Taylor Swift has wrapped up her record-breaking world tour but some fans are questioning why she didn’t make her way to Africa
The 35-year-old pop star closed her history-making Eras Tour in Vancouver on December 8, with over 10 million people attending149 shows across five continents. But Africa was left out.
Now a video taken from TikTok has gone viral after it was posted on X (formerly Twitter) by @SinginSwiftie. In the clip, people in Kenya are singing along to Swift’s song “Florida!!!” with the caption reading: “remind the class why u couldnt bring eras to one country in africa ONE.” The post has been viewed more than 341,000 times.
Newsweek emailed a spokesperson for Swift for comment on Friday.
According to Nikki Camilleri, a London-based music industry expert and Forbes 30 Under 30 lister, there are various reasons Swift didn’t make it to Africa.
“Several factors are taken into consideration when routing tours from listenership, costs, venue feasibility, travel logistics to infrastructure and more to make the most business efficient touring routes,” she told Newsweek.
“Thanks to advanced analytics music execs can see where an artist’s listeners are down to the city in many cases and make a good case for adding dates in each location,” she said.
“It often comes down to practicality and whether it would actually be feasible and profitable enough to justify the efforts when working with such big crews, production etc. which all need to be taken care of, paid appropriately and potentially have limited dates they can do.
“Unfortunately, artists can’t make it everywhere and the common routes are often go-tos for routing teams. I think a combination of these factors may be the reason Taylor’s Eras Tour sadly didn’t make it to Africa and other nations.”
“I know she needed her rest might not have been logistically possible, but Africa always gets forgotten,” one person said. “FNB in Jo burg has a 95k capacity. 5/7 continents is cool but imagine the flex to say Eras was a WORLD tour that visited 6/7 continents 7th being Antartica.”
The original poster responded: “i think the problem is they don’t believe there’s a market in africa like she doesn’t know that stadium would sell out at least 3 nights in a row if she announced.”
“It’s the logistics,” another person wrote. “As much as she wants to do tours in multiple countries, getting her tour sets shipped is not cheap. The only reason why she managed to do tour in Singapore is SG sponsored/waive a lot of things.”
A third person added: “i’ve never understood why her/her team don’t think to do it either. ed sheeran has gone multiple times and they pull the same size crowds (inside the venues at least) so it can’t be infrastructure. though, taylors shows are a lot more extravagant so it could be contracting. idk.”
“see i feel like at least south africa should’ve gotten a couple nights, however she did skip basically all of asia,” a different person commented.
While some people might question whether Swift has fans in Africa, Spotify named her the #1 most-streamed female artist in South Africa, per iOL. South African Swifties have previously started petitions in hopes it would encourage the singer to bring her tour to the country.
“I am a passionate fan of Taylor Swift, living in Cape Town, South Africa,” the petition “Bring Taylor Swift’s the eras Tour to South Africa” said. “Like many others here, I believe we should have the opportunity to see her perform live in our country. It is not only about the music but also about the experience and connection that comes with attending a concert.”
The petition “BRING TAYLOR SWIFT THE ERAS TOUR TO SOUTH AFRICA!!” received 1,208 signatures but “Bring TAYLOR SWIFT to South African SWIFTIES” only received six.
Fans worldwide are already hoping that Swift will announce another tour.
Newsweek spoke to Ari Perez, an associate professor at Quinnipiac University and an avid Swiftie. As well as being a professor of civil engineering, Perez designed and teaches “Taylor Swift: Cultural Mirrorball” in the Women and Gender Studies Program at the university.
The professor said he thinks Swift will be back on the road to support her next studio album, referred to in the fandom as TS12, whenever it comes out.
“Besides a delay between 1989 and reputation (reputedly due to an album that she was working on and scrapped) and a huge increase in output due to the pandemic, Taylor has worked in two-year cycles,” he explained.
“That would schedule TS12 for release in 2026, with a tour following up shortly thereafter either in late 2026 or in 2027, depending on when in the year the album is released. Past performance does not guarantee future tours, however.”
Time will tell whether Swift would bring any future tour to Africa.
