Taylor Swift may have just ushered in a new era for the revenue-generating possibilities for artist concert films.
At the end of August, US theater giant AMC announced that the superstar would be bringing a concert film from her Eras Tour’ to the big screen, in what the company called a “theatrical concert experience,” starting Friday, October 13.
Every US AMC Theatre location will run at least four showtimes per day on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, with tickets priced at $19.89, plus tax; while children’s and senior tickets are priced at $13.13, plus tax.
The announcement of the film arrived amid unprecedented demand for tickets for the artist’s concert tour, which, as reported by the Wall Street Journal in June could surpass $1 billion in gross revenues.
Back in November 2022, demand outstripped supply during the presale for the tour, ticketed by Live Nation-owned Ticketmaster, and promoted by Live Nation rival AEG.
Ticketmaster’s site crashed during the ‘Verified Fan’ ticket sale for Swift’s tour, with the debacle leading to calls, including from members of Congress, for Live Nation and Ticketmaster to be broken up.
Following the ensuing furor after the presale that month, Ticketmaster announced that it was canceling the general sale scheduled for Friday November 18 citing “extraordinarily high demands on ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet that demand”.
In anticipation of the first day of advance ticket demands, AMC said that it was bolstering its own ticket server capacity to handle traffic at more than five times the previous record for the most-ever tickets sold in an hour.
When tickets went on sale on Thursday August 31, Taylor Swift’s concert film achieved the highest advance sales revenues in a single day in AMC’s 103-year history.
On that day, Swift’s concert film generated $26 million in ticket sales revenue, a new record for ticket sales for a single title on one day at AMC. The previous record of $16.9 million was held by Spider Man: No Way Home.
Now AMC has announced another significant sales milestone for the concert film, revealing that, as of October 4, Taylor Swift’s ‘The Eras Tour’ concert film has sold more than $100 million in advance tickets globally.
That presales revenue tally has been achieved with a week still to go until the film starts playing in most of the confirmed 8,500 theatres across 100 countries around the world on October 13.
AMC says that it saw “particularly strong in premium large-screen formats like IMAX, Dolby Cinema, PRIME at AMC and other branded premium experiences.”
“Audience demand for TAYLOR SWIFT | THE ERAS TOUR concert film has been incredible from the moment it was first announced,” said AMC in a statement on Thursday (October 5).
AMC says that it and its sub-distribution partners Variance Films in the United States, Cineplex in Canada, Cinepolis in Mexico and Central America, and Trafalgar Releasing outside of North America, have responded to “broad cinema operator interest” in playing the concert film.
The theater giant says that continues to take steps with its sub-distribution partners “to reach agreements with additional cinema operators throughout the world to play this spectacular Taylor Swift tour-de-force”.
Taylor Swift isn’t the only superstar artist bringing a blockbuster concert film to AMC Theaters.
Parkwood Entertainment and AMC Entertainment announced earlier this month that Beyoncé’s ‘Renaissance World Tour’ will be released on the ‘silver screen’ globally by AMC Theatres Distribution.
AMC says that the “theatrical concert experience will descend upon thousands of movie theaters” in the United States, Canada, and Mexico beginning Friday, December 1, 2023, with additional global cities to be announced. Standard tickets in the US start at $22 plus tax.
Following the Renaissance World Tour’s final date at Kansas City’s GEHA Field At Arrowhead Stadium on Sunday (October 1), Live Nation reported this week that the tour generated over $579 million worldwide.
Across the tour, Beyoncé performed for over 2.7 million fans across 56 performances in 39 different cities with a 300-plus member touring crew, including musicians, dancers, production teams and more.
At London’s Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, Beyoncé performed to 238,000 fans across five dates.
