Taylor Swift And France Relationship Status: It's Complicated
The invasion of the Swifties begins as the mega-star performs 4 sold-out shows in Paris. But conquering French fans proved to be difficult.
Some fun Taylor Swift facts as she begins her conquest of Paris with 4 concerts:
Swift had a hard time winning over French fans. Her first Paris concert in 2011 for the “Speak Now Tour” drew 3,598 fans to the 8,500-seat Paris Zenith. She has not appeared on tour here since.
She had played shows outside of the U.S. on previous tours. But that was her first proper World Tour. While “Speak Now” — her third album — had a bit more pop and rock elements for mainstream audiences, she was still tagged as a Country singer. And Country just ain’t that big in France.
The following year, she released “Red,” an even more mainstream pop album that catapulted her into stadium shows in the U.S. for her next world tour. But Red sold poorly in France, and the country didn’t merit a stop between shows in the UK and Germany.
Swift’s breakthrough in France came in 2014 with the “1989” album and the single “Shake It Off.” But it wasn’t enough to book a show in France during the next world tour.
The subsequent “Reputation Tour” was shorter, and France again was passed over.
By 2019, Swift seemed ready to make amends with the French when she appeared on TF1's The Voice to promote her upcoming “Lover” album and the single "Me."
The video for "Me" imagines her in a French musical comedy set in a pastel-hued Paris laden with unicorns as she argues (in French!) with her husband about their kids (which of course are cats): Je suis calme!
That same year, Swift played a fans-only invite concert for 2,000 at the Olympia Theater in Paris to celebrate the release of “Lover.” The show was filmed and turned into a TV special in the US called “City of Lover.”
In an interview at the time with Le Parisien newspaper, Swift said France was a "priority." She knew how to win French hearts and minds: "I love the French language, I dream of speaking it fluently ... French is the language of love and it is the main theme of my next album."
Of course, the pandemic happened and Swift's subsequent European appearances were canceled. Though she made it clear that France was still on her mind with the song “Paris” on the 2022 “Midnights” album:
I'm so in love that I might stop breathing Drew a map on your bedroom ceiling No, I didn't see the news 'Cause we were somewhere else Stumbled down pretend alleyways Cheap wine, make believe it's champagne I was taken by the view Like we were in Paris Like we were somewhere else Like we were in Paris, oh We were somewhere else
Spotify reports that streams of Swift songs have grown 969% in France between 2018 and 2023. That includes 7 million hours of listening on the platform in France alone in 2024. “Anti-Hero” is her most popular song across Europe, but in France it was “Cruel Summer” in 2023.
The French still love them some “Shake It Off”: France is the only country where “Shake It Off” was the Swift title most added to Spotify playlists in 2023. It was dethroned in 2024 by “Cruel Summer” throughout Europe (France included).
Now that she’s finally back in person, her return also marks her first performance anywhere since the release of "The Tortured Poets Society” album. The event has become so big in Paris that there is talk that it may even overshadow the upcoming Olympics.
France Is Ready For It
Swift’s 4 Paris shows are at La Défense arena, with a capacity of 40,000 -- making it reportedly the smallest venue on the 2-year Eras Tour. Biggest so far: 96,000 in Melbourne. The arena is west of Paris in a massive office park.
By French standards, it’s still a massive scale. After Paris, she will play 2 shows at Lyon’s stadium which seats 60,000+. The original plan was 3 shows in Paris and 1 in Lyon, but demand was so intense that they added 2 more shows, according to the local promoter handling the French leg of the tour. The 260,000 tickets sold will make this one of the largest international tour performances by a female singer in French history. Madonna once played to a crowd of 130,000 at one show in a Paris park in 1987.
Demand for Swift Paris tix was so insane that it crashed the Ticketmaster system last year and had to be rescheduled.
Swift had originally considered the larger Stade de France in Paris which seats 80,000, but Olympic-related work made it unavailable. “We could have filled 12 or 14 La Défense Arenas without a problem, and we could have filled 2 or 3 more shows at Lyon,” tour promoter Arnaud Meersseman told France Inter.
As soon as tickets went on sale last year, American fans made a discovery: France’s strict scalping laws and pricing regulations meant that tickets for the Paris shows were far cheaper than in the U.S. Indeed, just this last week, the NY Post was agog at the resale price difference.
Enough so that American fans realized they could pay for a flight, hotel, and tickets in Paris for about the cost of just attending a U.S. show. So, they did.
According to the BFM Business channel, the economic impact of Swift’s shows in France is expected to be “spectacular.” About 30% of attendees are projected to come from outside of France. The number of American tourists in Paris this week is already 43.5% more than last week. La Défense management reports that 20% of the audience is coming from the United States.
New York-based luxury travel agency Embark Beyond projects that Swift's Paris concerts will draw five times as many high-spending American “luxury travelers” as the Olympics. With Olympic travel booking disappointing so far, will Swift have a bigger economic impact?
“I never would have anticipated it,” Embark co-founder Jack Ezon told Fortune. “Look at what Taylor did to the Super Bowl. She’s even overshadowing the Olympics.”
Update [May 28, 2024]:
Taylormania has come and gone, but the final numbers from her 4 shows are in. According to the management of La Défense Arena, the 4 shows attracted 180,000 fans to concerts that each stretched past 3 hours. As a bonus, these were the first to include an era focused on the new The Tortured Poets Department which meant the images caused an even bigger global sensation.
Chris O’Brien
Le Pecq
Great swiftie analysis! Did you manage to get tickets?