Swift’s Eras Tour may be on par with Super Bowl for Glendale

Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour ‘puts us on the map’

Glendale, Arizona, was trending on Twitter for days leading up to the launch of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour at State Farm Stadium after the city announced it would celebrate Swift’s sold-out concerts on March 17 and 18 with an honorary name change.

Glendale is calling itself Swift City for the weekend while businesses around the stadium enjoy an influx of Swifties.

Glendale hotels will reap the benefit of all those people coming to see the concerts. Retail spending will be up at Tanger Outlets and other nearby businesses. As Glendale City Manager Kevin Phelps explains, “The merchants will all do well, obviously. But they’re all doing really well anyway. Let’s say an average restaurant on a Friday night is at 90 percent capacity already. They’re going to go to 100 percent capacity.”

But the city expects the effects to last beyond the weekend.

“It creates a habit of coming here,” Phelps says. “And any time we can show them the new stuff that’s been built in the area, that’s an eye-opener. Sometimes people look at just the direct revenue that comes in. It’s really what it does for this whole area from an exposure standpoint.”

If you haven’t been to Westgate Entertainment District in a while, you might not know about the recent opening of PopStroke, Tiger Woods’ golfthemed entertainment complex with two 18-hole putting courses. But thousands of Swifties are bound to see it when they roll in early for the concert.

“Any time we can get a major event like this to bring fans here, think about the marketing costs to do that,” Phelps says. “It would be cost-prohibitive. But

If you do a Taylor Swift, people come here for the entire day and that, I think, is the real benefit. It puts us on the map continually in the front of the consumer’s mind.”

Concert fans ‘get here early, they spend money’

The same thing happened with the Super Bowl in February. Even an arena show like Carrie Underwood at Desert Diamond Arena on March 11 has an impact.

“In the old days, a concert wouldn’t impact this area,” Phelps says. “People would arrive an hour before the concert, they’d go to the concert, and then when the concert was over, they’d get in their car and leave. Today, people take the day off. They get here early, they spend money, they enjoy it, they stay late when it’s over rather than get

lost in the traffic.”

Hockey fans are less likely to make a whole day of it.

“It’s one of the reasons we went away from the Coyotes,” Phelps says.

This is ‘on par with the Super Bowl’

Danielle Dutsch at the Glendale Convention & Visitors Bureau says it’s hard to gauge the economic impact until after the event, but this is “on par with the Super Bowl just from the standpoint that Taylor is bringing in people from all over to see her.”

Many of those fans are staying in nearby hotels, where “rates are similar to what we would have seen during the Super Bowl,” Dutsch says.

And that’s just one barometer what this means for Glendale.

“We’re super excited to have her,” Dutsch says. “And to be the first stop on her tour is just phenomenal. We’re getting the benefit of showcasing places like PopStroke. All the restaurants at Westgate restaurants will be full. People will be buying things at Tanger Outlets. This is a huge benefit to Glendale’s tourism industry.”

Thanks to big events, ‘the city of Glendale is known’

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People know where Glendale, Arizona, is now.

“We’re a city of 250,000,” Phelps said. “There are a lot of cities of 250,000 that if you asked the normal consumer living out of state where that city is, they’re gonna kind of go like, ‘I’m not real sure.’ The city of Glendale is known. And that’s only because of these bigname events.”

A big part of that change has been GoDaddy founder Bob Parsons’ YAM Properties purchasing the Westgate Entertainment District in 2018.

“That was a game changer for us because he is so focused on doing things the right way,” Phelps says. “He plays the long game. It’s not about a quick win. So everything he’s done has been really methodical.”

How much will Glendale make from the Taylor Swift concerts?

There’s no direct revenue from the concerts to the city.

All revenue associated with big music and sporting events goes to the Arizona Sports and Tourism Authority, which funded the construction of the stadium. “We don’t pick up any sales tax or ticketing revenue,” Phelps says. “All that stays there. So really, it becomes how much spending happens in the surrounding area.”

Those retail dollars should be even bigger once VAI Resort opens its new entertainment resort in Glendale this spring. That property will include a Vegas-style concert venue and 1,200 rooms, making it the biggest hotel in Arizona. “The amount of retail dollars there will be huge on a big weekend, like when Metallica’s coming in,” Phelps says. “In my mind, that resort is the game changer for the Entertainment District.”