“Ni de coña!” Eras Tour dancer, Kam, during “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” at Night 1 of ‘The Eras Tour’ in Madrid, Spain! #MadridTSTheErasTour 🇪🇸

The concerts that Taylor Swift will play on Wednesday and Thursday in Madrid are shaking up the Spanish capital.

It’s been said that streets will be closed to traffic, that schools near the concert venue have had to change their schedules, that hotels and concert tickets have tripled in price, that celebrities like Ryan Reynolds and the Obamas will be there. The epicenter of this earthquake is the Santiago Bernabéu soccer stadium, home of Real Madrid and for two days also home to the most lucrative tour in music history. At the subway station there are already people with bags sporting the name of the artist. On the street, about 200 people are walking in and out of the official merchandise store that opened on Tuesday. A few feet further north, on Paseo de la Castellana, around 20 fans have been camping out since early morning to be the first in line.

“Many people follow Taylor because of her lyrics, they are like stories that she tells you, and they help you a lot,” says Lucía, 17, who is standing in line with her friend of the same age to buy t-shirts, sweatshirts, posters and bracelets. Each one is already wearing around 10 bracelets distributed on both arms, threads adorned with plastic pearls with the name of a song or lyric that are exchanged between fans. A few spots further down the line are Laura Marcos and Lucía Adrados, 20 and 21. They also attribute Swift’s success — she was the most listened-to artist in 2023 on iTunes and Spotify — to how people can interpret what her songs say: “The meaning of her songs is like a poem. She has a song for anyone, for the ex, the boyfriend, the friend.”

A fan has been lining up since Monday to enter Taylor Swift’s first concert at the Santiago Bernabéu stadium.
A fan has been lining up since Monday to enter Taylor Swift’s first concert at the Santiago Bernabéu stadium.
ÁLVARO GARCÍA
Around 130,000 people will attend the concerts at the Bernabeú between Wednesday and Thursday. About half are from outside Madrid and 22% are coming from outside Spain. Included in this latter group are Grace Chainer and her 10-year-old daughter, Charlotte, who have arrived from Manchester. “She is a girl who has many values,” says the mother, who shares her daughter’s fervor. Mar Zaitonn has come from Iceland with her daughter. They will also go to the July concert in Milan: “I think she receives all this love because she respects her fans a lot.”

Swifties, as the artist’s followers are called, see their heroine as a humble, simple person, with a “vibe that transmits something to you.” So think Cristina Mainsfield, 34, and Xaira Apada, 27, from the Netherlands, and Lluvia López, 13, who arrived on Sunday from Málaga with her mother. The Madrid Hotel Business Association (AEHM) estimates that hotel revenue on Wednesday and Thursday nights will be close to €20 million ($21.7 million), with average rates that could triple or quadruple normal prices.