Canadian Taylor Swift Fans Finally Get to Experience the 'Eras Tour'

She’s got good karma. For the second weekend in a row, Taylor Swift’s concert film The Eras Tour has dominated the domestic box office. The film broke records upon release, with the highest opening ever for a concert film, not adjusted for inflation, surpassing Justin Bieber’s Never Say Never. To date, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour has grossed around $130 million in North America, and that’s without screening from Mondays through Wednesdays.

For Canadian fans, this is their first chance to get a glimpse of the three-hour behemoth tour, which spans 17 years and 10 albums of her career. While the live tour began in March this year, it won’t arrive in Canada until November of 2024, where Swift is closing out the phenomenon with six performances at Toronto’s Rogers Centre. But it's not coming to Quebec (or anywhere else in Canada as of yet) at all, which makes it a unique experience for fans there. In its first weekend, it brought in $92 million in North America, and $650,000 in Quebec alone.

The film has become a major communal experience everywhere, with clips of fans dancing in the aisles and belting along with the film showing up all over social media. But there seems to be a special energy in Canada, where fans have been making the most of Swift’s silver screen outing.

"It was a very surreal experience," says Saskia, a 29-year-old fan who attended a Montreal screening on Sunday. "I've never been to a screening where it was almost assumed that the audience would be singing, interjecting and standing up in the aisles to dance."

This celebratory atmosphere bridges the space between movie and live show. Talking to Billboard Canada, Saskia also noticed that everyone already seemed to know the order of the songs and the costumes accompanying each section. Eras Tour gives Swifties who have been following the tour from afar on TikTok the chance to experience it together, trading friendship bracelets and dressing up like their favourite Swift eras.

“Taylor never stops, and she does it all herself,” one fan told TVA in French. Another said that Swift has been her idol since she was 11 years old. Parents and kids have also been attending the screenings together, bonding over their shared love of the star.

Sandra, 38, took her daughter Lorelai to the Montreal screening instead of trying for hard-to-get Toronto tickets in 2024, TVA reports. “The tickets are very expensive,” Sandra explains.

Saskia agrees. "Knowing that going to the Eras Tour is out of reach financially and logistically for me and many other fans, this was a special chance to feel immersed in this spectacular performance."

Instead of working with a Hollywood distributor, Swift inked a deal directly with AMC theatres to screen the movie. The film is showing in nearly 4000 North American theatres, including Cineplex theatres in Canada as part of a sub-distribution partnership. It features footage from Swift’s Los Angeles shows at SoFi Stadium. Chock-full of chart toppers and outfit changes, the Eras Tour movie is a testament to Swift’s global superstardom and the many iterations of her artistry.

The movie begins with Swift in full popstar mode, belting “Cruel Summer” — which just went to No. 1 on the Hot 100, four years after its initial release. Over its two hour and forty five minute runtime, Swift takes the crowd back to high school with Fearless’s “You Belong With Me”; dons a Disney princess dress for Speak Now’s “Enchanted”; enacts a domestic drama around Evermore’s “Tolerate It”; strips things back for a rousing acoustic version of Midnights’ “You’re On Your Own Kid”; and performs the full ten minute version of “All Too Well” in a dazzling floor-length red coat. Across each era, Swift’s core strength as a storyteller comes through.

In between planning and performing one of the best-selling tours of all time, Swift has also been re-recording her discography. The next installment, 1989 (Taylor’s Version), is set to arrive on Oct. 27.

Another major 2023 tour will also get the cinematic treatment this December: Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour will premiere as Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé. If it's at all like Eras Tour, Montreal fans are probably already picking out their outfits.