For Australia waking up this morning, the important news that broke during the night depending on your points of view was either that Australia had won the first Ashes Test or that Taylor Swift had announced her tour dates.
As a massive sports nut and also acknowledged Swiftie, this was a banner news morning.
And for someone who has written on how household spending has hit a few speed bumps, the Taylor Swift tour also raises a few possibilities.
Swiftonomics is currently surging across the US, with economists pondering the impact of her tour dates on spending and inflation and overall GDP.
In Canada, Peter Armstrong asked: “Is Taylor Swift saving the economy?”
Given – as I noted when reporting on the latest GDP figures – household spending is slowing at a rapid rate, and both Treasury and the RBA are forecasting GDP per capita is declining, will Taylor come to save us from a recession?
The reason why Swifties are able to power such spending is not just the concert ticket sales – though these will be massive. If we take Ed Sheeran’s concerts at the MCG in March, we can pretty much lock in 100,000 for both of the dates in Melbourne and around 80,000 for the three concerts at Accor Stadium in Sydney.
Given the ticket prices range from $349.90 to $1,249.90, and tickets start at $79.90 but rise to $379.90 for a spot in A Reserve, we know even with a median of $120 in sales, we are looking at about $55m being spent.
But it does not end there: at $70 a pop for a tour T-shirt, there will be a heck of a lot spent on merchandise.
Of course, not much of this will remain in Australia. There’s a reason this world tour will possibly make Swift a billionaire.
But the spending will also be for hotels, eating out, travel and just general spending around town.
Only holding concerts in Sydney and Melbourne means Swifties will be coming from other states and New Zealand, given there are no concerts to be held there, so that is some “export” dollars for tourism.
That will not be unwelcome given tourism numbers continue to struggle to get back to pre-pandemic levels.
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The good news is the impact of the five concerts will not likely spur inflation – at least not in a manner that will affect interest rates.
But you can certainly expect an increase in the prices of hotels in Sydney and Melbourne on those nights.
I did a quick check of prices at a Sydney hotel I have previously stayed at near Central station. On the Friday night of 16 February you can book a room with two double beds for $325. But if you want to book the following Friday – the night of Taylor’s first concert – you will have to pay $816. That’s a 150% Taylor Swift markup.
As I write, the air fares from Adelaide to Sydney have not changed for that weekend, but you wouldn’t want to wait too long, given the experience of events like AFL grand finals.
The Reserve Bank will, however, know that this is a one-off, but the spending will still happen.
A good example of how one-off events can affect spending is the releases of the iPhone 6 and X in 2014 and 2017. Both times this one release caused a massive jump in sales of electronic goods.
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The iPhone 6 saw a $150m jump in sales and it permanently raised the level of spending for that category of goods.
Taylor Swift won’t have the same ongoing impact. Hotels are not going to be able to charge Taylor Swift prices when she is not in town, and accommodation spending shows up in the national accounts rather than retail trade, so we likely will not see much of a bump.
For those working in hospitality in Sydney and Melbourne, given the concerts are in February after the usual end of the summer boom, there will likely be a few more shifts to go around.
But music and money are not unusual bedfellows. After all, the Beatles actually received their MBE for their services to export revenues.
Taylor Swift might not be saving our economy but given by February households are expected to have significantly slowed their spending, for those working and operating in hospitality it will mean, at least for those in our two major cities, Christmas in February.
Greg Jericho is a Guardian columnist and policy director at the Centre for Future Work
