‘Real facts’: Why Taylor Swift gave future Olympic city a miss
The ‘real facts’ over why Taylor Swift bypassed Australia’s future Olympic city Brisbane on her Eras Tour has been revealed by one of the country’s most influential men.
Richlister ASM Global chairman and CEO Harvey Lister – who topped The Courier Mail’s list of Queensland’s 65 most influential people two years ago – said originally Brisbane was on the tour plan with Sydney and Melbourne, and dropped after dates had to be adjusted for Tokyo – but there was another reason it really missed out.
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US superstar Taylor Swift performs on stage during a concert as part of her Eras World Tour in Sydney in February this year. Picture: Dadvid Gray/AFP.
A subsequent proposal was put forward for her consideration, to play four dates at Suncorp Stadium after her Sydney and Melbourne concerts – when she had a spare week on the Eras Tour – but a promise she made to her production crew got in the way.
Mr Lister who runs a vast array of stadiums around the world – and is hopeful of being involved in Brisbane’s future main Olympic stadium – said it was the only thing that stopped Brisbane having four Swifty concerts of their own.
“For the first time in her career, Taylor Swift unplugged,” he said at the Urbanity conference at The Star on the Gold Coast.
“One week on a world tour with nothing to do, that’s gold – she promised she’d take (her touring crew) to the Great Barrier Reef and they had a break.”
“I’ve got to hand it to her, she cares so much about her production that there’s no way she was going to take that week away from them. And so Brisbane didn’t get that opportunity.”
People pictured as they arrive for the Taylor Swift concert at Sydney Olympic park. Picture: Damian Shaw
The comments came after questions were raised over whether future Olympic city Brisbane had enough of a world class stadium to attract international mega stars, given Taylor Swift’s very prominent ‘snub’ in February.
Mr Lister said Brisbane was originally on the Eras Tour plan and only dropped when Tokyo dates didn’t line up due to another event.
“We actually tried to have a discussion with them about what about after you’ve done Sydney and Melbourne, as you’re going to Singapore you’re actually going to have a week off. So we offered to buy four shows for Suncorp Stadium for Taylor to do,” he said.
“Taylor Swift in this tour of the world was only doing one city per week anywhere, whether it was two shows or six shows so that they don’t burn her out. They decided that in all of Asia they would only do two cities, Tokyo and Singapore … and then three in Australia – Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne.”
ASM Global chairman Harvey Lister (centre) at the Urbanity conference on the Gold Coast. Pic: Sophie Foster
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“They ran into a problem in Tokyo and there was a game at the Tokyo Dome, I think it was baseball and they had to move the week to get Tokyo and that meant they were a week short for Australia.”
“So you’ve got an option for Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, which one would you play? Firstly the one that’s got 7.5m people is the one you tick first – that’s Sydney, and the one that’s got 5.5m is Melbourne, so they ticked that. That made absolute sense, unfortunate for Brisbane that it dropped off.”
