Everything You Need To Know About Taylor Swift’s Australian ‘Eras’ Tour

You don’t need to be a fan of Taylor Swift to know she’s heading to Australia next February – news of the tour spread so far and wide, it even reached Parliament (because ICYMI, she’s only playing shows in Naarm/Melbourne and Eora/Sydney, making fans in other cities lose their goddamn minds).

With seven shows on the itinerary, it’ll be the first time Swift has performed Down Under since November 2018. She’s kept exceptionally busy since, releasing four new studio albums – Lover in 2019, Folklore and Evermore in 2020, and Midnights in 2022 – as well as re-recorded versions (or Taylor’s Versions) of Fearless, Red and Speak Now. The dates come as part of Swift’s monumental Eras tour, following lengthy stints in North and South America, plus a few shows in Japan.

There’s a lot to keep an eye out for, and a lot of news to keep up with – so, as we gear up for the biggest pop tour of the decade (an incredible feat when you realise it’s hitting just two cities), we’ve rounded up all the info available for the Australian leg of Taylor Swift’s Eras tour. Make sure to bookmark this page, as we’ll keep updating it whenever new info drops!

Concerts – especially the big ones – have only gotten more stressful as multiple ticketing agencies and traffic take over our cities whenever the shows roll into town. To help with the overwhelming practice of seeing your favourite acts, The Music has rounded up the dates and venues you need to know, how to get to venues – public transport or driving included, reviews and setlists for the real dedicated fans, the support acts, and what albums acts are promoting.

DATES & VENUES

Swift will heading to Melbourne (Naarm) and Sydney (Eora) on the Australian leg of the Eras tour, respectively playing three shows at the Melbourne Cricket Ground and four at Accor Stadium. Here’s a breakdown of all the dates:

Friday February 16 – Naarm/Melbourne, Melbourne Cricket Ground
Saturday February 17 – Naarm/Melbourne, Melbourne Cricket Ground
Sunday February 18 – Naarm/Melbourne, Melbourne Cricket Ground
Friday February 23 – Eora/Sydney, Accor Stadium
Saturday February 24 – Eora/Sydney, Accor Stadium
Sunday February 25 – Eora/Sydney, Accor Stadium
Monday February 26 – Eora/Sydney, Accor Stadium

TICKETING INFO

Tickets to all seven shows have sold out, however Ticketek have a webpage set up for the Eras tour, and you can check back there for any potential resales. We’ll also update this tour guide if we hear anything about new ticket releases. Ticketek is the only authorised ticket seller for the tour; it’s strongly advised that fans steer clear of parasitic resale sites like Viagogo, as they’re known to be riddled with scammers and fake tickets. Tixel, on the other hand, is much more reliable, and has measures put in place to avoid scams and rip-offs.

SUPPORT ACTS

All seven shows on the Australian leg of the Eras tour will be supported by Sabrina Carpenter, who is making her Australian debut with the trip. We recently highlighted six of her songs to check out before the shows.

WHAT SHE’S PROMOTING

Technically, all ten of Swift’s studio albums: as its name implies, the Eras tour features a handful of songs from every era of the pop star’s ongoing tenure, from her self-titled 2006 debut to last year’s record-breaking Midnights album. That latter record is indeed her most recent body of all-new material, arriving on October 21, 2022 and sporting hits like Anti-Hero and Lavender Haze.

There’s also Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), which hit shelves on July 7 of this year and has since been dominating the charts. It’s a full re-recording of Swift’s third album (which we first heard in October 2010) and comes with a handful of previously unheard songs “from the vault”, like the Fall Out Boy-assisted Electric Touch and an epic duet between Swift and Hayley Williams (of Paramore fame) called Castles Crumbling.

LATEST UPDATES

• March 28: It’s leaked that Swift has dates booked in at the MCG.

• May 1: Rumours continue to swirl – this time, it’s leaked that Swift is only performing in Melbourne and Sydney.

• June 21: The Australian leg of the Eras tour is officially announced!

• June 21: Politicians in Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia hit out at Swift for snubbing their cities.

• June 26: The American Express website crashes right before an exclusive presale, after millions of fans swarmed the server for access codes.

• June 27: An insider at Ticketek shares their top tips for scoring tickets in the official sale.

• June 28: Ticket scalpers are warned not to fuck with the Swifties, as official measures have been put in place to deter scams.

• June 28: Queensland officials step up the pressure for Frontier and Swift to add Brisbane dates to the tour.

• June 29: New dates are added to the itinerary – a third show in Melbourne and a fourth in Sydney – with the promise they’d be the very last.

• June 29: It’s revealed that Ticketek’s “queue” is randomised; logging in early doesn’t guarantee you a spot.

• July 3: Insiders reveal why Swift isn’t performing in Brisbane, Adelaide and/or Perth.

• July 3: With tickets finally on sale, Swift dominates the ARIA Singles Chart.

• July 4: Swift’s potential earnings for the Australian leg of the Eras tour are detailed.

