As megastar Taylor Swift gets ready to wrap up her Eras global tour in Vancouver next weekend, capital-region residents lucky enough to have scored tickets for her three concerts at B.C. Place are gearing up for the big event.
With friendship-bracelet trading popular among Eras concertgoers, Swifties from teens to women in their thirties are hitting Victoria Bead Town Designs on Broad Street to pick up supplies, including sparkly crystal beads and ones with letters.
“Quite often it’s bright, vibrant colours,” said Susan Blackmore, who owns the store with sister Lorrie Mann. “Each bracelet is different.”
For those looking for outfits for the big event, Pocket Clothing Co. on Fort Street is displaying a collection of sparkly items — something Swift is known for.
Eras concert-goers often dress up in theme outfits, many mimicking clothing Swift wore to promote specific albums, or emblazoned with the musician’s popular sayings.
At Pocket Clothing Co., Swifties have been buying vintage and resale dresses for the concerts, said a staff member.
Katrina Tran of Esquimalt, who scored tickets for her and her teen daughter for three nights each after savvy online trading, admits she’s invested a lot of time in coming up with themed outfits.
“I may or may not have handmade three costumes for myself and my daughter for each night,” she said with a laugh.
On the first night, they’re wearing T-shirts with Swift sayings in block letters on the front. Her 14-year-old daughter Mirabel’s, for example, says: “Here’s to my mama,” while Tran’s says: “Had to listen to all this drama.”
For the second night, Tran found a black sequined dress for Mirabel at a thrift store and sewed on ribbons representing snakes, since Swift is known for wearing a gold snake-design bodysuit. Tran also found a second-hand blue velvet dress and covered it with star designs and rhinestones, which she’s wearing with a white faux fur.
Third-night outfits were a bigger job, modelled on long flowing dresses worn by Taylor to promote her Folklore and Evermore albums. “This is where all the energy went in really,” Tran said.
Her own second-hand Evermore dress was bleached and dyed and Tran went to a fabric store for custom additions.
Mirabel’s Folklore dress was one that dated from Tran’s high school days — she retrieved it from her parents’ basement and then made alterations.
Although Tran, who also has more than 180 friendship bracelets ready for Vancouver, said she saved money with her homemade creations, it took her “hours and hours and hours.”
Getting the tickets had proven to be equally time-consuming. Along with countless other Swifties, Tran tried but failed to buy tickets through Ticketmaster when they became available.
She then turned to social-media ticket sites, becoming adept at vetting offers, learning how to verify legitimate deals and dodge scams.
She started by posting on Reddit for tickets and also listening to every radio she could that was running contests for tickets. “I had a whole list of papers saying ‘listen to this radio station at this time, and this is what you need to answer.”
The radio stations didn’t pay off. But Tran heard via Reddit from someone in Toronto with three tickets in the upper level of B.C. Place in Vancouver who had decided against attending because of the cost of the trip. Tran bought them for $350 each and continued trading and occasionally spending some money over the past several months.
Some people bought tickets for concerts they couldn’t go to in order to trade for tickets in a preferred location, Tran said.
With a close eye on the bottom line, Tran eventually obtained enough tickets for her and Mirabel to attend the first two nights in Vancouver on Dec. 6 and 7, as well as the last night, Dec. 8, when they’ll be accompanied by her husband and a friend.
Destination Vancouver and PavCo have estimated the economic impact of the Vancouver concerts will reach $157 million, including 82,000 booked room nights and spending on food and beverage, retail and transportation.
Hotel rooms are becoming scarce in Vancouver, and many of those left are going for $1,000-plus for one night, with some surpassing $2,000 and $3,000.
Both Hullo Ferries, which offers walk-on passenger only service between downtown Nanaimo and downtown Vancouver, and B.C. Ferries are putting on extra sailings for the Dec. 6 weekend, when the Swift concerts coincide with Vancouver Canucks games and Cirque du Soleil. Swift’s concerts start at 7 p.m. and last at least three hours.
B.C. Ferries has two sailings from Vancouver to Nanaimo after each of the three concerts, leaving at midnight and at 12:30 a.m.
Between Swartz Bay and Tsawwassen, there will also be extra sailings on Dec. 6 at 5 p.m. and 11 p.m.
On Dec. 8, an extra late-night sailing has been added from Tsawwassen to Swartz Bay at 1 a.m.
The ferry company is urging passengers to plan ahead as much as possible because demand is expected to be high that weekend.
Extra transit buses have been scheduled to co-ordinate with the extra sailings.
For details on the additional BC Ferries sailings, visit bcferries.com. For details on TransLink’s extra service in the Lower Mainland, visit translink.ca/schedules-and-maps/service-changes.
