Reputation Stadium Tour

In August 2017, Billboard reported that Swift would be using Ticketmaster's Verified Fan program to prevent bots and ticket scalpers from purchasing tickets. The program, named "Taylor Swift Tix", allowed fans to purchase tickets in advance of the public on-sale by participating in boost activities to increase chances of getting a pre-sale access code.[2][3] On November 13, 2017, Swift's management announced the first round of dates for the tour jointly with Ticketmaster.[4][5] Tickets went on sale to the general public on December 13, 2017, Swift's 28th birthday.[6]

In late November, Swift announced shows in Manchester, Dublin, and London. Due to overwhelming demand, additional dates were announced for all three cities. Furthermore, the singer also announced extra shows in North America for Pasadena, Chicago, East Rutherford, Foxborough, Toronto, and Atlanta due to popular demand before the pre-sale began.[7][8] On December 3, Swift announced five dates for Oceania.[9][10] In January 2018, due to high demand, Swift added second dates in Santa Clara, Landover, Philadelphia, Minneapolis and Arlington and third dates in East Rutherford and Foxborough, totalling 40 shows for the tour's North American leg.[11]

Swift performing "Look What You Made Me Do" with background dancers on a tilted stage with golden snakes decoration

On March 1, 2018, Swift officially announced Camila Cabello and Charli XCX as the opening acts for the Reputation Stadium Tour.[12] Cabello was previously speculated as the opening act as the shows for her Never Be the Same Tour did not coincide with Swift's tour dates;[13] Portland's Live 95.5 also announced her in a sweepstake for the concert of June 22, 2018, at Wembley Stadium in London through a since-deleted post on Twitter, one day before Swift confirmed her as the opening act.[14]

On May 7, 2018, the day before the tour kicked off at Glendale, Arizona, Swift invited 2,000 foster and adopted children to a private dress rehearsal.[15] The following day, she announced two shows in Tokyo in partnership with Fujifilm Instax, with Charli XCX as the opening act.[16][17][18] In September, Broods was announced as an opening act for the Oceania leg of the tour.[19]

During the shows, Swift performed "surprise songs" as part of an acoustic segment at different concerts. The songs varied by venue and were taken from Swift's back catalog. A streaming-exclusive compilation playlist, Reputation Stadium Tour Surprise Song Playlist, was released to digital music platforms on November 30, 2018.[20][21]

Swift uses "Obsessed" by Mariah Carey and "Bad Reputation" by Joan Jett as her entrance songs.

Media publications and journalists gave the tour rave reviews and many of them deemed it one of the best tours of 2018.[22][23][24] The concerts were complimented for Swift's on-stage persona and intimacy with the audience, the versatile set list and the transition between songs, production value, the stripped-down performances and wardrobe choices, with many commentators noting the Gothic visuals and costumes and Broadway theatricality of the show.[23][25][26]

The stage design and aesthetic incorporated prominent snake motifs and imagery to reflect Swift's reputation as a "snake".

Stereogum's Chris DeVille deemed it a "hyper-maximalist" tour and "a perpetual gargantuan flex, a roving musical Infinity War that amplifies everything extra about her persona to an exponential scope" and added that it is designed to be "the biggest spectacle in all of summer entertainment". He also described the tour as "an oversized, high-tech touring Broadway production with a mostly tremendous soundtrack" and concluded that "when discussing the biggest artists of her [Swift's] generation, she's undeniably on the shortlist" and that the singer has ascended to the same "rarefied" tier as the "classic rock deities who've echoed across this venue [the Horseshoe] before her, able to keep commanding stadium status for the rest of her career".[26] Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone named the tour as Swift's "most astounding tour yet" and complimented it for giving "it all the vibe of a mass communion" despite aiming for "maximum stadium-rock razzle-dazzle bombast". He observed the acoustic performances of Swift's fan-favorite deep cuts and dubbed them "a powerhouse performance that made all the different Taylors sound like part of the same story".[27]

The Guardian's Bob Gordon thought that "...Ready for It?" is "an appropriate and compelling opener". He opined that Swift made a "striking entrance" with "no elevation or descent, simply walking out from behind a curtain bathed in brilliant white light, in what was a real 'now I'm here' moment, as Freddie Mercury would once have put it".[28] Awarding the tour five stars, Roisin O'Connor of The Independent lauded the set-list and how it "transitions seamlessly from one song to another, crafted out of some of the best from Swift's canon". Also, she compared the tour to a Broadway show because the stage was "flooded with red lighting and dancers swing from trapeze with all the splendour of a Broadway show".[25] Lydia Burgham of The Spinoff defined the tour's Auckland concert a "theatrical, mega-production that somehow also strips down to raw intimate moments". Commenting on the set list, she noted that Swift "had the crowd aching for more with the commencement of every song, thanks to seamless transitions". Burgham highlighted the intimacy of Swift's acoustic guitar and piano performances that proved Swift remained "integral to her singer-songwriter origins". Burgham summarized her review by stating that "there may not be an artist in this lifetime who quite manages to connect to thousands of people on a rainy night as well as Taylor Swift can – and that's the reputation she will be remembered for".[29]

The main stage featured a movable LED screen, splitting apart vertically and horizontally during different songs.

