The 1989 World Tour


The 1989 World Tour was the fourth concert tour by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift, in support of her fifth studio album, 1989. The tour's European and North American dates, as well as two shows in Japan, were announced in November 2014, followed by the Oceania dates in December 2014. Additional dates for Singapore and Shanghai were announced in June 2015 with a third and final Melbourne show announced in July that year. The tour began on May 5, 2015, in Tokyo, Japan, and concluded on December 12, 2015, in Melbourne, Australia, the day before Swift's 26th birthday.
It became Swift's highest grossing and most attended tour to that point, selling 2,278,647 tickets and grossing $250,733,097, also becoming the most successful tour of that year. Like Swift’s other tours, The 1989 World Tour was critically acclaimed and received much praise for Swift's stage presence and connection with the audience.
On her birthday, December 13, 2015, Swift announced that she had partnered with Apple Music to release a concert film entitled The 1989 World Tour Live on December 20. It was filmed at ANZ Stadium in Sydney, Australia on November 28 that year with 75,980 attendees.

Background and development

The tour was announced via Swift's Twitter account on November 3, 2014 in which she said: "#The1989WorldTour is happening!" before giving a link to her website where fans could find out the list of dates. It was also revealed that Vance Joy would be joining Swift on tour, and that tickets would go sale on for North American fans on November 14.
In an interview with Time magazine, Swift said that "the setlist will be predominantly songs from 1989. I have so many things I've been dreaming up for this. If you look at the makeup of my previous music, as far as production elements go, there are a lot of live drums, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and live bass. And if you look at the landscape of 1989, it's mostly synths and automated drums and these kind of big epic synth pad sounds, and key bass, and layered vocals. I have a very big band, there are, what, 14 of us, so what you’re going to end up with is more of a live feel in that it's going to be filled in and more dramatic with more layers to it, but never to the point where it's going to feel noisy or overcrowded."
Swift, as always, was heavily involved in the tour's planning and production design. She acknowledged the challenge of playing in stadiums, expressing her goal for "those people in the very top row feel like they got an intimate, personal experience." The following month in an interview with KIIS-FM, she revealed that she knew what the stage would look like, as well as knowing that "all the fans seem to be saying that they really don't want any song left off the setlist".
The tour took seven months to plan before three months of music rehearsals, four weeks of stage rehearsals and ten days of two-a-days dress rehearsals. It traveled with 26 semi-trailer trucks and 11 buses carrying 146 people from city to city. Additionally, about 125–150 people were hired in each city to help with the load in and stage setup. The entire load in and stage setup process took between 6 and 8 hours for arenas, with stadiums requiring an additional day. Many of the traveling crew members had worked on Swift's tours since the Fearless era. Swift chose two designs for the trucks' vinyl wrap; 13 carry one design and 13 have the other. Concertgoers were also given light-up bracelets that could be programmed to change color throughout the show, a practice that was also later implemented in Swift's Reputation Stadium Tour.

Commercial reception

Ticket sales

Pre-sales for European shows started on November 4, public on-sale for this leg started on November 7, tickets for London were sold later on November 10. First round of pre-sales on select North American shows started on November 7 and general sales for fans in North America started from November 14, 2014; Australia started from December 12, 2014; Japan started from December 13, 2014; Singapore and Shanghai started from June 30, 2015. Swift was the sixth most-searched artist on Ticketmaster in 2014.
Sellout status occurred in many cities when general sales for the tour started. Swift announced nine extra dates as well as a new show in Houston for North American leg. Los Angeles had the most extra dates with three shows at Staples Center. Dates were added in East Rutherford, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, St. Paul and Santa Clara. In St. Louis, Swift was originally scheduled to perform on October 13 and 14, 2015, but after adding Houston to the schedule, one of the St. Louis shows was dropped and the other was rescheduled to September 28, 2015, with tickets going on sale on January 30, 2015. However, tickets for the St. Louis show was sold out within minutes, resulting in a second date being added there on September 29 at the same venue. Due to massive demand, Swift also added more dates to the European leg, one for Cologne and one for Dublin. In Dublin, tickets for both concert sold out within 55 minutes although the second show was just added after six minutes when the first show was sold out.
In Australia, over 30,000 tickets for the first show in Melbourne were sold out in less than an hour. Soon after, Swift announced extra dates for Melbourne and for Adelaide. Due to popular demand, in July 2015, Swift added a third Melbourne show after the first two shows were sold out and became the first female artist to play three shows at AAMI Park.
In January 2015, Forbes reported that The 1989 World Tour was one of the most expensive concert tours of 2015 on the secondary market, just behind Fleetwood Mac's On with the Show and Maroon 5's V Tour. In the U.S., the average ticket price was $380 according to TiqIQ, and the cheapest date was the show at the Fargodome on October 12, where the average ticket price was $182.95 with a get-in of $79. The show on June 29, 2015 in Dublin was the most expensive European date, where the average ticket price was $285, with a get-in price of $198. The Sydney show has the cheapest get-in price for Taylor Swift tickets in Australia at $130 Australian. The most expensive show is the final concert in Melbourne – Saturday, December 12, 2015 – with a get-in price of $249 Australian. In total, The Red Tour tickets averaged $176 across all tour stops, whereas the 1989 World Tour averaged at about $392 per concert, a 123% increase. Tickets for the 1989 World Tour were the most expensive ever for Taylor Swift.

