Is Taylor Swift snubbing Canada?
- Published
It's a good time to be a Swiftie. The 33-year-old songwriter is in the middle of her biggest stadium tour to date - a three-hour, 40-song set spanning all the eras of her career - and she's put out four albums and two re-releases since 2019, including the beloved 2010 record Speak Now, which was just released on Friday.
But Canadian Taylor Swift fans are not quite so enchanted. Her Eras tour, which kicked off in March, includes more than 100 concerts until summer 2024, in the US, Mexico, Europe, Asia and Australia. But so far at least, Swift has no plans to play in Canada. Did she forget that it existed?
The apparent snub inspired Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to appeal to Swift personally. After she announced an additional 14 shows next year in the UK and Europe, Mr Trudeau showed up in her Twitter replies, asking her to reconsider.
"It's me, hi," Mr Trudeau wrote, referencing Swift's song Anti-Hero. "I know places in Canada would love to have you. So, don't make it another cruel summer. We hope to see you soon."
It looks like Mr Trudeau is speaking for plenty of other Swifties feeling exiled up north, wondering why they can't have nice things.
"It is a devastation," said Leila Title, 33, a marketing director from Toronto. "Let down is the best way to describe it."
At first, Title assumed that Swift would include Canadian dates with her other international stops. But when concerts for Mexico and South America were released with nothing planned north of the US border, she started to worry it was a glitch.
"I still think it's possible, I always have to think it's possible," she said of a Canadian tour. "But it's becoming less and less likely."
Jackie Engelberg, another Toronto native, had hoped to see Swift at one of her New York shows this past May, her "only option" without any Canadian stops. But despite Ms Engelberg's best efforts - "fighting the Ticketmaster bots, braving the resale sites" - she could not find an affordable ticket.
So, like Ms Title, Ms Engelberg thought she would wait for a Canadian tour announcement.
"Every other tour that she has put on, even tours that are stadium only, at a minimum there are Canadian dates included," Ms Engelberg said. But when the chance for a Canadian announcement came and went, she was left concerned that she'd miss a Taylor Swift tour - a first in Ms Engelberg's longtime fandom.
"I am obviously extremely disappointed and so are all of my fellow Swifties in Canada," Ms Engelberg said.
She was particularly surprised to see small cities like Warsaw be selected for a three-show run, while Toronto - North America's fourth-largest city - was passed over.
"Given our city's huge population and all of the fans here, I am sure Taylor would sell out multiple stadiums," Ms Engelberg said.
So why is Taylor Swift skipping Canada?
She still hasn't told us why. No reason has been provided by Swift or her team and her record label did not respond to the BBC's request for comment.
Some have speculated it might come down to venue size. Canada's biggest arena, the Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton, Alberta, seats just over 56,300 fans, a fraction of the capacity at venues like Wembley in London - 90,000 - or MetLife in New Jersey - 82,500.
But that doesn't mean Swift is shunning all smaller venues. She's playing two shows at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin, which seats 50,000, and will play one night in Vienna's Ernst Happel Stadion, which has room for just less than 51,000 concertgoers.
Others have wondered if it's the weakness of the Canadian dollar, compared to US currency - the exchange rate now is roughly C$1.33 to $1.00.
But that hasn't stopped other major artists, including Beyonce and Ed Sheeran, from stopping by the Great White North.
For now at least, Swift's silence has left her Canadian fans wishing she would.
"All I want is Taylor to come here," Ms Title said. "And I would fly around the country."
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