Yahoo Finance Taylor Swift: How she became part of this year's economic story
Even financial news entered the Taylor Swift "era" in 2023.
The world's most famous singer-songwriter dominated headlines this year, culminating in a recent award for Time's Person of the Year after her "Eras Tour" became the highest-grossing concert tour of all time. And it was the first to eclipse $1 billion ever.
"Taylor is so unique and remarkable what she's done, not only as a performer, as a songwriter, as an artist," Time CEO Jessica Sibley told Yahoo Finance Live on Dec. 6. "I look at her as a business leader and a CEO of her own brand. And the results that she's driven are just unbelievable."
In a year defined by better-than-expected economic data driven by robust consumer spending, Swift's success was one way to explain why the US economy didn't fall into a widely predicted recession.
The first mention of the Taylor-made economy came in July's release of the Federal Reserve's Beige Book. The Philadelphia Fed highlighted Taylor Swift's three-night stop at Lincoln Financial Field as a boost to the local economy.
"Multiple contacts reported that the amount of money guests spend at their leisure destinations declined modestly in recent months," the report read. "Despite the slowing recovery in tourism in the region overall, one contact highlighted that May was the strongest month for hotel revenue in Philadelphia since the onset of the pandemic, in large part due to an influx of guests for the Taylor Swift concerts in the city."
Analysis from Moody's followed up.
In a research publication titled "Swiftflation — An Unprecedented Boost" Moody's found an increase in revenue per available room (RevPar; see chart) in every city Swift stopped in that the firm tracked through the report's publication on July 21.
And Swift was mentioned alongside Barbie during a July Federal Reserve press conference about resilient consumer spending. While Fed Chair Jay Powell didn't shout out the pop star, the notion that Swift's tour could be seen as a broader indicator for the economic story of 2023 wasn't lost on economists.
"These events are getting more highlighted specifically because of the situation we're looking at," Bank of America US economist Shruti Mishra told Yahoo Finance in July.
Mishra added: "Is the consumer going to drop? Is it still resilient? Those questions are the most important questions leading up to any Fed press conference, FOMC meeting, and just generally for the economic outlook."
Swift's success can be measured in other ways, too.
AMC (AMC) debuted Swift's final concert of the tour as a movie in October. Out of the gate, "Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour" movie was No. 1 at the box office, producing $92.8 million in domestic ticket sales, according to final estimates released by AMC.
The concert film captured an additional $30.7 million overseas, the theater chain said, making it the best debut of all time for any concert film — in addition to the second-best domestic opening weekend for the month of October following 2019's "Joker."
"The question is, 'Will we ever see it again?'" IMAX (IMAX) CEO Richard Gelfond told Yahoo Finance Live in October. "I think Taylor is such a unicorn and a special talent. This concert had so much publicity behind it. So many people couldn't see it [so] there was pent-up demand. It's definitely a milestone in the history of cinema in terms of excitement around a concert movie."
The movie's success was followed up with more love from Wall Street as Swift garnered mentions in various 2024 outlooks.
"The launch of singer-songwriter Taylor Swift’s 'Eras' tour represented one of the most notable cultural events of 2023," Goldman Sachs chief US equity strategist David Kostin wrote in his 2024 outlook.
Kostin added, tongue in cheek, that Swift's songs can also be a useful reminder to investors too. Consider Swift's 1989 song: "'All You Had To Do Was Stay' – invested."
Read Yahoo Finance’s countdown of the biggest stories of 2023:
How Sam Bankman-Fried's 2023 meltdown put the crypto world on trial
Why the regional banking chaos of 2023 could shake lenders for years to come
Yahoo Finance Senior Reporter Alexandra Canal contributed to this report.
Josh Schafer is a Reporter for Yahoo Finance.
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