Vancouver's Taylor Swift era is about to end.
With the final show of the record-breaking Eras Tour taking place Dec. 8, 2024, Vancouver has been the centre of the universe for Swifties around the world for the last few days.
And it'll have a lasting impact on the city; around $97 million of direct spending in Vancouver is expected due to the shows.
The 34-year-old pop star has been to Vancouver a few times before, starting with shows more than a decade ago at Rogers Arena as part of the Red Tour. She's even played BC Place a couple of times before.
Despite her popularity, she's unlikely to set the record for most fans in BC Place for a show; Ed Sheeran's small stage allowed more than 65,000 to fit into the stadium last year.
However, Swift is likely to have the most fans in BC Place during one tour, given there haven't been other shows that filled BC Place three times.
In the future there may be a new fact to add to this list, as a camera crew was spotted during the weekend on stage with Swift during her show, which means official concert footage from Vancouver could show up in the future.
1. The Betty video
Victoria is, famously, not Vancouver. However, the province's capital is part of this because a neighbourhood street was used for one of Swift's lyric videos.
"Betty" was a single off of Folklore, one of Swift's 2020 albums.
While an official music video wasn't released, a simple lyric video was. The video shows the lyrics and a sidewalk between a street and a soccer field.
It might make more sense for that location to be somewhere from Swift's past, but it's actually just a ferry ride away from Vancouver in Fairfield, a neighbourhood of Victoria.
The clip is a piece of stock footage that's been slowed down with a filter put on it. It's only 33 seconds long, so it looks in the lyric video.
2. The average ticket price for the Eras Tour in Vancouver wasn't the highest
While the tour is ending here, and ticket prices are epic, Vancouver appears to sit second when it comes to what the average fan spent.
The Indianapolis shows, at the Lucas Oil Stadium, cost fans an average of $3,071, USA Today reports. They were the last ones in the USA.
Vancouver's tickets, as of the week before the show, were averaging $2,952. That number could shift, though, as last-minute tickets are sold right before the shows. Also, last-minute tickets were dropped. Originally costing $17, they jumped to upwards of $5,000.
3. Up to 40 per cent of the fans came from outside of Canada
Canada's borders were busy with Swifties the last few days, as an estimated 40 per cent of attendees were coming from outside of Canada, according to Destination Vancouver.
With somewhere around 180,000 ticketholders at the shows, that would be about 72,000 international fans.
StubHub, the ticket reseller, says fans from at least 49 countries are coming to the show.
4. She was quoted during a Canucks hockey game by John Shorthouse
John Shorthouse is an absolute legend to Canucks fans. The longtime broadcaster has been the voice describing many of the team's biggest moments over the last couple of decades, either on the radio or on the TV.
As a 54-year-old hockey broadcaster, he caught some people by surprise when (in the middle of a 2020 game against the Edmonton Oilers) he quoted "willow" from Folklore.
"In the words of Taylor Swift," Shorthouse said. "The more you say, the less I know."
And then he went back to doing the play-by-play.
5. For the first time, Vancouver's steam clock has changed its tune
It may not be news that the Gastown steam clock is playing a Taylor Swift tune.
However, not only is this the first time it's played a pop song, but it's the first time it's played anything other than the "Westminster Chime Melody."
For over 45 years, the same tune played on the clock's whistles, but that changed on Dec. 5, 2024.
Whether it will play anything else is an unknown.