SETLIST

Aside from a few acoustic songs (which seem to change between every show), the Eras tour setlist has remained virtually unchanged since it debuted back in March. It’s Swift’s longest show to date, spanning an average of 45 songs across some three-and-a-half hours. Here’s what she played on Saturday July 22 in Seattle, via setlist.fm:

1. Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince (extended intro; shortened)
2. Cruel Summer
3. The Man
4. You Need To Calm Down (shortened)
5. Lover (with spoken intro)
6. The Archer
7. Fearless
8. You Belong With Me
9. Love Story
10. No Body, No Crime (with HAIM)
11. Willow
12. Marjorie (shortened)
13. Champagne Problems (with spoken intro)
14. Tolerate It (extended intro; shortened)
15. ...Ready For It?
16. Delicate
17. Don’t Blame Me (shortened)
18. Look What You Made Me Do (extended intro)
19. Enchanted (extended intro)
20. Long Live
21. 22
22. We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together
23. I Knew You Were Trouble (shortened)
24. All Too Well (ten-minute version; with spoken intro)
25. The 1
26. Betty (with spoken intro)
27. The Last Great American Dynasty
28. August
29. Illicit Affairs (shortened)
30. My Tears Ricochet
31. Cardigan
32. Style (shortened)
33. Blank Space
34. Shake It Off
35. Wildest Dreams (shortened)
36. Bad Blood (shortened)
37. This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things (acoustic; on guitar)
38. Everything Has Changed (acoustic; on piano)
39. Lavender Haze
40. Anti-Hero
41. Midnight Rain
42. Vigilante Shit
43. Bejeweled
44. Mastermind
45. Karma

REVIEWS

The Music was on the ground for the Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne dates of Swift’s 2018 tour of Australia. Reviewing her show at The Gabba, Roshan Clerke wrote that “every aspect of the show exhibits ... meticulous attention to detail, to the extent that it sometimes feels as if we’re watching a lyric video”. In his write-up on the Sydney date, Mark Neilsen opined that Swift’s performance was “almost like a made-for-TV spectacular” – and in Melbourne, Michael Prebeg found it to be “two hours of non-stop jaw-dropping entertainment”.

In a review of the Eras tour stop in New Jersey, NME’s Erica Campbell wrote: “It’s easy to hear some of [Swift’s] tracks as saccharine, take Shake It Off or even the TikTok-worthy chorus of the excruciatingly well-written Anti-Hero. But viewed as an entire story, watched for more than three hours straight, her discography seems less painted by moments of easily digestible pop songs or acutely aware indie pop tracks (looking at you, Cardigan) but a full picture of what it means to be human; perhaps specifically a woman fighting for your right to embody a full range of emotions shamelessly, in tears, sequins, and in tonight, thigh-high sparkling boots.”

Reviewing the same show for Rolling Stone, Rob Sheffield gave it similar praise: “This is [Swift’s] best tour ever, by an absurd margin. It’s a journey through her past, starring all the different Taylors she’s ever been, which means all the Taylors that you’ve ever been. Taylor always designs every tour to be the best night of your life. But she designed this one to be the best night of all your lives. Every Era you’ve ever lived through, it’s in here. She does 46 songs, plus snippets of a few more. That means this show has 22 percent of her songbook, and don’t even imagine she didn’t plan it that way.”

Elsewhere, shows on the Eras tour have been lauded by Buzzfeed, Variety, The New Yorker, The Atlantic and The New York Times.

TRANSPORT

Here’s what we know as of July 24, 2023. But as with many significant events and venues, things will likely change in the lead-up to these shows. We’ll update this guide with show-specific transport info when it comes to hand.

MELBOURNE CRICKET GROUND

DRIVING

Public parking is available at Yarra Park for $10, subject to capacity and variables outlined on the MCG’s website. Alternatively, there are Wilson Parking lots at 11 Exhibition Street, 28 Flinders Street, 172 Flinders Street and in Federation Square (202 Flinders Lane), as well as independent lots at 34-60 Little Collins Street and 114 Flinders Street. There’s also the Eastern Plaza Car Park, and metered parking along Fitzroy Gardens, the Botanical Gardens and the Yarra River. Accessible parking is available.

TAXI/RIDESHARE

According to the MCG, “taxis are available from the ground at the conclusion of each event.” There are three taxi ranks around the venue – one on Jolimont Terrace, one outside Rod Laver Arena on Olympic Boulevard, and one in front of Pullman Hotel on the corner of Wellington Parade and Clarendon Street in East Melbourne.

PUBLIC TRANSPORT

For those arriving by train, the MCG is a 150-metre walk from Jolimont Station (optimal for entry via Gates 1 and 2) or a 250-metre walk from Richmond Station (optimal for entry via Gates 5 and 7). For those preferring trams, the #75, #48 and #70 lines all stop at the MCG. Lastly, there’s the #246 bus. More info can be found here.

ACCOR STADIUM

DRIVING (H4)

Parking is available at Sydney Olympic Park, subject to capacity. It’s advised that punters hoping to park pre-book their spot seven-to-ten working days in advance via the Sydney Olympic Park website. Accor Stadium’s website also advises concertgoers to “expect roads approaching Accor Stadium to be busier than usual on event days”. Realtime info on Sydney traffic can be accessed via the NSW government’s Live Traffic platform.

TAXI/RIDESHARE

There’s a taxi rank outside the Novotel hotel on Olympic Boulevard, just across the street from Accor Stadium. For those using rideshare services like Uber, it’s suggested that concertgoers are dropped off and/or picked up on Dawn Fraser Avenue, a short walk from the venue.

PUBLIC TRANSPORT

For select major events, Sydney Olympic Park have their own bus service, with several routes operating around metropolitan Sydney and the park itself; there are also busses on route #525 (which runs between Parramatta and Strathfield via Olympic Park), #526 (which runs from Rhodes to Burwood via the Olympic Park ferry wharf on Hill Road) and #533 (which runs from Olympic Park to Chatswood via Rhodes and North Ryde). For those arriving by train, Accor Stadium is an estimated five-minute walk from Olympic Park Station. Direct trains from Lidcombe Station run every ten to twenty minutes on weekdays, and every ten minutes during event schedules. More info can be found here.