The 1989 World Tour was the fourth concert tour by the American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift, who embarked on it to support of her fifth studio album, 1989 (2014). Swift announced the tour's first dates in North America, Europe, Japan, and Oceania in November and December 2014. She announced additional dates for Singapore and China in June 2015, and a final announcement of the third show in Melbourne was made the following month.
The tour took seven months to plan and three months to rehearse. As with her previous tours, Swift was highly involved in the 1989 World Tour's planning and stage design. She aimed to create an intimate experience for concertgoers, which she found challenging for shows held in stadiums. Most songs on the set list were from 1989; additional songs from Swift's older albums were re-interpreted with a more synth-oriented production to align with 1989's soundscape. Each night of the tour, she performed one "surprise song" from her back catalog. The tour began on May 5, 2015, in Tokyo, Japan, and concluded on December 12, 2015, in Melbourne, Australia, spanning 85 shows. For many of the shows, Swift invited special guests onstage with her, including musicians, actors, athletes, and models, whom the media called her "squad".
The world's highest-grossing tour of 2015, the 1989 World Tour sold over 2.278 million tickets and grossed over $250.7 million. It was acclaimed by critics, who praised Swift's stage presence and connection with the audience. Meanwhile, her appearances with an array of special guests attracted commentary regarding her new image as a pop star—having previously been known as a country singer-songwriter—and the sense of authenticity that she had maintained. On December 20, 2015, Swift released the concert filmThe 1989 World Tour Live in partnership with Apple Music. Filmed at the November 28, 2015 show at ANZ StadiuminSydney, Australia, the film features additional behind-the-scenes footage of special guests from other shows throughout North America and Europe.
Taylor Swift released her fifth studio album 1989 on October 27, 2014. The synth-pop album was her first to be marketed as pop music, departing from her image as a country artist.[2] It was a commercial success, selling over one million copies within its first week of release in the United States.[3] On November 3, 2014, via her Twitter account, Swift announced the first details of her world tour in support of 1989.[4] Australian singer Vance Joy was announced as an opening act, and the ticket sale for the North American leg was confirmed for November 14.[4]
In a November 2014 interview with Time magazine, Swift said that the set list would primarily consist of songs from 1989. She included new versions of songs from her older catalog to maintain the cohesive, synth-heavy production of 1989 while also keeping the "live feel" of her performances.[5] Swift, as always, was heavily involved in the tour's planning and production design. She acknowledged the challenge of playing in stadiums, expressing her goal for "those people in the very top row [to] feel like they got an intimate, personal experience".[5] In an interview with KIIS-FM in December 2014, she revealed that she knew what the stage would look like, as well as knowing that "all the fans seem to be saying that they really don't want any song [from 1989] left off the setlist".[6]
Swift first announced the North American and European dates in November 2014. The tour was set to kick off in Bossier City, Louisiana on May 20, 2015, and conclude in Tampa, Florida on October 31, 2015. Additional shows were added across the U.S., Canada, England, Scotland, Germany, and the Netherlands.[7] One month after announcing the first dates, Swift added further shows in Japan, and Australia. The opening show of the tour would be in Japan in May 2015, and the shows in Australia would take place in November and December 2015.[8] In June 2015, Swift announced more shows in China and Singapore in November 2015.[9] The following month, Swift announced a third show in Melbourne, Australia, which would serve as the closing show of the 1989 World Tour on December 12, 2015.[10] Opening acts were Vance Joy, Shawn Mendes,[11]Haim,[12] and James Bay.[13]
The tour required seven months of planning and three months of music rehearsals, including four weeks of stage rehearsals and 10 days of two-a-day dress rehearsals.[14] Swift traveled for the tour with 26 semi-trailer trucks and 11 buses carrying 146 people from city to city. Additionally, about 125 to 150 people were hired in each city to help with the load-in and stage setup, which took between six and eight hours for arenas and an additional day in stadiums.[14] Swift chose two designs for the trucks' vinyl wrap, with 13 trucks per design.[14] Concertgoers were given light-up bracelets that were programmed to change color throughout the show, a practice that was later implemented in Swift's Reputation Stadium Tour (2018) and the Eras Tour (2023).[15][16]
