Beyoncé and Taylor Swift are single handedly revamping the touring industry with their concerts this year, but who will come out on top?
Since the announcement of their tours Bey and T. Swift have set their fandoms ablaze. Purchasing a ticket to either show has been one of the things to do this summer and by doing so, Taylor’s Eras Tour and Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour have created history in the touring industry.
Thanks to the BeyHive, Yoncé made history with the highest-grossing tour by a woman recording artist, clocking in at $461M. The last woman to do that was mother Madonna with her Sticky and Sweet Tour that took place between 2008 to 2009. Not to mention, Queen Bey was just declared mayor of Santa Clara during her recent stop at the Northern California city.
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As for Taylor (a fellow Santa Clara mayor this year), Swifties have been pushing her tour to historic heights as well. She’s having a not so “Cruel Summer” with reports allegedly estimating her tour ticket sales to come out at $2.2B. The highest grossing tour ever was Elton John’s Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour, raking in $887 million between 2018 to 2023.
Queer icons know how to make a tour, am I right? While Beyoncé’s ticket sales have been confirmed and Taylor’s are still estimates, both of these talented ladies are expected to spur over $4B in economic activity from their tours.
These two have dominated music with the tours of the summer (and maybe the year). Their chart topping albums don’t hurt their efforts either.
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Beyoncé’s Renaissance became like its namesake and ushered in an era that further recognized the impact that Black queer and trans people have on music and culture. Whereas Taylor has been steadily releasing rerecordings of her previous albums to critical acclaim, with the upcoming 1989 (Taylor’s Version) as the latest project, and much to the chagrin of Scooter Braun who sold Taylor’s masters of her first six albums.
And let’s not forget that both Bey and Tay will take their massively successful tours to the film industry too. Taylor recently announced that her Eras Tour film will be released on the big screen on October 13 and reports have just disclosed that Beyoncé’s Renaissance visual album is being shopped around to studios and streamers. Our time as the visuals may be up.
But we all are still a part of their fandoms and the BeyHive and Swifties have been doing their part to push Bey and Tay into the music stratosphere. They’ll do it again when voting for the MTV VMAs start, of which both Taylor and Beyoncé are up for the top honors: Album of the Year, Song of the Summer, and Show of the Summer. We’ll see if Kanye West will jump onstage to provide his two cents on their competition.
Speaking of, who’s going to come out on top? Well, the answer is the fans, especially with all of the material these too music titans have provided as of late. Beyoncé and Taylor are in their own lanes and dominating them respectively and their fandoms benefit like no other.