outside the grounds, despite not having secured tickets, in a bid to hear the epic run of songs – joining hands and swinging each other around while singing along to Fearless.

Swifties sing along and dance outside the MCG during Taylor Swift’s first Melbourne show

Fans had been eagerly waiting for Taylor to take to the stage in her first Australian tour since 2018, and flocked to the venue early amid the Swiftie mania.

Thousands of “Taylor-gators” swarmed the arena two hours before the show's start time of 6.30pm in an attempt to avoid the long lines to get in.

A huge number of fans without tickets also descended on the MCG to soak up the atmosphere.

Earlier, tour organisers admitted they were concerned about the 15,000 ticketless fans who were estimated to arrive at the sold-out shows.

It has been a hectic few weeks for the 2023 Time Person of the Year, who in the days immediately before the Super Bowl performed four blockbuster shows in Tokyo.

The 34-year-old superstar arrived in Australia only days after she watched her NFL player boyfriend Travis Kelce, also 34, win the Super Bowl with the Kansas City Chiefs in Las Vegas.

Just before the gig in Melbourne began, Swift donated $US100,000 (NZ$163,000) to the family of Lisa Lopez-Galvan, the woman who was killed in a mass shooting at the end of the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl parade earlier this week.