Variety's Chris Willman wrote that the show "had plenty of fierceness, especially in the early going" but also the "pre-decedent Taylor on the line… the guileless Swift we remember from two or three skins ago", and commended Swift for using her two hours on the stage to "paint a rewardingly holistic picture". Willman believed that, despite the huge production, "we're still left not so much with dragons or defensiveness but in the endearingly earnest presence of pop's most approachable superstar". He further remarked that the acoustic performance of "Dancing With Our Hands Tied" proved that Reputation worked acoustically as well, without the "Max Martin-izing".[30] Randy Lewis of Los Angeles Times wrote that Swift gave "a master class in the constructive use of the modern technology that's allowed her to establish and nurture an exceptionally powerful connection with a massive audience." He underlined the use of light-up bracelets that allowed the attendees "to feel like participants, even collaborators, rather than passive observers" and appreciated the stage's resemblance to "a skyscraper in progress, with six crane-like contraptions stretching up above a wedge-like screen". Lewis summarized the show as "tightly structured for the most part, featuring elaborate production numbers that rely on video projection, eye-popping lighting and pyrotechnics, choreography and precisely coordinated interaction among the star, band, singers and dancers".[24]

Swift performs "...Ready For It?" in Seattle, 2018

Reviewing for V magazine, Greg Krelenstein stated that Swift possesses "a rare gift of turning a stadium spectacle into an intimate setting", with the new persona the singer adopted on Reputation album cycle suiting itself "excellently to a show of this magnitude where she appears larger than life". He thought that Swift fully embraced her vast back catalog and praised her command of the stage—"whether plucking a guitar or leading an army of dancers" that showed that Swift's musical and performance evolution is an "absolute success". Krelenstein concluded that the pop star "delivers in every way to a mesmerized and devoted audience, re-defining what the modern stadium tour can be".[23] Ed Masley of The Arizona Republic wrote that "there were many moments in the course Swift's performance that felt like she was playing to the back rows of the stadium by simply sharing with her fans", while complimenting the tour's production and Swift's connection with the crowd.[31] Jim Harrington of The Mercury News asserted that the singer's vocal work and performance skills have improved over the years, and added that "her game is well-rounded enough that she can excel equally at every different aspect of the show."[32] Chris Tuite of CBS San Francisco wrote: "The only thing more prominent than the singer herself during her current costume-change filled spectacle are the massive, vicious looking snakes that symbolically appear throughout the set."[33] Michael Tritsch of 303 magazine raved that the tour "broke new ground and set the bar high for future stadium tours", burning "its way into the history books".[34]

Swift performing at Sports Authority Field at Mile High in Denver, Colorado, where she became the first woman to headline a concert at that stadium

The tour broke multiple venue attendance and grossing records. The opening show at University of Phoenix Stadium set new venue records in both gross and attendance, topping Metallica's $5.2 million gross from August 2017 by almost $2 million. With 59,157 tickets sold, Swift also broke the attendance record set by One Direction on their Where We Are Tour in 2014 by 2,633 seats.[42] With a $14 million take from 107,550 sold tickets at Levi's Stadium, she topped her own gross and attendance counts set during the 1989 World Tour in 2015. With more than 118,000 fans in attendance at the Rose Bowl, the two-show run earned $16.2 million and set a new gross record for a single headliner at the venue, surpassing U2's 2017 record by over $467,000. Grossing records previously set by U2 as well were broken at Seattle's CenturyLink Field, where she topped their Joshua Tree Tour 2017 gross by $2.4 million, and Denver's Sports Authority Field at Mile High, where she surpassed the $6.6 million gross set by the band in 2011 during their 360° Tour by $1.2 million.[38]

Swift made history by becoming the first ever female artist to headline Dublin's Croke Park twice, with reportedly 136,000 fans in attendance.[43] Similarly, she became the first woman to headline three consecutive nights at MetLife Stadium[44] and Gillette Stadium.[45]

Following the 29th show in North America at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, the tour had grossed $202.3 million in the continent ($191.1 million in the United States and $11.1 million in Canada), thus breaking Swift's own record of the highest-grossing North American tour by a female artist, previously held by the 1989 World Tour, with fewer dates.[46] The tour eventually broke the overall record set by the Rolling Stones' A Bigger Bang Tour to become the highest-grossing tour in US and North American history, grossing $266.1 million, besting the Rolling Stones' $245 million gross. The Rolling Stones achieved their then-record from 70 American shows, while Swift did so with just 38 shows.[47] Additionally, the Reputation Stadium Tour holds the Guinness World Record for 2018's highest-grossing tour by a female artist.[48]

This set list is from the concert on May 8, 2018, in Glendale, Arizona. It is not intended to represent all shows throughout the tour.[59]

Taylor Swift: Reputation Stadium Tour
Netflix poster
Directed by	Paul Dugdale
Produced by	Taylor Swift
Starring	Taylor Swift
Cinematography	Brett Turnbull
Edited by	Tom Watson Jose Fortanel Simon Bryant Bill DeRonde Adrianna Merlucci Ben Wainwright-Pearce
Music by	Taylor Swift
Production company	Taylor Swift Productions
Distributed by	Netflix Big Machine Records
Release date	December 31, 2018 (2018-12-31)
Running time	125 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

Taylor Swift: Reputation Stadium Tour is a concert film directed by Paul Dugdale.[75] It was released on December 31, 2018, exclusively via Netflix. The film follows American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift's second performance at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas on her record-breaking fifth headlining concert tour, the Reputation Stadium Tour.[76]

Swift announced on social media on her birthday, December 13, that the concert film would be released globally in partnership with Netflix on New Year's Eve. It was filmed on the last day of the North American leg of the tour. For their work on the film, Tamlyn Wright and Baz Halpin were nominated in the category "Variety, Reality or Event Special" at the 24th Art Directors Guild Annual Excellence in Production Design Awards.[77]

• List of highest-grossing concert tours by women
• List of original films distributed by Netflix

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