Boxscore

Swift's five shows from the North American run generated a total of US$16.8 million from 149,708 ticket sales. It topped the Billboard Hot Tours chart for the second week, earning $15.2 million with a total of 129,962 tickets sold from three shows in Charlotte and Philadelphia. As of August 1, 2015, the tour had grossed US$86.2 million, at 20 performances in the U.S. and Canada with 771,460 tickets sold at seven arenas and nine stadiums. On September 9, the magazine reported that the tour had grossed over US$130 million, with 1.1 million tickets sold, and stated it could become Swift's highest-grossing tour. The 1989 World Tour officially surpassed The Red Tour in October 2015 when Billboard reported that the tour grossed over US$173 million, the tour also returned to No. 1 on Billboard's Hot Tours recap, Swift's sixth turn in 2015 atop the weekly tally of highest-grossing touring artists thanks to ticket sales totaling $13.6 million from the shows in Toronto, St. Louis and Des Moines.
According to Billboard, after finishing the North American leg in Tampa, the tour had grossed more than US$217 million with 71 shows, surpassing One Direction's On the Road Again Tour and became the highest-grossing Pop tour in 2015. Swift's 2 shows at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey ranked at number 8 on the list "Top 25 Boxscores", the tour also had other 6 positions on this list, including the shows in Santa Clara, Foxborough, Philadelphia, Chicago, Tokyo and Washington, D.C.
After concluding in Melbourne, the tour grossed over US$250 million and became the highest-grossing tour in 2015, was top on "2015 Year-End Top 20 Worldwide Tours", "2015 Year-End Top 100 Worldwide Tours", "2015 Year-End Top 200 North American Tours" of Pollstar. Specially, The 1989 World Tour grossed over US $199.4 million in North America alone, breaking the previous all-time high of $162 million set by The Rolling Stones in 2005, Swift became the first female artist in music history to do so. Swift's record-setting year also gives her three notches in the list of the 25 highest-grossing North American tours, the most ever for a woman but third all time.
Two shows in Tokyo's Tokyo Dome ranked at number 9 on the list "2015 Year-End Top 100 International Boxoffice" of Pollstar, appearing on this list along with 2 shows in Tokyo were the shows in Melbourne, Sydney, Shanghai and Brisbane. The 1989 World Tour also had 24 position on another list of Pollstar – "2015 Year-End Top 200 Concert Grossed " – with the highest position of the tour which ranked at number 5 was 2 shows at MetLife Stadium, East Rutherford and the lowest position was 2 shows at Pepsi Center in Denver which ranked at number 160.

Set list

This set list is representative of the show on May 5, 2015, in Tokyo. It is not representative of all concerts for the duration of the tour.
  1. "Welcome to New York"
  2. "New Romantics"
  3. "Blank Space"
  4. "I Knew You Were Trouble"
  5. "I Wish You Would"
  6. " How You Get the Girl"
  7. "I Know Places"
  8. "All You Had to Do Was Stay"
  9. "You Are in Love"
  10. "Clean"
  11. "Love Story"
  12. "Style"
  13. "This Love"
  14. "Bad Blood"
  15. "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together"
  16. "Enchanted" / "Wildest Dreams"
  17. "Out of the Woods"
;Encore
  2. "Shake It Off"

    Concert film

The 1989 World Tour Live is a concert film by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. It was released on December 20, 2015, exclusively via Apple Music. Directed by Jonas Åkerlund, the film follows the Sydney stop of Swift's fourth headlining concert tour, The 1989 World Tour. The show, which was attended by 75,980 fans, remains Swift's most attended concert to date.
Signs were displayed at the sold out Sydney concert on November 28, 2015 at ANZ Stadium which said "Today's events are being recorded and filmed for global streaming, and may also form part of a television program... for commercial and promotional purposes." Although there was no further information about what the filming was for at the time, there was speculation that it would form a DVD of the 1989 World Tour to be released once the tour concludes its run in Melbourne in late 2015. Later speculation involved an Apple Music Video launch, which was proved to be correct. Coincidentally, "All You Had To Do Was Stay" and "This Love" were added back into the show after having been left off the set list for several months. This makes the Sydney setlist identical to that of Tokyo when the tour premiered.
On December 13, 2015—Swift's 26th birthday—she announced she had partnered with Apple Music to release a concert film entitled The 1989 World Tour Live in one weeks' time. It contains over two hours of concert, interview, and never-before seen backstage and rehearsal footage with some of the musical and surprise guests from previous shows. Celebrities making appearances in the film include Mick Jagger, Jason Derulo, Idina Menzel, Joan Baez, Justin Timberlake, Alison Krauss, Miranda Lambert, Natalie Maines, Lisa Kudrow, Wiz Khalifa, and Alanis Morissette. It was directed by Jonas Åkerlund. Clips from the film were later compiled for the music video for the seventh and final single from the album, "New Romantics."

Performances

Eighteen songs, most of them from 1989, were performed in the following order in the film:
  1. "Welcome to New York"
  2. "New Romantics"
  3. "Blank Space"
  4. "I Knew You Were Trouble"
  5. "I Wish You Would"
  6. "How You Get the Girl"
  7. "I Know Places"
  8. "All You Had to Do Was Stay"
  9. "You Are in Love"
  10. "Clean"
  11. "Love Story"
  12. "Style"
  13. "This Love"
  14. "Bad Blood"
  15. "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together"
  16. "Enchanted / "Wildest Dreams"
  17. "Out of the Woods"
  18. "Shake It Off"

    Shows

Personnel

Adapted from The 1989 World Tour Book
Show
Band
Dancers
Wardrobe
Executive producers
Production designers