The concert begins with black-and-white projections of street scenes, which subsequently serves as the backdrop to the performance of "Welcome to New York".[17] Swift then emerges from beneath the stage to sing the song, followed by "New Romantics" surrounded by a dozen male dancers.[17][18] Next, Swift sings "Blank Space" before erupting into a call-and-response climax where she strikes a golf club against a black lacquer cane whilst also shouting the name of the city where the concert is being held.[19][20][21] Swift proceeds with an industrial rock-oriented version of "I Knew You Were Trouble", which she performs as shirtless male dancers delivered a sensual choreography.[19][20][22]
After the performance of "I Wish You Would", Swift appears in a glowing pink polka-dot two piece dress to perform "How You Get the Girl", accompanied by a choreography inspired by the 1952 musical Singin' in the Rain that is performed by the dancers twirling neon umbrellas.[19][23] The show continues with "I Know Places", during which Swift wears thigh-high black boots and garters.[17] The song's intense lyrics and production are accompanied by a performance of Swift being chased by the masked dancers through multiple mobile doors as she sings "They are the hunters / We are the foxes."[22][23] After the song ends, Swift performs "All You Had to Do Was Stay", followed by either "You Are in Love" or a different surprise song at several shows.[23][24] "All You Had to Do Was Stay" is excluded from the set list for several shows.[25] Swift introduces "Clean" by sharing lessons she had learned in her personal life with her audience.[26] After "Clean", Swift performs a synth-oriented version of "Love Story" while standing on an elevated platform that whisks around the stadium.[19][27]
Swift proceeds with "Style", during which she performs while strutting down the runway-styled stage in a sparkling dress, and "This Love".[20][28] For the performance of "Bad Blood", Swift dresses in a top-to-toe black leather suit.[28] She then delivers an intense rock version of "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" on an electric guitar.[18][19] Afterwards, Swift emerges from beneath the stage again to perform a mashup of "Enchanted" and "Wildest Dreams" on a grand piano.[29] She follows with "Out of the Woods" in a sparkling catsuit as giant paper planes fly overhead.[26][28] The show concludes with "Shake It Off", during which Swift and the dancers perform on a spinning platform above the crowd with fireworks and confetti.[18][19]
Throughout the tour, Swift invited special guests on different shows. She invited actor Matt LeBlanc, comedian Chris Rock and model Sean O'Pry on the August 22, 2015, Los Angeles show (top); and rapper Wiz Khalifa on the September 9, 2015, Houston show (bottom).
The shows on the 1989 World Tour features a nearly identical set list spanning the majority of the 1989 album, with the exception of the deluxe track "Wonderland". Different shows have different guest star appearances intertwined between Swift's performances.[30] For select shows, Swift replaced "You Are in Love" with "Wonderland",[31] or songs from her earlier albums. These included "Should've Said No" (from 2006's Taylor Swift);[32] "You Belong with Me",[33] "Fifteen"[34] and "Fearless" (from 2008's Fearless);[35] "Mean",[36] "Sparks Fly"[37] and "Mine" (from 2010's Speak Now);[38] "Holy Ground",[39] "All Too Well",[40] and "Red" (from 2012's Red).[41] During the second show in Santa Clara, California on August 15, 2015, Swift dedicated "Never Grow Up" (from Speak Now) to her godson, the second child of her friend, actress Jaime King.[42] During the show in Glendale, Arizona, on August 17, Swift performed "Ronan" in dedication to Maya Thompson, the song's cowriter, and her late son, Ronan.
A feature of the 1989 World Tour that attracted attention was the array of unannounced special guests that Swift invited onstage with her.[43] Swift explained during an interview with Apple Music's Beats 1 Radio that since her fans could have expected what the show would look like through social media posts prior to attending, she wanted to incorporate an element of surprise: "They know the set list, they know the costumes, they've looked it up. That presented me with an interesting issue. I love the element of surprise… so going into this tour, having people pop on stage that you didn't expect to see."[44] Though Swift had invited musicians onstage with her during previous tours, this time, she invited singers, models, athletes, and actors—public figures across "every type of field".[44][45] A notable example was the show at London's Hyde Park in July 2015, during which she was joined onstage by models Martha Hunt, Kendall Jenner, Karlie Kloss, Gigi Hadid, and Cara Delevingne, who were subsequently noted by the media as members of Swift's "squad" and her representation of her newly established feminist identity.[46] While some of the guests were scheduled beforehand, others were improvised; Swift asked singer John Legend to join her onstage only 40 minutes prior to showtime, after spotting him in the audience.[15]
