Sunday and Monday mark one-year since Taylor Swift took over Cincinnati with two Eras Tour shows.
The concerts, which filled up Paycor Stadium on June 30 and July 1, 2023, put a spotlight on the Queen City and Swift’s tour has since reportedly become the highest grossing tour of all time.
And it’s still creating headlines.
Last weekend, her shows in London saw celebrities (and royalty) come out in droves. Swift’s boyfriend, University of Cincinnati alum Travis Kelce, made an internet-breaking appearance onstage.
So in honor of the year mark of Swift’s Cincinnati visit, we pulled together our five favorite moments from the two concerts, as well as five notable milestones in Swift’s life/career since the shows. A lot happened that weekend. Even more has taken place since.
Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.
No, Cincinnati isn’t London, New York City or Los Angeles, but there were still notable guests at Swift’s shows here last year.
“Stranger Things” star Millie Bobby Brown was spotted at a VIP tent before Swift took the stage June 30. Our photographer, Sam Greene, documented it in a photo. Brown’s now husband, actor Jake Bongiovi, was also in attendance to see the “Midnights” singer perform.
Swifties across the globe went wild during the July 1 show, as Swift performed three surprise songs for the Cincinnati audience, a changeup from the two surprise tracks she normally plays at her shows. The weather forecast for the night forced Swift to move up the show by an hour, which cut Gracie Abrams’ opening act from the lineup.
Abrams still performed that night, though, as she sang her song “I Miss You, I’m Sorry” alongside Swift during the pop star’s highly anticipated acoustic portion. Swift also sang her “Call It What You Want” from “Reputation” and “Ivy” from “Evermore.”
Also during the July 1 acoustic portion, Cincinnati native and The National founder Aaron Dessner, who has collaborated with Swift on multiple albums, took the stage in his hometown. He performed “Ivy” with Swift, a track he co-wrote and produced on her 2020 album.
“It’s hard to describe what it felt like to play ‘Ivy’ from ‘evermore’ last night with (Taylor Swift) in the town I grew up in, where I learned to play music in the first place,” Dessner wrote on Instagram afterward, alongside a video of the performance. “Grateful as always to Taylor and all of you for listening.”
Swift has a dedicated fan base, and they certainly made their presence felt during her Cincinnati shows. People lined up for blocks just to purchase official Eras Tour merch. Fans who couldn’t buy tickets to the shows sat outside Paycor Stadium just to hear Swift sing.
You can see our interactions with the fans in the merch line in the video above and how long the line was in the TikTok below.
Thanks to Swift’s shows, an Airbnb study named Cincinnati the No. 1 trending destination in the world for Fourth of July weekend last year. And it all lived up to the hype. Here’s what I wrote for my key takeaway directly after Swift’s June 30 Eras Tour show.
As a millennial, Taylor Swift has written the soundtrack for many of our lives. She is the voice of a generation. And that bleeds through every song during her Eras Tour shows.
But she is also quite possibly the performer of our generation. The production value of her concerts are top-notch. Swift takes fans through numerous musicals each night, with sets that include pine trees, a cabin and a moss-covered piano. The wristbands put on a high-quality light show synchronized to the music, and the show ends with beautiful fireworks.
It’s like a Fourth of July celebration from when we were kids but during a concert of one of the greatest artists to ever release a song.
Every detail of the Eras Tour is well thought out, and Swift gives her devoted fan base more than just a show. She gives them a once-in-a-lifetime experience they’ll never forget.
Swift has had an eventful year since her two Cincinnati shows. Here are five notable milestones that have happened since she came to town.
Just six days after she performed in Cincinnati, Swift released the re-recorded version of her 2010 album, “Speak Now.”
Like all her other re-recordings, the move came with a lot of excitement, as she also gave fans six vault tracks, including “I Can See You,” “Electric Touch” with Fall Out Boy and “Castles Crumbling” with Hayley Williams.
After performing here, Swift took her Eras Tour to Kansas City, which laid the groundwork for her relationship with Kansas City Chiefs tight end, and University of Cincinnati alum, Travis Kelce.
The two catapulted their couple status into the public eye when Swift attended the Chiefs’ game against the Chicago Bears on Sept. 24, 2023, and they haven’t looked back since. The pop star was there when Kelce and the Chiefs won the Super Bowl in February, and the NFL star has been to numerous Eras Tour shows, including the June 23 concert in London when he joined her onstage.
“Speak Now” wasn’t the only re-recording to come out within the past year. Swift released her version of the 2014 album “1989” in October 2023.
This time she came out with five vault songs, including the highly popular “Is It Over Now?” and “Say Don’t Go.”
Swift’s “Midnights” album won her a Grammy for Album of the Year in February, the 14th Grammy of her career.
She became the first artist to win an Album of the Year four times.
During the 2024 Grammys, Swift surprised everyone when she announced she was releasing her 11th album, “The Tortured Poets Department.”
The record has since found an abundance of success. Following its April 19 release, Swift became the first artist to take up all 14 of the top 14 spots on the Billboard Hot 100 list.
