MELBOURNE, Australia — More than 96,000 fans packed the Melbourne Cricket Grounds stadium to dance and sing their hearts out to night one of Taylor Swift‘s Eras Tour.
The weather could not have been any nicer for the city that reached the upper 90s on Tuesday. The cool down for the weekend left fans walking into the stadium to the beat of mid-70s.
Although the pop star has performed in the Australian city 10 times, this is her first time inside the Cricket Grounds. The open roof allowed the 10 eras of hits and thunderous crowd applause to spill from the vast arena into the downtown area. Restaurants and shops in the center of Melbourne have been playing hits by Swift from their storefronts all week. Finders Station, the train hub, also projected lights welcoming Miss Americana to Down Under.
You could not miss Zoe Lin’s voice outside the arena. The Taiwanese Swiftie spent weeks making more than 300 custom friendship bracelets. “Does anyone want to trade friendship bracelets?” she shouted.
Lin held up a Ziploc bag with beads of every color and a laminated sign that quoted Swift’s song “You’re On Your Own, Kid”: “So make the friendship bracelets, take the moment and taste it.”
The other side said, “Hey Taylor, Can you tell me now, I’m the ‘Lucky One,’ Swiftie from Taiwan.” Lin hoped the sign would be seen by Swift’s team so she could become the “22” hat recipient. She didn’t make it, but the sign was as fun as her fan spirit.
“Swifties are all really nice,” she said while handing out bracelets, “and they just feel like a family.”
Swifties began showing up to the stadium around noon, six hours before the concert, to buy merchandise. But the wait was worth it, because the real fight was getting tickets to the sold-out show.
“It was impossible,” said Liz Murdoch about getting tickets. “I could not get them. None of my friends, my whole family.” Somehow during the Ticketek madness Murdoch’s best friend Luke McCraken scored two golden seats in the VIP section. “I was at work when my friend texted me, ‘Do you want to go with me?’ I basically did a backflip I was so excited.”
Ticketek, which is the only online site where fans can get original or resale tickets, had two additional drops the week of the concert. One on Tuesday for a restricted section partially behind the stage and another on Thursday. Fans lined the streets of Melbourne and also piled online to try and score seats to the hottest show in town.
Swift has two more nights in Melbourne before hopping over to Sydney for four nights the following week.
Follow Bryan West, the USA TODAY Network’s Taylor Swift reporter, on Instagram, TikTok and X as @BryanWestTV.
