Having already boosted the U.S. economy with the Eras Tour, Taylor Swift is gearing up to save cinema as well by turning the Eras Tour into a concert film.
Swift announced on social media Thursday morning that a filmed version of the Eras Tour—which is directed by Sam Wrench and runs for two hours and 45 minutes—would debut exclusively in movie theaters in North America starting Oct. 13. According to Variety, no songs have been cut from the concert’s setlist.
“The Eras Tour has been the most meaningful, electric experience of my life so far and I’m overjoyed to tell you that it’ll be coming to the big screen soon 😆,” she tweeted. “Starting Oct 13th you’ll be able to experience the concert film in theaters in North America!”
She encouraged people who see Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour to wear Eras Tour attire, bring and share friendship bracelets (a reference in the song “You’re On Your Own Kid” that Swifties have taken to heart), and sing and dance along to the music. She shared a link that allows people to purchase tickets from four major movie ticket chains and retailers (AMC, Regal, Cinemark, and Fandango). Alamo Drafthouse is also planning to screen the concert film in theaters.
Tickets for the film will cost $19.89 for adults and $13.13 for children and seniors. If you see the movie in a premium format like Dolby or IMAX, tickets will be more expensive.
The Eras Tour is the hottest concert ticket of the year and one of the most difficult to obtain. Tickets for the Eras Tour were so in demand that the initial pre-sale crashed Ticketmaster, and many of the tickets were scooped up by bots that immediately posted them on resale sites for tens of thousands of dollars. The efforts were so disastrous that it led to a congressional hearing in which members of Congress criticized how Ticketmaster handled the situation and described the site as a monopoly.
AMC Theatres, the largest movie theater chain in the world, announced it upgraded the site’s capacity to handle what it expected to be much higher ticket demand than normal.
“In anticipation of this announcement, AMC has upgraded its website and ticketing engines to handle more than five times the largest influx of ticket-buying traffic the Company has ever experienced before,” a press release stated. “But AMC is also aware that no ticketing system in history seems to have been able to accommodate the soaring demand from Taylor Swift fans when tickets are first placed on sale. Guests wanting to be the first to buy their tickets online may experience delays, longer-than-usual ticket-purchase waiting-room times, and possible outages. AMC is committed to ensuring any delays or outages are addressed as quickly as possible.”
Now, Swift fans can get the full concert experience while purchasing tickets. There are virtual queues, a brief window to buy tickets once you get out of the queue, no refunds or exchanges once you purchase tickets, and even some glitches during the process. (You also can’t use movie theater perks like AMC Stubs points or the AMC A-List to buy the tickets.) But compared to Ticketmaster, it was largely smooth sailing. Enough so that at least one person illustrated Ticketmaster raging over movie ticket sales mostly going off without a hitch.
People quickly imagined their pop culture faves wanting to purchase tickets to the Eras Tour movie. Others
And with the film only being released in North American theaters, it made international fans feel especially left out of the spectacle. It’s unclear if and when they’ll get the chance to watch Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour in theaters.
Her last tour, the Reputation Stadium Tour, was also transformed into a concert film. It’s streaming on Netflix, which is also home to the Taylor Swift documentary Miss Americana.