As the tour continued, special guests ranged from Hollywood actress Julia Roberts to counterculture figure Joan Baez.[46] Nick Levine from the BBC observed that while these special guests were well appreciated by Swift's fans, their appearances gave the impression to others that Swift did so to prove her star power of her new image as a pop star, having abandoned her previous image as a country artist.[46] In doing so, Swift's sense of authenticity began to slip, despite her global stardom.[46] Kristy Fairclough, a professor in popular culture and film, commented: "Her shifting aesthetic and allegiances appear confusing in an overall narrative that presents Taylor Swift as the centre of the cultural universe." Fairclough asserted that while Swift had presented herself as an underdog and outsider from her contemporaries, which had garnered her a devoted fan base, she began to appear as "a profoundly unsympathetic underdog" for being a "globally famous, attractive, thin, white, very wealthy woman".[46] When the tour ended, Swift acknowledged that "people might need a break from [her]".[47]New York magazine listed Swift's "squad" as one of the defining moments of music in the 2010s decade.[48]
Swift performing "Style" strutting down the runway
The 1989 World Tour was met with universal acclaim; praise centered on the elaborate stage production and Swift's stage presence.[17]Vice's Eric Sundermann appreciated Swift's ability to connect with her audiences, saying: "She has built a career on making music that’s suited for the fabric of our lives, so it makes sense that her show is engineered to be the best night of your life."[49]Jon Caramanica, writing for The New York Times, acknowledged Swift's comfortable performance onstage.[22]Rolling Stone critic Rob Sheffield appreciated the reworked versions of Swift's older songs and felt that she was pushing for an even more spectacular show than her much-praised previous Red Tour (2013–14): "Taking the easy way would have been 100 percent good enough. It just wasn’t what she wanted to do. Instead, she wanted to push a little harder and make a gloriously epic pop mess like this."[19] In a similarly enthusiastic review, Kevin Coffrey from the Omaha World-Herald observed how the stage production complemented the songs: "Her show is on a level unlike anything I've ever seen."[27]
Paige Allen from The Sun Chronicle was positive towards Swift's performance but felt that she could have carried the show without opening acts and special guests.[29] Hunter Hauk of The Dallas Morning News also deemed the opening acts "forgettable" but was impressed by Swift's natural performance onstage.[21] In a review of the Glasgow show, David Pollock from The Independent lauded Swift's energetic performance and described the show as a "resonantly feminist show which emphasises a fun, heartfelt message over polemic".[23] Reviewing the tour's Sydney show, Bernard Zuel from the Sydney Morning Herald gave it four-and-a-half stars. Zuel lauded the show as "one of the most spectacular stadium shows" he had ever seen and praised Swift's stage presence for creating a lively and euphoric energy.[18] Reviewing the same show, Elle Hunt of The Guardian gave it five out of five stars, asserting that the show was a reminder of Swift's emotional engagement through her songs as her greatest asset that "has won her enormous global fandom".[26] In 2017, Rolling Stone included the 1989 World Tour in their list of the "50 Greatest Concerts of the Last 50 Years".[50]
Pre-sales for European shows of the 1989 World Tour started on November 4, and public on-sale started on November 7; tickets for London were sold later on November 10. The first round of pre-sales on selected North American shows started on November 7, and general sales for the public in North America started from November 14, 2014;[51] Australia started from December 12, 2014;[8] Japan started from the following day;[52] Singapore and Shanghai started from June 30, 2015.[53][54] Swift was the sixth-most-searched artist on Ticketmaster in 2014.[55]
InSt. Louis, Swift was originally scheduled to perform on October 13 and 14, 2015, but one of the St. Louis shows was dropped, and the other was rescheduled to September 28, 2015, with tickets going on sale on January 30, 2015.[56] However, tickets for the St. Louis show sold out within minutes, resulting in a second date being added on September 29 at the same venue.[57] Due to massive demand, Swift added more dates to the European leg, one for Cologne and one for Dublin.[58] Swift added one more Dublin show after six minutes when the first show sold out, and tickets for both concerts sold out within 55 minutes.[59] In Australia, tickets for the first show on December 11, 2015, in Melbourne, at AAMI Park were sold out in less than an hour.[60] Soon afterwards, Swift announced extra dates for Melbourne and Adelaide.[61] Due to popular demand, in July 2015, Swift added a third Melbourne show after the first two shows were sold out. Swift became the first female artist to play three shows at AAMI Park.[62] In January 2015, Forbes reported that the 1989 World Tour was one of the most expensive concert tours of 2015 on the secondary market.[63]
