Taylor Swift to play three nights at National Stadium in March 2024

Local Swifties, get ready to feel the lavender haze creeping up on you: American pop star Taylor Swift is bringing her much-hyped The Eras Tour to Singapore. 

The 33-year-old will be playing three nights at the National Stadium, from March 2 to 4, 2024.

Ticket pricing information was not immediately available, but a pre-sale for UOB cardmembers will be available from July 5 at noon, while general sales open via Ticketmaster on July 7 at noon.

Fan registration for general on-sale tickets will begin on June 23 at noon and end on June 28 at noon. Registration is needed for an access code to buy tickets.

Ticketmaster’s website notes that ticket sales are limited to a maximum of four each account.

Singapore Sports Hub, which is owned and managed by the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth, said in a press release that Singapore’s National Stadium will be the only venue in Asia outside of Japan that Swift will be stopping by on her world tour.

It expects more than 200,000 fans from Singapore and Asia to attend the concerts held at the stadium. 

Minister for Community, Culture and Youth Edwin Tong said: “Taylor Swift’s only-in-Singapore concert outside of Japan is an example of the calibre of events we are targeting to augment our offerings to Singaporeans and tourists alike.”

“In the next few weeks, we look forward to welcoming several top football teams to Singapore Sports Hub for the Singapore Festival of Football and, in September, the very first Fiba Intercontinental Cup to be played in Singapore and Asia. We also have Coldplay for six nights in early 2024,” he added.

On her Instagram account, Swift announced a packed slate of international dates, starting with Japan in February, before passing through Australia and Singapore on her way to Europe. 

The singer-songwriter had previously announced dates in Latin America in August and November to follow after wrapping up in the United States.  

Calling her a brilliant songwriter and consummate performer, Mr Tong said: “She owns her stage, and we will be very happy to host her in Singapore.”

Swift kicked off her The Eras Tour – her first concert series since the Reputation Stadium Tour in 2018 – in the US in March, playing exclusively at large-capacity National Football League stadiums across the country.

Fans trying to score tickets crashed the website of booking platform Ticketmaster in November; a debacle which led to Mr Joe Berchtold, president of its parent company Live Nation, being hauled up by the US Senate in a judiciary committee hearing.

The singer-songwriter, known for a long list of pop hits including Love Story and You Belong With Me, was last in Singapore in 2015 for The 1989 World Tour. 

Tickets to her two shows – where she performed for almost 20,000 fans – sold out soon after they went on sale earlier that year.

Her popularity has continued to skyrocket in the years since, with her 10th and latest album Midnights sweeping off shelves and racking up streams immediately after its release in October 2022.

Indeed, in the run-up to the official announcement of her concert dates in Singapore, rumours had already been swirling on social media.

A TikTok post made by a fan in the Philippines purported to share a leak from a rogue Live Nation employee, saying that Singapore and Japan would be the only stops on the international leg of Swift’s The Eras Tour.

Elsewhere, on Twitter, local Swifties began buzzing over a circular purportedly from United Overseas Bank (UOB) that claimed the pop star would be performing on March 1 to 3, with the potential of additional dates on March 6 to 8. 

On Tuesday afternoon, local media was informed that the Singapore Sports Hub would be making a big announcement at midnight – the timing of which many took to be a veiled reference to the name of Swift’s most recent album.

The first track on Midnights, Lavender Haze, even seems to provide an additional clue, with Swift telling listeners in the first line: “Meet me at midnight.” 

It has been a busy week for music fans in Singapore. Over a few hours spread out between Monday and Tuesday, British band Coldplay sold more than 200,000 tickets to an unprecedented six gigs at the National Stadium.

Such was the frenzy that fans queued at SingPost outlets islandwide as early as midnight on Tuesday, and more than a million virtual queue numbers were issued to those waiting on Ticketmaster’s online platform.