Brightline’s themed trains for Miami shows will feature DJs spinning “Tay-tunes” on “SWIFT rides.”
In what could be a daydream to some and a nightmare to others, a Taylor Swift singalong train will shuttle fans to and from the pop star’s Eras Tour concerts in Miami this fall.
Brightline, a privately owned rail line servicing Central and South Florida, is partnering with iHeartRadio on the Swift-themed trains, which will leave from Orlando twice a day during the singer’s three-day October stop at Hard Rock Stadium. Orlando-based radio DJs will play songs from Swift’s two-decade catalogue during the train ride as guests, in between lyrics, munch on “curated” food options, Brightline said.
Some singalong trains Tuesday showed they already were sold out.
“This is more than a ride — it’s a first-of-its-kind immersive experience,” Travis Christ, chief commercial officer for Brightline, said in a news release.
Brightline avoids mentioning Swift directly in its promotions, instead referring to playing “Tay-tunes” on “SWIFT rides” to “The Big Concert.” The rail company previously generated attention for its service linking downtown Miami to Orlando International Airport and for its partnership with a shuttle company that takes passengers directly to Disney World’s parks and nearby hotels.
Swift, who is playing the European leg of her 152-show Eras Tour, will return to the United States for shows in Miami, New Orleans and Indianapolis this fall before closing out in Canada. The billion-dollar tour and the April release of Swift’s 11th studio album have sparked pop-ups and themed events around the world, many of them unofficial. A Swift-themed cruise, for one, sets sail in October.
Brightline is not the first transportation service to cash in on the tour’s financial effect, either. Rally ran special buses for the SoFi Stadium leg in California last summer, and transit agencies in Eras Tour cities have added extra service to meet fan demand.
One-way tickets for the Miami concert trains — which will drop passengers off at the Aventura station and connect them to a shuttle to Hard Rock Stadium — start at $209 for the full ride from Orlando. Brightline also will be running late-night return trains from Aventura, where the company promises a Swiftian pop-up bar. (While the return trips aren’t advertised as Swift singalongs, one can imagine such a train would not exactly be an Amtrak quiet car.)
Anyone who needs to travel that weekend along the singalong train’s route — which includes stops in West Palm Beach, Boca Raton and Fort Lauderdale — for a non-Swift purpose can book a train at a different time, Brightline spokesperson Vanessa Alfonso wrote in an email. Otherwise, headphones might be necessary. Singing, Alfonso said, will take place on “the ENTIRE Sing-Along Trains.”
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