ANYONE who is heading to the Eras tour at Wembley Arena this weekend will be thanking their lucky stars they got tickets.
With tickets to Taylor Swift’s London tour selling out in minutes and fans queuing 30 hours early to get a good view, the concerts have become something of legends with thousands of Swifties missing out on seeing their hero.
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However, superfan Bridget Saric was lucky enough to secure tickets to not one, not two, but a total of 13 concerts in four countries.
“13 concerts because 13 is my lucky number,” Bridget said.
It’s Taylor’s lucky number too. The singer was born on December 13th, turned 13 on Friday 13th and her first album went gold in 13 weeks.
Bridget bagged her 13th ticket for Friday’s show, and she said: “I feel amazing, ecstatic, over the moon….. I’ll even been sitting in the same aisle as my friend Honor!
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But she’s not done yet.
“I’m dying to get tickets for the Monday show,” says Bridget, who has tickets for four of the five London shows at Wembley Stadium.
Bridget bought her 13th ticket through Ticketmaster with a code given to her by one of her Instagram followers. She paid £170 for the ticket.
Should Bridget get a ticket for Monday, she will have been to all London shows at Wembley Arena.
However, while Bridget would be over the moon to secure another ticket, fellow Swifties may be less so.
Taylor fans have been accused of being ‘selfish’ for going to so many shows when so many people can’t get tickets.
But Bridget argues that’s far from the case.
“I wouldn’t say I’m selfish,” she says.
“I really enjoy being at a Taylor Swift concert; it’s my happy place and even Taylor Swift said that she thinks it’s amazing that so many people come to so many shows.
“I do understand where people who can’t get tickets are coming from, though, but as there are thousands of tickets, me taking one isn’t the reason why they can’t go.”
And her advice for Swifties who can’t get tickets?
“I would say keep trying, ‘cos you never know,” she adds.
“I got a ticket an hour before one show in Melbourne and since then I’ve heard that so many people get tickets about an hour or two before a show.”
Bridget paid £200 for the first August show in Wembley on Thursday and £57 each for the show on Saturday and the show on Tuesday – the final show in the UK.
The dedicated Swiftie has so far spent £5,000 on all 12 concerts, a figure which includes the cost of travel and accommodation.
But she’s happily prepared to keep on spending, not just for the Monday concert but the Friday gig too – if she can get her hands on a ticket.
Bridget took a whole week off from her job as a receptionist, at a hostel, in central London, to devote herself to the concerts.
The ardent Swiftie’s preparation began on Monday morning when a black cab picked up her for a guided tour of places in London, where Taylor Swift has eaten or worked.
On Tuesday she made friendship bracelets bearing Taylor’s lyrics, quotes and song titles.
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On Wednesday she chilled out. But on Thursday she started getting ready at 10am for what she hopes will be the first of five not three Swiftie gigs at Wembley.
“I’m wearing my mirrorball dress for the first gig,” says Bridget, whose mum makes her eye-catching mini dresses and leotards, before shipping them to Europe from her home in Australia.
The Swiftie, has a two year work visa in the UK and arrived in London on June 14th – four months after her first four gigs in Australia.
I’ve been told I look like a spinner at a car wash in my frilly yellow dress
Bridget Saric
The day after Bridget arrived, she headed north, for the Liverpool leg of the Eras tour where she wore a sequined silver leotard.
Since then Bridget has been to one gig in Cardiff, one gig in Milan and two gigs in London.
She says it was pure luck that allowed her to bag quite so many tickets.
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“I got sort of super lucky,” she admits.
“The first tickets I queued up for at a ticket office in Queensland and there were just a few people behind me in the queue.
“The others I got on expensive resale sites, after I was given a code from a few of my followers on Instagram.”
On TikTok, Bridget’s enthusiasm as a Swiftie has bagged her 100k followers and counting. While most TikTok users are positive towards Bridget, she has encountered a few haters.
“I’ve been told I look like a spinner at a car wash in my frilly yellow dress,” she says.
“(It was) a comment I found funny because it was so original, but most people make the same comments, like ‘go to the gym’, which I find funny too.”
For Bridget her gym is any floor where she can dance and she plans to keep on dancing until she meets Taylor Swift.
“I’ve met Taylor’s backing dancers, her parents and now I just want to meet her,” she says.
Bridget has fond memories of meeting Taylor’s parents at the London show on June 21st.
Why Taylor Swift tickets are WORTH forking out for
Fabulous Digital Writer Leanne Hall doesn’t regret shelling out for Taylor tickets. She explains why:
Surviving The Great War for Taylor Swift tickets was no easy task.
When I first got a code, me and my friends were sure we’d be able to get good tickets at a reasonable price.
But after waiting in a queue of more than 30,000 people, and getting to the finish line we were shocked by just how expensive they were.
Most people who wanted tickets The Eras Tour were willing to spend hundreds, as were we.
But we soon thought twice when the only tickets coming up were almost £700 a pop and not even close to the stage.
Accepting defeat for now, we decided to wait it out and check the site constantly for two weeks before her ‘VIP packages’ dropped in price (A good call considering all you got was a tote bag, some postcards and a seat in the nosebleeds).
Finally prices went down to a more reasonable but still pricey £200, and we leapt at the chance to grab them.
Would I have spent this much on any other concert? Probably not, but as a die-hard Swiftie I was willing to do anything to see her in the flesh.
Personally, I love Taylor, and the fact she is performing for over three hours when most artists perform for an hour or so, makes it worth spending the extra money on.
However, £700 for a ticket is outrageous and it’s even more devastating forking out nearly £500 in the hopes of seeing her only to be conned.
“They came up to me and I gave her dad a friendship bracelet with a Taylor Swift lyric,” Bridget adds.
“Then I gave Taylor’s mum a friendship bracelet, with a koala bear on it and she hugged me and kissed me on the cheek – she was so nice.”
Bridget’s hoping to meet Taylor at “any show, on any day” in London.
A face to face meeting will be a long time coming for the 21 year old who has been a fan of the singer since she was 5.
“Back then I remember hearing Love Story on the radio. I loved the song and got into it more as I got older,” she says.
“Then I began loving all of Taylor’s music and the person that she is – kind, caring, down to earth and inspirational.”
If Bridget doesn’t get to meet Taylor next week, then she may not have a chance to do so for ages, as heading to the States, for the US leg of the Eras tour, is not on her agenda.
“Tickets for the US concerts are £3k each,” she adds.
“So I definitely won’t go, unless someone pays for my flight, accommodation and ticket.”
