Going for growth! Swiftonomics leads the way on sales- Kevin Buckle

Taylor Swift Eras Tour hoodie

A couple of days before the first gig people could be seen carrying their purchases in clear Taylor Swift carrier bags of official merchandise.

It is quite amazing the prices fans are prepared to pay and while we had a lot of concert goers who were unhappy that the Bruce Springsteen T-shirts were £40, this did not appear to be an issue for the Swifties being charged the same price.

Given that all the official hoodies we sell in Avalanche are £35, even I was surprised to hear the hoodies were £75 but a quick check on the official website confirmed it. Similarly we have a wide range of shirts including ex-tour shirts from artists such as Olivia Rodrigo and Bruce Springsteen that we sell for £20.

Many fans in the shop found other artists’ shirts to add to their Taylor swag, it being no surprise that the Olivia Rodrigo shirts and hoodies from the Sour tour were the most popular.

What did surprise me was how many Taylor Swift CDs and records we sold as I had assumed the fans would already own all the albums. Luckily I had stocked up on the basis that as all the albums are regular sellers anyway, anything left would still sell in the following months.

As it happened by the time the last of the fans had left on the Monday we had just about been cleaned out of all our CDs by late afternoon.

The different formats for the new album on vinyl also sold particularly well, but sales across the whole catalogue were healthy and again we managed to have everything in stock up until the Monday.

Given how expensive everything is for a Swiftie you can imagine their delight to find we had a wide range of Taylor’s CDs for £6 and it was only because of the large numbers we carry that the stock lasted so long.

By the following Thursday we had replenished the stock and were back to having everything that is available on sale.

From a monetary viewpoint the three days of gigs resulted in takings slightly more than the last Record Store Day weekend, which is amazing given there are hundreds of limited releases out for Record Store Day. Adding in the couple of days before the gigs and the day after meant we doubled our RSD weekend takings.

This, I’ve discovered, is called “Swiftonomics”. Taylor is so good for business that even promoters have to hand over all their ticket money and be content with what is made from food and drink.

While a new 8500 capacity concert arena getting the green light to be built at Edinburgh Park is nothing compared to the size of Murrayfield, over the course of a year it will bring many hundreds of thousands of fans to Edinburgh and though not expected to be ready until 2027 it is welcome news for the city.