Why Are Taylor Swift Eras Tour Tickets So Cheap in Europe?

Taylor Swift is back on the road to wrap up the final leg of her Eras tour for fans eager to hear the singer-songwriter perform new tracks like “Fortnight,” “Down Bad” and “Florida!!!” from her new album, Department of Tormented Poets.

But those fans might be in for some sticker shock. Prices to see Swift at one of her last nine concerts in the United States have risen since the album's release on April 19, with the average admission price — the lowest price available — hovering around $2,600 per ticket, according to in data from TicketIQ. That means it would cost a pair more than $5,000 just to be in the same building as Swift in Miami (Oct. 18-20), New Orleans (Oct. 25-27) and Indianapolis (Nov. 1-3) this fall .

In Europe, however – where Swift kicks off a 51-show run on May 9 with an opening date at Paris' La Defense Arena – tickets cost just a fraction of that. Right now, the price at the door to see the start of the European leg of the Eras tour is $340 a ticket — 87% cheaper than the average price in the United States.

That means a fan in Miami could fly to Paris for about $900 per person (based on prices generated by kayak.com), spend two nights in a four-star hotel for $250 a night, and buy a $340 concert ticket for a grand total of $1,740 — which is still $760 less than the cheapest tickets currently available for her shows in Miami.

tickets to see Swift in Stockholm (May 17-19) are even cheaper, at $312 for the cheapest tickets, while tickets for her show in Portugal (May 24-25) start at $336 and in Spain ( May 29-30) start at $324. Prices are starting to go up in the UK, with the price of admission hovering around £540 (about $674 USD) for Swift's shows in Liverpool (June 13-15). Prices to see Swift at Wembley Stadium (June 21-23) are around £720 ($900).

The reason for the huge price difference, experts say, is partly due to long-standing consumer skepticism about resale tickets in most of Europe. This is combined with a much more aggressive regulatory environment where artists and consumers have the ability to report and remove illegal ticket listings and where prices are kept low thanks to laws that limit how high tickets can be flagged relative to their face value.

The European approach is significantly different from that of the United States, where ticket resale is unregulated and deceptive marketing practices, including the use of deceptive websites and speculative ticket listings, continue unabated despite widespread consumer outcry. And federal officials don't routinely enforce the few ticketing laws that exist. It took five years after the BOTS Act — which bans automated queue-skipping and ticket-buying programs — was passed for brokers to sue for violating the bill.

Sam Semtob, managing director for ticket resale advocacy group Face-value European Alliance for Ticketing (FEAT), points to Europe as a model for how governments can be more careful about regulating resale markets. In countries like France, Germany and the Netherlands, ticket resellers face limits on how many tickets can be tagged on secondary sites — typically 20% of their face value. Other countries such as the UK allow resale but limit who is allowed to post tickets for resale and give artists and event organizers the right to remove certain resale ticket listings.

Adopting European-style regulations in the United States limiting ticket markups to 20% above face value would transform the concert business overnight and likely dramatically reduce prices on the secondary market. Markup caps would likely make programs like Ticketmaster's platinum ticket pricing (which charges high markups on a small percentage of tickets to offset the resale market) and greatly reduce the number of ticket brokers and bad actors using bots to disrupt ticket sales and illegally buy up tickets.

A federal cap on ticket markups would also significantly disrupt the secondary ticket market and put many brokers out of business, which could create unintended consequences for sports teams who are much more willing to sell season tickets to brokers and depend on resellers for distribution. It's also unclear whether Americans would even accept a regulatory framework limiting how many tickets could be flagged. Legislators in New York, Utah, Colorado, Connecticut and Virginia have all passed laws in the past decade making it illegal to restrict how and where ticket brokers resell tickets. While US consumers often complain about excessive ticket reselling and like the idea of ​​using technology to keep tickets out of the hands of scalpers, they also dislike the restrictions that come with non-transferable tickets and tend to vocally oppose policies that they create inconveniences.

Shemtob notes that European ticketing rules are not only about price protection, but are also designed to empower citizens to take action.

On January 1, 2025, the European Digital Services Act (DSA) will come into force, creating a single set of guidelines for online ticket resale that requires resellers to disclose their names and contact details to potential ticket buyers. The DSA also mandates that resale platforms monitor takedowns of public ticket listings (to help provide a record of deceptive activity taking place) and prohibit deceptive marketing practices.

While many of the DSA reforms mirror US efforts to clean up tickets, Shemtob says a provision in the DSA bill that makes it simple to flag, report and remove ticket listings that break the rules is a game-changer for promoters of the consumers. The law creates “a clear process for removing illegal ticket listings as and when they occur,” he said in a statement provided to Advertising signlaying the groundwork for a fairer, more transparent ticketing experience for consumers.

In addition to keeping prices in Europe low, the legislation has also led to a surprising boom in tourism from American fans traveling to the continent in search of cheaper Eras tour tickets: A StubHub spokesman said Advertising sign that 68% of ticket purchases for Swift's 51 shows in Europe came from US buyers.