The tour topped the Billboard Hot Tours chart with Swift's first five shows from the North American run (May 20–June 6, 2015, excluding Baton Rouge), which generated $16.8 million from 149,708 ticket sales.[64] It topped the Billboard Hot Tours chart for the second week, earning $15.2 million, with a total of 129,962 tickets sold from three shows in Charlotte and Philadelphia.[65] By August 1, 2015, the 1989 World Tour had grossed $86.2 million, at 20 performances in North America, with 771,460 tickets sold at seven arenas and nine stadiums. On September 9, Billboard reported that the tour had grossed over $130 million, with 1.1 million tickets sold.[66] The 1989 World Tour surpassed the Red Tour as Swift's highest-grossing by October 2015, when Billboard reported that the tour had grossed over $173 million. The tour also returned to number one on the Hot Tours chart, becoming Swift's sixth time atop the chart in 2015, thanks to ticket sales totaling $13.6 million from the shows in Toronto, St. Louis and Des Moines.[67]
OnBillboard's list of the "Top 25 Boxscores" published in December 2015, Swift scored seven entries with the 1989 World Tour shows, the highest number of entries among all touring acts.[68] After concluding in Melbourne, the tour grossed over $250 million and became the world's highest-grossing tour in 2015, as reported by Pollstar.[69] It was also the highest-grossing North American tour of 2015.[70] The 1989 World Tour grossed nearly $200 million in North America alone, breaking the previous all-time high of $162 million set by the Rolling Stones in 2005.[71] Two shows in Tokyo ranked at number nine on Pollstar's list of "2015 Year-End Top 100 International Boxoffice". Other shows appearing on the list were the shows in Melbourne, Sydney, Shanghai, and Brisbane.[72] The 1989 World Tour also scored 24 entries on another list by Pollstar—"2015 Year-End Top 200 Concert Grossed [in North America]"—with her highest position (number five) being the two shows in East Rutherford and her lowest (number 160) being the two shows in Denver.[73] Overall, the tour broke a string of attendance and grossing records, including the record for most sold-out shows by an artist in Staples Center history (16 shows across Swift's career), commemorated in a banner presented by Kobe Bryant.[74]
The tour was supported by a concert film, titled The 1989 World Tour Live. It was released on December 20, 2015, exclusively via Apple Music.[75] Directed by Jonas Åkerlund, the film was recorded at the Sydney show of the 1989 World Tour, held at ANZ Stadium on November 28, 2015, where Swift performed in front of nearly 76,000 people.[76] Prior to the show, concertgoers were informed that the Sydney show would be filmed for commercial purpose.[77]
On December 13, 2015, Swift's 26th birthday, she announced that she had partnered with Apple Music to release The 1989 World Tour Live on December 20. It featured over two hours of concert, interview, and never-before-seen backstage and rehearsal footage with some of the musical and surprise guests from previous shows.[78] Scenes from The 1989 World Tour Live were compiled for the music video for "New Romantics", the seventh and final single from the album.[79] The film left Apple Music on May 22, 2020, nearly five years after its original release.[80]
During the second Washington concert, "This Love" was not performed. It was later, temporarily, cut from the set list from August 1 to October 31, where Swift would instead perform with a special guest.
"All You Had to Do Was Stay" was not performed on select dates, until it was permanently cut on December 5.
"You Belong with Me" (from Fearless): During the second shows in East Rutherford,[33] Washington,[93] Denver,[94] Columbus, Los Angeles,[95] Adelaide, and Shanghai; the first shows in Toronto,[96] Nashville,[97] Kansas City,[98] St. Louis,[99] Foxborough,[29] and Singapore;[100] and the shows in Des Moines[101] and Salt Lake City[102]
"Fifteen" (from Fearless): During the first shows in Chicago,[34] Omaha,[103] Denver,[104] Saint Paul,[105] and Edmonton;[106] the second shows in Melbourne, Toronto, St. Louis, Foxborough,[107] Nashville,[108] Kansas City,[109] and Glendale; the third show in Los Angeles;[110] and the shows in Indianapolis, Lexington,[111] Arlington,[21] Fargo,[112] Miami,[17] Greensboro, Atlanta,[113] and Tampa[114]
"Mean" (from Speak Now): During the second shows in Chicago and Saint Paul,[115] the fifth show in Los Angeles,[116] and the shows in Seattle[117] and Houston[36]
"Sparks Fly" (from Speak Now): During the show in Vancouver[37]
"Fearless" (from Fearless): During the second show in Edmonton, the first show in Omaha,[27] and the show in San Diego[35]
September 29, 2015 – St. Louis: "The Fix" with Nelly, and "Hot in Herre" with Nelly and Haim. To celebrate Haim's last night on the tour, Swift invited them to join her onstage as back-up dancers for Nelly.[152]
^The concert was originally planned to take place on October 13, but was rescheduled after Swift added Houston to the dates.[56]
^The concert was originally planned to take place on October 14, but was rescheduled after Swift added Houston to the dates. After that, St. Louis shows downsized from two to one. However, due to overwhelming demand, the second show was added again.[57]
^The concert was originally planned to take place on September 9, but was rescheduled after Swift added Houston to the dates.[167][168]
