[ad_1]
On May 31, Florencia Romeo slept in a tent outside Argentina’s largest stadium with his girlfriend and sister. They had heard rumors that Taylor Swift might be coming to Buenos Aires and they wanted to be the first in line.
The rumors were correct: Ms. Swift was coming, but it would take a while. Her concert was more than five months away.
The tent remained anyway, occupied by a rotating cast of 30 die-hard Swifties who worked together for 163 days to keep their spots in line for the chance to get as close as possible to their idol when she took the stage Thursday in the first stop on his Eras Tour outside of North America.
“We’ve been waiting for this for many years,” said Romeo, 23, who left her job as a cashier in part to devote herself to waiting in line. “We didn’t expect her to come, and then she did. So it was obvious that we had to do what we had to do.”
Mrs. Swift Tour of the eras officially went global on Thursday as the pop megastar began a new phase of shows that would take her to 25 cities in South America, Asia, Australia and Europe over the next 10 months.
Since March, the North American leg of the tour has become an economic marvel and a cultural force, cementing Ms. Swift’s status as one of the most influential and beloved people on the continent. Now, she is ready to show that her fame and adoration go far beyond borders.
There are few countries better than Argentina to show the intense passion of its fans. While Swift has become a certified global icon, Argentina has become known for worshiping icons with religious fervor.
Consider that Juan and Eva Perón became president and first lady of Argentina in 1946, but they are still worshiped in political songs, appear in portraits in many Argentine homes, and are the inspiration for an eponymous political movement that still rules the country. Diego Maradona, the soccer star, came to be seen here as such a deity that tens of thousands of Argentines belong to, yes, Maradona Church, a legally recognized religion in its twenty-fifth year. And after Lionel Messi and the national soccer team won the World Cup last year, the crush of four million fans during the victory parade forced the players to abandon their buses and fly by helicopter.
“She’s like the female Messi,” Romeo said, offering Swift one of the highest praises an Argentinian can receive today. This week, some fans in Buenos Aires wore national soccer team jerseys with “SWIFT” on the back, while others handed out a kind of prayer card with Swift’s head superimposed on that of Jesus Christ.
That’s why it wasn’t a surprise that Swift’s arrival in Argentina became a national event. She received intense news coverage; Buenos Aires named her official guest of honor; and she even became a figure in next week’s presidential elections after some of his fans organized against the far-right candidate, Javier Milei. Forecasters even described sun or rain forecasts this weekend as “Dry Swifties” or “Wet Swifties.” (Friday called for “Wet Swifties,” so organizers rescheduled that show for Sunday.)
“Everyone in the country knows her and everyone knows this show,” said Renata Schyfys, 15, while wearing the friendship bracelets that have become a Swiftie fandom badge.
In a country of 46 million people, Swift sold approximately 200,000 tickets at three sold-out shows, and yet the waiting list still had more than 2.8 million people, enough to fill the largest football stadium in America. Argentina, El Monumental, another 40 times.
That stadium shook Thursday night with almost constant, deafening screams coming from the more than 70,000 fans repeatedly chanting, “Olé, olé, olé, olé, Taylor, Taylor.”
Even Swift, who has seen large crowds, seemed taken aback. “I’m looking out for what is possibly one of the most epic crowds ever,” she told the audience. “This is on another level.”
He later removed his headphones and indicated he was struggling to hear over the roar of the crowd. She paused for two full minutes, soaking in the fans’ adoration of her.
“I don’t know how to thank you enough for the way you treated me tonight,” he said. “I love you so much, and I can’t believe it took me so long to come see you.”
Thursday’s show was Swift’s first big concert in South America, the first of nine this month in Argentina and Brazil. After waiting so long, many Swifties said Thursday that they had made a pilgrimage of sorts, many of them from across the continent.
Nahuel Ochoa, a medical student wearing a bedazzled homemade jumpsuit and a sparkly jacket, had taken a bus with 50 other fans from the city of San Luis, 12 hours away. Unable to get a room in Buenos Aires, where hotels were nearly sold out, he planned to take the bus back after the show and then return on Saturday to see Swift again.
“We have loved Taylor since we were 10 years old; “We have been waiting 13 years,” said Ochoa, 23, sitting next to his childhood friend Andrea Garro. “Her songs reflect most of what we went through. It is a way of expressing ourselves in a way that we cannot.”
Garro, 23, a law student, added that Swift’s music helped her overcome deep depression. “We feel seen,” she said.
But there was no greater show of devotion than that of the more than 100 fans who camped in shifts outside the stadium for months. After Romeo and his friends marked his spot and attracted local news attention, other tents followed.
The group, mostly young women, set up shifts using a spreadsheet, ideally with at least two people present in the store at all times. The 30 members of Ms. Romeo’s store had to spend a minimum of 40 hours a month there, with each member spending an average of 10 to 12 nights in the store. After spending the first few days sleeping with only blankets, they added a mattress.
“She has the best relationship with her fans and she’s the one who can achieve this kind of mania,” said Lucas Forte, 24, a member of another tent who had slept outside the stadium for five nights since September. “No one camped during the Weeknd, for example.”
Ms Swift herself was impressed with the effort. “I heard you were camping to get good spots?” she asked the crowd Thursday. “Actually, I didn’t believe it until I saw a video.”
Fans camping out had no place to get tickets to the show. All of them were sold online. Rather, the tents were set up so they could be first in line when the show doors opened and fans could run to the railings along the stage for a closer look.
Event organizers helped make sure fans who had camped out were the first in line; However, many ended up behind lines of people because the doors opened an hour early for fans who had paid more for “VIP” tickets.
But some campers eventually reached the barricade along the stage.
“I broke my knee trying to get there,” Atenas Astuni, 23, a member of the first tent in line, said hoarsely on Friday morning after the show. “But if I had to break my knee again to repeat exactly what happened yesterday, I would do it without hesitation.”
