After Taylor Swift canceled 3 shows in Vienna, there’s been little blowback from fans : NPR

Fans who traveled hundreds of miles to see the pop superstar are asking for another opportunity to see her in concert. The concerts who canceled because of terror threats.

A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:

Taylor Swift wraps up the final leg of her European tour today with a sold-out show in London. This is small comfort to the hundreds of thousands of Swifties who plunked down a lot of money to see her perform in Vienna. Two weeks ago, all three of those shows were canceled after threats of an alleged terrorist plot.

NPR’s finance correspondent Maria Aspan was one of those fans. Joins us now to talk about the impact of those canceled concerts. Maria, you must be pretty disappointed, I’m assuming. So what’s been the fallout so far?

MARIA ASPAN, BYLINE: Hi. Morning, A. It was sad, and frankly, it was pretty expensive for a lot of us who flew around the world to see Taylor Swift perform. But what I was really surprised by, at the time and since I’ve gotten back from Europe last week, is just how relatively little blowback there’s been against Swift. You know, people were sad in Vienna, but they weren’t angry.

There were these big spontaneous street parties in downtown Vienna where people were singing and dancing along to Taylor Swift songs, and at one of them, I started chatting with Dan and Lynda Dickerson. Dan’s a retired firefighter who calls Swift the Elvis of this generation. So when they decided to fly from Rochester to see her in Vienna, they splurged.

DAN DICKERSON: We flew first class, staying at the Marriott. So we were out about 10,000 bucks to get here and have a place to stay and go back. It’s not the ticket cost. It’s everything above that.

ASPAN: But, he added, they understand. And look, so did I. Nobody wants to wind up in the middle of a potential terrorist attack. I was very glad to be safe and to have avoided that.

MARTÍNEZ: But still, I mean, there were some hefty costs of Swift canceling those concerts.

ASPAN: Oh, absolutely, on a lot of fronts. I mean, let’s start with Taylor Swift herself. She makes $14 million every night she performs…

MARTÍNEZ: Oh, wow.

ASPAN: …According to one report.

MARTÍNEZ: Gosh.

ASPAN: So right there, that’s more than $40 million lost from those three concerts, although some of that will probably be covered by insurance. It doesn’t seem like there was a huge economic impact to Vienna, which surprised me at first. You know, we’ve heard so much about Swiftonomics and the huge lift in tourism and spending to the cities where she tours. London right now thinks it’s getting $400 million from her eight performances there.

But in Vienna, it was kind of a timing thing. The shows were canceled just a day ahead of time, so many of us were already in the city and still needed hotel rooms and places to eat and all of that. The big impact really is on the fans. Those of us who traveled to see Swift are out a lot of money, in some cases thousands of dollars or more. The concert organizers did say they’re refunding our tickets, but that’s just a little bit.

MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. But if the fans are out so much money, I mean, has there been a lot of backlash?

ASPAN: Not as much as I expected. Some people are upset that Swift hasn’t said anything about the cancellations. But in Vienna, I heard a lot from fans like Mary Ashmead. She’s a surgeon who brought her two kids from Dallas to Vienna for their first Taylor Swift concert, and they just want a chance to go to another one.

MARY ASHMEAD: We just want to go. We just want to go and be with all the Swifties and sing our hearts out.

ASPAN: You know, this is starting to become a supply-and-demand problem. The Eras Tour is ending later this year, and the remaining tickets are reselling for thousands of dollars apiece. But that’s what people are upset about – the missed opportunity to see Swift more than the money that they lost. And this was something that business experts and economists say – this is a superpower for Taylor Swift. Marcus Collins used to run digital strategy for Beyonce, and he says he’s not surprised about how the fans are handling their disappointment.

MARCUS COLLINS: Because of her relationship with her fans, there was a level of we get it that probably wouldn’t be extended to another artist.

ASPAN: Now he studies this as a marketing professor at the University of Michigan and basically is saying even though some of us are still sad about not getting to see Taylor Swift, there’s not going to be any bad blood.

MARTÍNEZ: Glad to hear you’re able to shake it off. That’s NPR’s Maria Aspan.

ASPAN: Thank you, A.

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