Will Swifties spend big in New Orleans? Here’s what businesses are planning for the Eras Tour.

Pop superstar Taylor Swift is set to rake in billions of dollars from The Eras Tour by the time the 152-show run wraps up in December.

But Swift and her team aren’t the only ones cashing in.

The Eras Tour has boosted the local economy everywhere it goes, and New Orleans hospitality leaders are expecting that the three-show run in the Caesars Superdome October 25-27 will be a boon to restaurants, hotels and other tourism-dependent businesses in the city.

With the concert weekend roughly a month away, restaurants are prepping Swiftie-themed menus, retailers are stocking up on outfits geared to fans, and other businesses and event spaces are looking for ways to generate excitement and dollars. While local fans undoubtedly will be in attendance, signs are pointing to an influx of visitors seeking their last chance to see Swift before the tour ends.

Hotel room rates have soared, and Southwest Airlines added nonstop flights for the weekend from Austin, Baltimore, Dallas and San Antonio.

“We’re not counting our chickens before they hatch, but we expect to see a big impact,” said Evan Holmes, the general manager of the Caesars Superdome, where approximately 55,000 people will be packed in each night of the concert. “There are only five more opportunities for people to see this tour unless she adds more dates, so all the people that got shut out from other shows tried to buy tickets. We were one of the high-demand cities.”

‘Hotels will sell out’

Hotels are set to be among the biggest winners of Swift weekend. A spokesperson for New Orleans & Company, the city’s destination sales and marketing organization, said “hotels will sell out” in New Orleans and surrounding parishes, but it’s too soon to say if the weekend will set a record for room revenue.

“The demand is what we expected, and we are seeing it across the city,” said Jim Cook, general manager of the 1,100-room Sheraton New Orleans Hotel. “She brings an energetic fan base coming to have a great time.”

An online search and call to the reservations line showed no rooms available at the Sheraton on the Saturday night of the concert weekend. A handful of rooms are available Friday night for over $1,000 after taxes and fees. And rooms are available for just above $500 on Sunday. On Saturday, Oct. 19, by comparison, a room costs a little over $300.

The pattern is essentially the same at every hotel in the area. 

City and state coffers are helped by those packed hotels and high room rates. When guests stay in town, they pay a hotel tax that’s nearly 15% of the room rate. The higher the rate, the better the haul. That money is divided among the city, the state, the Regional Transit Authority and several other agencies and commissions. Short-term rental guests pay a different tax that’s dedicated to the city’s infrastructure fund and New Orleans & Company, the city’s tourism marketing agency.

“Every visitor that comes in is bringing their dollars from somewhere else and leaving them behind,” said Walt Leger of New Orleans & Company. “These tax dollars are everybody’s favorite type of tax dollars: somebody else’s.”

Swifties spend big

The Eras Tour began on March 17, 2023 in Glendale, Arizona and has now made stops in 46 cities. At each stop, fans spent money on accommodations, meals, transportation and experiences. That means there’s a lot of examples of what awaits New Orleans, the smallest city on the tour.

The U.S. Travel Association estimated, after the first leg of the tour, that each Swiftie spent an average of $1,300 on travel, accommodations, meals, merchandise and apparel.

According to the California Center for Jobs and Economy, Swift’s six Los Angeles-area shows added $320 million to the Los Angeles County gross domestic product. Employment jumped by 3,300 people and local earnings by $160 million.

As of February, restaurants in the 20 U.S. cities Swift had visited collected an extra $100 million in sales, according to the Robb Report, citing a Mastercard study. Restaurants within 2.5 miles of Swift’s venues saw a 68% increase in sales per show day.

In Cincinnati, the local visitors bureau reported income of $2.6 million from the city’s 3,500 downtown hotel rooms during Swift’s June and July performances.

“It was a much larger economic impact than we would have thought,” said Joe Pinto of the Cincinnati Convention and Visitors Bureau, which reported a 98% downtown hotel occupancy rate for the two Swift show nights.

‘Two events in one’

Understandably, New Orleans tourism boosters are delighted that the city was one of the three in the U.S. added to the 2024 Eras encore run. 

The city missed out on the first leg of the tour because of schedule conflicts at the Caesar Superdome, which just recently completed a $560 million renovation to get ready for the 2025 Super Bowl. Announced last August, the New Orleans shows will take place on a Saints away weekend and just before Halloween. When the first batch of tickets went on sale, they sold out within minutes.

All that demand means local tourism boosters are expecting an economic impact that will be in the same league as Mardi Gras, Jazz Fest and even the Super Bowl LIX, which is coming to town in February.

New Orleans restaurants are ready for a rush of customers, especially after a slow summer made more stressful by post-pandemic spikes in the cost of food, labor and insurance.

“Taylornomics or the Swift Lift, call it what you will, will be a massive boost for restaurants, and we’re ready for it,” said Wendy Waren, SVP of communications at the Louisiana Restaurant Association. “Halloween has become a huge revenue driver,” Waren said. “With Swifties set to flood the city, it’s like hosting two major events in one.”

Themed dining experiences are popping up all over town.

Commander’s Palace is hosting an “eras” menu event, featuring menu items from different chefs throughout the restaurant’s long history.

The Miss River Restaurant at the Four Seasons Hotel will host a Taylor Swift-inspired brunch with a live DJ. Tableau in the French Quarter is hosting a “balcony brunch” with a friendship bracelet-making station and life-sized cutouts of Taylor Swift and her NFL player boyfriend Travis Kelce.

Countless other eateries in town are doing something similar.

Nonprofits, small businesses cashing in

Children’s Hospital New Orleans has raised more than $700,000 so far by raffling Taylor Swift suite tickets acquired from anonymous donors. Other nonprofits, including the Louisiana Children’s Museum, have jumped into the raffle game.

Meanwhile, small businesses are looking at how they can generate sales from the concerts.

Kelsey Campion, CEO and “chief sequin officer” of Fringe+co., built a series of Swift-inspired selfie stations and is hosting events in the Howard Avenue studio where she designs high-end, handmade apparel.

Timothy Wegner, manager of Nikki’s French Quarter Halloween Store, said the store knew Swift-inspired looks would be in demand, so they stocked up on options.

“Since there’s not one specific Taylor Swift look, we ordered lots of cowboy hats, glitter skirts, and friendship bracelets just to have the basics,” he said.

Golden Goose in Canal Place is selling its high-end distressed sneakers with the option to have them Swiftie-fied by a local artist. Shoes range from $350 to over $2,000 and the custom art starts at $150.

There will be Swift-themed drag shows at Virgin Hotels in the CBD and at the AllWays Lounge in Marigny. The Paddlewheeler Creole Queen will host Swifties for a special cruise.

And, in what may be the biggest single Swiftie event outside of the Superdome’s glittering aluminum walls, super fan Rebecca Fox is hosting an unofficial Eras Convention throughout the weekend at a downtown Holiday Inn. 

Leger said all of these efforts add up to a big win for the city.

“We’re going to get the same level of economic impact, if not more, than the other major events that we host,” he said. “And after Taylor Swift, we’re going to have the Super Bowl in February and Mardi Gras in March. I hope that being in the center of all the action globally for this five-month period will convert into other business for us.”