I’ve wanted to go to a Taylor Swift concert for as long as I can remember and when I saw that she was going on the Eras Tour, I knew that I had to get tickets. My best friend and I were going on our weekly bubble tea date when her mom called saying she could get us four tickets to the Eras Tour for August 2024 in London, England. I didn’t even hesitate to say yes; seeing Taylor Swift in England would be better than I ever could have dreamed of. Naturally, my mom was shocked when I told her about the tickets. Who books a trip to Europe just to see a Taylor Swift concert? I did previously mention that I was going to do whatever it took to see the concert live, so she really shouldn’t have been that surprised.
Initially, I thought that getting the concert tickets would have been the hardest part of this experience, but I was wrong. The hardest part was realizing just how little my mom knew of Taylor Swift and her music. For example, she only knew songs that had gotten popular on the radio, like Love Story and 22. With the help of my best friend and her mom, we immediately got to work coming up with a guide to turn my mom into a Swiftie, and just in time for the concert too.
We created a month-by-month listening guide for the four of us to follow, allocating enough time for my mom to learn each album while incorporating deadlines to hold her accountable. The album schedule started in September with evermore. After listening to the album, she decided that her favourite song was “Willow.” For October, we decided to listen to Red (Taylor’s Version, of course) and her favourite song on the album is “Stay Stay Stay.” The rest of the listening guide goes as follows: folklore in November; Speak Now in December; Midnights in January; reputation in February; Taylor Swift (Debut) in March; Fearless in April; Lover in May and 1989 in June. This leaves the months of July and August with a blank space. In July, we will go over any general thoughts or reviews from the albums and in August, we will begin listening to the Eras Tour setlist. Though this is quite an extensive listening guide for my mom, it’ll be so worth it once we get to the concert and are able to sing the songs together!
Another big component of the Eras Tour is, of course, the outfits, usually representing one of the 10 eras, drawing on either the album’s featured colours or lyrics from a song. This is another reason why we chose to leave the month of July for review. Using this guide, my mom will have plenty of time to decide which album is her favourite and come up with an outfit to match her favourite era! This month and a half will also give the four of us some time to make friendship bracelets to trade with other Swifties at the concert.
The last component in turning my mom into Swiftie is making her watch Taylor Swift’s documentaries, short films and videos. To start, we watched All Too Well: The Short Film on YouTube. By the end, my mom was asking a lot of questions about the Jake Gyllenhaal drama, so I would say she’s already on her way to becoming a well-educated Swiftie! Other documentaries and videos that we’ve planned to watch include Miss Americana and The Reputation Stadium Tour, both of which can be found on Netflix, Superstar and America’s Sweetheart, which can be found on Prime Video and folklore: the long pond studio sessions, which can be found on Disney Plus.
While some people may think it’s a little excessive to spend a year preparing for a concert, I would argue the opposite, especially when the concert we’re preparing for is Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour. So, if you are also planning to go to the Eras Tour with your mom who isn’t exactly a certified Swiftie, this is my guide to help turn her into one!