Add Category
Brisbane was dropped from Taylor Swift's Eras tour because Australia got "sandwiched" between dates in other countries, the chair of a venue management firm says.
- ASM Global's Harvey Lister says Lang Park in Brisbane was holding dates for the tour
- He said the city was dropped in favour of bigger venues in NSW and Victoria
- Swift will spend roughly a week in each city on the tour, making her Australian schedule tight
Yesterday Swift announced she would be performing for three nights in Sydney and two nights in Melbourne in February 2024 as part of her world tour.
ASM Global Asia Pacific Chairman Harvey Lister told ABC Radio Brisbane Swift had been "definitely holding dates" at Lang Park stadium, "but as the dates around the world fell into place, Australia got sandwiched a bit".
"She comes through Japan, plays Australia, goes out through Singapore and then straight back to Europe," he said.
Mr Lister said given Swift was devoting a week to each city on the tour and because Australia only had two weeks' worth of dates, only two cities would fit the schedule.
"There just wasn't time to keep leapfrogging from city to city," he said.
"So the decision was taken to play in Sydney and Melbourne where the stadiums can take about 100,000."
But Mr Lister said he did not believe the stadiums in Brisbane were too small.
"The new Gabba is going to be fantastic, but it's a big round stadium," he said.
"If you put a stage at one end, it's 50,000 capacity.
"You probably lose seats behind where the stage will be.
"[Lang Park] is a rectangular stadium — you build the stage into one end of it, you end up with about 60,000.
"The MCG did 107,000 … they are huge numbers and you wouldn't fill those stadiums for their day-to-day use, and you certainly wouldn't build one just to try and get an occasional concert."
Mr Lister highlighted that Australia, with a much smaller population than Japan, had more tour dates than Tokyo would.
"Which is just extraordinary," he said.
"[An] extraordinary number of people will go to the shows here."
Mr Lister said Swift's promoters had told him they probably could have done back-to-back dates for a month, but that would not be sustainable over the course of the tour.
"So the date period for Australia, which initially was going to be longer, when the tour was also coming to Brisbane, it got sandwiched between other dates in other countries, and effectively Australia was between Japan and Singapore," he said.
"We're normally just holding some dates around that and pencilling them out just in case there's a chance to roll into an additional one."
Mr Lister said the last two times Swift toured Australia the two concerts held at Lang Park had sold out.
"There's no doubt there's an enormous, enormous interest from Swifties right across the country and it's just unfortunate," he said.
"Brisbane doesn't miss out on stuff like this very often at all — this is just one of those occasions."
It news comes after Deputy Premier Steven Miles said on social media that a new arena at Roma Street and the redeveloped Gabba would attract more artists like Taylor Swift.
Mr Lister said the Brisbane Live arena and the redeveloped Gabba would attract more performers.