The summer tour to remember is coming to a close in sunny Southern California. Taylor Swift began the Eras tour back in March in Glendale, Arizona (or better known as Swift City). Now almost five months later, filled with memories of new surprise songs, music videos and a new Taylor’s Version, it’s hard to imagine a weekend without Swifties dancing the night away.
Swift will be performing at SoFi stadium for the first time since her Reputation stadium tour in 2017 on August 3-5 and August 7-9. The show begins at 6:30 p.m. and doors will open at 4:30 p.m. She has two opening acts.
Before the big night, there are so many things to prepare for the concert and anticipate including where to park, what to bring and what surprises to expect on the final leg of the U.S. tour.
Due to the high levels of existing traffic in Los Angeles and the added influx of drivers going to SoFi, it is highly recommended to plan out a few hours to drive or commute to the concert. Parking passes are also available on the SoFi website but are expensive and in high demand, due to the number of tailgaters also buying passes to watch the concert from the parking lot.
One way to get to the concert is Uber or to get dropped off. SoFi Stadium released specific instructions for drop off and pick up to occur on Kareem Court westbond of Pincay Drive.
Another option for travel is the Metro with the C and K lines passing through the stadium. More trains have been added and hours were extended to run until 2 a.m. For more information about the Metro visit their website.
The clear bag policy that is common for SoFi football games and is the same for the concert. Additionally the merchandise truck is open — and usually already has a line — the day before the concert. It’s at the truck where fans can secure exclusive Eras tour merchandise, specifically the blue crewneck everyone has been snagging at the first chance.
There are also many events that are happening before Swift touches ground in Hollywood Hills. Just this week the mural on Melrose released about the Spotify top five Eras feature. On the corner of Melrose and Stanley Avenues, you can find a painting for each Swift Era and take pictures.
There is also an Eras Tour Pop Up shop with custom L.A. merch and Eras Tour goodies on August 6 from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. at 1054 South Olive St. The Bloc in L.A. will also be making customized cocktails with Taylor Swift photos and will be hosting a party August 2 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. where you can participate in friendship bracelet making.
Finally, there will be a Swift-themed beach bash in Santa Monica Beach on August 8, which will have bracelets, food and entertainment. You can get tickets here.
Each night of the L.A. show also has different openers. Thursday’s show welcomes Haim and Gracie Abrams; Friday, Haim and Owenn; Saturday, Haim and Gayle. Swift isn’t performing on Sunday, but comes back Monday and Tuesday with Haim and Abrams. Finally, she ends the U.S. leg of the tour with Haim and Gayle as the openers.
The openers have occasionally joined Swift during the set either as additions to the setlist or songs from the opener. Abrams joined Swift to sing “I Miss You, I’m Sorry” on Cincinnati night two and Phoebe Bridgers sang “Nothing New” with Swift during the dates when she was the opener.
Most recently, L.A. band Haim has joined Swift on these dates of the tour and, during the Seattle shows, debuted the performance of “No Body, No Crime” during the “evermore” setlist. Some fans anticipating the L.A. show took to TikTok to talk about how sad it would be if Swift repeated what she did in those shows at SoFi and replace the song “‘tis the damn season” with “No Body, No Crime,” since the former song has the infamous line “I’ll go back to L.A. to my so-called friends who’ll write books about me.”
If this is your first Taylor Swift concert, there are also a lot of traditions to participate in, with the most famous being friendship bracelet trading. Swifties have been making bracelets with Swift-inspired quotes or lyrics and handing them out at the concert. From experience, most fans are friendly and super approachable to trade bracelets with, so if this is something that piques your interest, now is the time to start bracelet making.
Another coming tradition is for fans to scream out certain chants during certain songs. If you’d like to keep clear of the set list, scroll past the following list of chants:
- Fearless - Heart with hands at the end of chorus
- Delicate - Scream “1, 2, 3 Let’s Go B”
- Long Live - Point to Taylor and pump fists in air after the end of the bridge
- All Too Well - Scream “how did that make you feel” before she sings “that made me want to die”
- Anti-Hero - Scream “Taylor you’ll be fine” during second chorus
There are definitely more chants and ways to interact with Taylor during the 3 ½ hour set. A final, very notable tradition of this tour are also the surprise songs. During the setlist of the tour, Swift’s background singers and dancers and all the lights dim down to just her and her guitar for the acoustic set of the night. She starts out with the guitar, singing a song from any era of her discography, then moving onto piano to sing another.
The songs are completely random and occasionally are recommendations from famous friends who go and see the tour. Taylor Swift does have rules though: she doesn’t repeat a song unless she messes it up or it’s from “Midnights,” since it’s her newer album.
Many fans have been tracking and predicting what songs she’ll sing each week, and with the last week having the opportunity for 12 new surprise songs, many fans are making final guesses. If you’d like to be surprised by the possible song combinations you’ll get in L.A., scroll past the following list. Here are all the songs left on Swift’s albums (not counting other songs from her discography, although those are also fair game):
- Debut - The Outside, Stay Beautiful, Mary’s Song, A Perfectly Good Heart
- Fearless - Tell Me Why, The Way I Loved You, Change, Untouchable, Come In With the Rain, Superstar, We Were Happy, That’s When, Don’t You, Bye Bye Baby
- Speak Now - Better Than Revenge, Innocent, Superman, Electric Touch, I Can See You, Foolish One
- Red - Girl At Home, Ronan, Babe, Forever Winter, Run, The Very First Night
- 1989 - I Know Places, You Are In Love, New Romantics
- Reputation - End Game, I Did Something Bad, So It Goes…, King of My Heart, Dancing With Our Hands Tied, Dress
- Lover - I Forgot That You Existed, Cornelia Street, London Boy, Soon You’ll Get Better, Afterglow, ME!, It’s Nice to Have a Friend
- Folklore - epiphany, peace, hoax
- Evermore - happiness, long story short, closure, it’s time to go
- Midnights - Labyrinth, Sweet Nothing, Bigger Than the Whole Sky, Paris, Glitch, Dear Reader, You’re Losing Me
The end of the ultimate Era is almost here, as L.A. prepares to welcome the mayhem and magic of Taylor Swift to the city.