Taylor Swift kicks off Asia leg of Eras Tour as spending on Japan shows expected to hit US$230 million

Swifties splurging on tickets, merchandise, food and other related activities during the four-day concerts in Tokyo projected to reach US$230 million

Japan’s capital is also a relatively affordable gig for fans, thanks to the country’s restrictions on resale prices

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A fan buys a Taylor Swift merchandise at the Tokyo Dome in Tokyo on February 6. Photo: AFP

Published: 9:29am, 7 Feb 2024

Taylor Swift resumes her Eras Tour in Tokyo this week, with spending on tickets, merchandise, food, hotels and other related activities on track to total an estimated ¥34 billion (US$230 million).

That number, calculated by Mitsumasa Etoh, a lecturer at Tokyo City University, is roughly the same amount that Swifties generated in Denver in July.

Swift, who won the Grammy Award for album of the year on Sunday, has grabbed headlines throughout the US leg of her tour, from setting off seismic sensors in Seattle to becoming a billionaire.

While the first leg of the tour sparked wild fanfare, she is likely to receive a more muted reception in Japan. That is because the country has a mature ¥300 billion music industry where popular domestic artists such as Yoasobi and Radwimps make up 90 per cent of CDs, DVDs and other physical media.

These days, fans in the country tend to focus on hit songs, rather than foreign artists themselves, according to Ryo Hirose, a researcher at NLI Research Institute.

“Japanese people listen to a limited number of mega hit tunes in English,” Hirose said.