Tuesday 2 July 2024

Here's how much it cost this Swiftie to chase his idol across 4 countries and 10 shows

Daniel Jailani in his handmade Eras Tour outfits.
Daniel Jailani in his handmade Eras Tour outfits.
  • Armed with a credit card and a dream, Daniel Jailani set off to see the Eras Tour as many times as possible.
  • Going to 10 shows across four countries cost him $4,280 in tickets, flights, hotels, and outfits. 
  • He says it was an experience of a lifetime, one he would gladly repeat.

Daniel Jailani, a 24-year-old legal counsel from Singapore and a hardcore Taylor Swift fan, was laser-focused on catching as many of his idol's Eras Tour shows as possible.

Even if it meant using up almost all his paid time off, he traveled to Australia, France, and the United Kingdom to catch 10 of Swift's three-and-a-half-hour-long concerts.

Jailani said Swift is his favorite artist of all time. Growing up gay in a conservative Muslim family in Singapore, he said: "Her music transported me to a place where I was not stuck in my very difficult reality."

He added that he lived vicariously through Swift's music in his formative years.

"And at that point in time, her music was about high school and falling in love with boys, so that's how she allowed me to experience all that," he said.

In five months, Jailani has taken six flights, tailored eight concert outfits himself, and spent $4,279.76 to see the shows.

He said that the main motivation to see Swift across multiple nights was to catch her three surprise songs every night, which are not in her set list of 46 songs and are unique to each city.

He's not done yet and plans to attend one last show in London in August.

Here's what the whole experience cost him, according to receipts and invoices verified by Business Insider.

$2,242.22 for concert tickets

While some struggled with purchasing even a single ticket to see Swift, Jailani managed to snag 11 with the help of his friends, family, and strangers on TikTok.

He attended one night in Melbourne, all six nights in Singapore, two in Lyon, and one in London, with one more — Swift's August show at Wembley Stadium — left.

Jailani said securing the tickets was a team effort, with his family and friends helping him purchase additional tickets.

For example, one of his friends traded her extra Melbourne Eras Tour ticket for his spare Singapore Coldplay "Music of the Spheres" ticket.

$1,083.51 for flights

The fan chased Swift around the world, flying to three different countries from Singapore to see his idol. He purchased six flight tickets, return journeys from Singapore to Melbourne, Paris and London.

Daniel Jailani on the flight to the Eras Tour in Melbourne.
Daniel Jailani on a flight, traveling to the Eras Tour in Melbourne.

Jailani booked them all with deals on Singapore Airlines, the country's national carrier.

He has yet to book his last return flight to London for Swift's August show.

S$396.48 for hotels

Here's where Jailani saved big. Opting to bunk in with his friends and family in Lyon and London rather than in hotels or Airbnbs helped him save.

In Melbourne, however, he chose to stay in a serviced apartment just half a mile from the concert venue.

$230 on Eras Tour merch

He spent about $230 on official Eras Tour souvenirs, which included two t-shirts, one hoodie, and one crewneck sweater.

$328.55 for outfits

Jailani designed his own outfits for the concerts, inspired by eight of Swift's 11 albums, or eras.

Daniel's outfit moodboard.
Daniel's Midnights outfit mood board.

From a rhinestone-studded black pantsuit inspired by the Midnights album to a sweeping green cape for the Folklore album, he pieced all his outfits together by hand.

The materials used cost him $328.55, he said.

Swifties are shelling out big time for the Eras Tour

Jailani is not the only one willing to spend big bucks for the Eras Tour. A report by research company QuestionPro found that Swifties were spending $1,300 on average to attend the Eras Tour.

An earlier Business Insider story featured eight Swifties who spent between $300 and $20,000 to see the concert.

He also hasn't broken the record for most shows attended. According to Rolling Stone, a 27-year-old fan visited the Eras Tour 20 times across North America.

The Eras Tour is the first-ever concert tour to gross over $1 billion, and the QuestionPro report found that it could result in $4.6 billion in consumer spending in the US.

Swift is expected to boost the economies of countries in Europe in a similar way as her tour makes its way through the continent.

Hotel prices in Milan, ahead of her show in July, spiked by 45% on the nights of her concerts, compared to the weeks before and after the show, Italian tourism company Tourist Italy told Business Insider.

Portugal, Spain, and Sweden's hotel prices in May increased several times from their 2021 to 2023 average, according to a June report from BMI, an analytics subsidiary of Fitch Solutions.

The one European country that didn't seem to have benefited from Swiftonomics, however, was France, where hotel prices dropped, per the BMI report.

Swift still has 34 shows left in Europe and Canada, with the tour slated to end in December.

Read the original article on Business Insider


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