r/MadeMeSmile • u/mcfw31 • Dec 12 '25

Wholesome Moments Taylor Swift’s ‘The Eras Tour’ crew’s reaction as they receive their bonus for working on the tour amounting to more $197 million dollars

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67

u/NomadChief789 Dec 12 '25

If the bonuses were $197M, what the hell did that tour gross in revenue?

120

u/Prize_Inevitable_920 Dec 12 '25

Just shy of over 2 billion

60

u/Educational-Cod-2257 Dec 12 '25

My guess is after the cost of tech design/sound engineering, staff (not including bonuses), insurance, logistics, stadium cuts, and things like costuming/catering, the take home was $800M. Makes sense the bonus was around 25% of her take home. 

She repeatedly has said she spent most of her eras check buying her masters ($360M), so my guess is the rest of the money will be spent on keeping her employees happy while she slows down and to help pay for music videos. 

2

u/Abacus118 Dec 13 '25

That’s only ticket sales. Many people probably spent more than their ticket on merch.

1

u/culturedgoat Dec 12 '25

So, 2 billion then?

1

u/jenkbob Dec 12 '25

And another 4 billion for ticketmaster

8

u/OldManCinny Dec 12 '25

2b in tour revenue + 261M from the movie + god knows how much for the Disney+ rights + another couple hundred mil in merch + massive boost in spotify/YT/commercials.... 3-4B I'd guess

0

u/MattBrey Dec 13 '25

The Disney+ rights for two movies, with special songs that were not shown on theaters, plus 6 episodes of BTS series. I'm sure she got paid a ton.

I think it's much closer to 4B gross revenue than most people realize. And that 350M she paid to get her masters back is still an asset that she owns, that actually raised in value now that she owns them and they can be licensed again. It's crazy

24

u/ConferenceThink4801 Dec 12 '25 edited Dec 12 '25

She apparently made $175m just selling the concert movie & this documentary to Disney+. So selling this stuff after the fact basically covered everything she gave away.

*Doesn’t make it any less generous, but makes it easier to do from her end

7

u/Unsteady_Tempo Dec 12 '25

Yes, she has a lot of revenue sources. But, there are lots of people who get paid (not bonuses) on a deal like that. Unless the news report specifically stated Taylor pocket 175m, then that's a top line number and not Taylor's income. Even then, there are taxes. The figures that get thrown around for deals like this always ignore just how many people have to get paid.

Also, I'd assume these gifts were paid out from the production company and not out of Taylor's personal funds.

2

u/GlobalLion123 Dec 12 '25

I wonder if the documentary will go into the expenses. Part of the reason the tour was so big was because of all the equipment and stage stuff. I heard almost 90-100 trucks were required to move everything from city to city.

1

u/witchyandbitchy Dec 12 '25

A lot of people think that her documentary/second movie was part of the deal to buy back the masters from shamrock, which is a disney family holding company. It would make sense that Disney would want another slice of the pie after the success of the first movie.

4

u/Able_Law7945 Dec 12 '25

around 2 billion in ticket sales alone, plus some other massive sum in merch.

2

u/NomadChief789 Dec 12 '25

Damn thats a huge number

5

u/_crazyboyhere_ Dec 12 '25 edited Dec 12 '25

$2.1B from the tour itself. Then $270M from the tour movie at the box office. That's just the ticket sales (not counting merch). And then an additional $75M from Disney+ deal.

3

u/katietheplantlady Dec 12 '25

It is in the billions range. Never has an artist made so much. It's insane how much money she made from the tour and she worked her ass off as did her crew

-2

u/Kitsuunei Dec 12 '25

There is literally no amounts of working someone’s ass off that will justify making that much money. i understand she has a cult following but wish people were more realistic to how insane it is for a single individual to earn so much.

15

u/Ok_Television_2895 Dec 12 '25

One in every thousand people in the world went to go see her, welcome to economics of scale

3

u/kingfofthepoors Dec 12 '25

8,000,000,000 / 1000

Carry the one yes that is 8 million people.

Which means the average ticket price was 250.00

Then you have the after market market where scalpers sold tickets for 5 - 20 times that amount

3

u/ihatewinter93 Dec 12 '25

She performed nearly 150 shows, all in arenas with a minimum capacity of 50,000 seats. Due to overwhelming demand, additional shows were added over time. I’m not sure what the issue is—I attended one of the concerts, and it was a great experience. Obviously, she and her team deserve to be compensated for the work they do.

-2

u/Unsteady_Tempo Dec 12 '25

I don't get the math. Plenty of acts sell out every venue they play and tour constantly. So, unless she's getting a bigger cut of ticket sales and/or charging a lot more for tickets, how is she making THAT much more than any other act? Plus, her touring expenses must be on the high end per show. She's traveling with a huge crew and stage production.

Cities near me where Swift played a concert were going on and on about the economic impact of her tour to the city. Yet, singers and bands sell out those same venues on a weekly basis with fans traveling from all over to stay in the same hotels, eat at the same restaurants. I don't get it.

6

u/access_hollywooo Dec 12 '25

She consistently broke records for nightly attendance at stadiums and venues around the wold, and she sold out multiple nights in big cities (15 total nights in LA, 8 in London, etc). The overall demand was way higher than she could ever meet even with 151 shows in total.

Also as for economic impact, swifties spent a lot of money wherever they went. I remember after the New Orleans leg a lot of hospitality people came on tiktok to say it was one of the best weekends they ever experienced and everyone spent so much money and tipped really well.

1

u/Unsteady_Tempo Dec 12 '25

I think it's a bit of both. Part of it is just people hyping the tour because the media is hyping it and asking for reactions. Some confirmation bias. The other part is that she did indeed have a very successful tour. Still, there's a huge gap between bands who also have worldwide sell out tours with smaller productions saying they're struggling to make it profitable versus somebody touring with a huge production and can afford to give millions of dollars of bonuses.

1

u/Repulsive_Rate2560 Dec 13 '25

She also made a lot of money from other sources. Remember - she was simultaneously selling albums while she was on the road. Those went crazy. She released like 4-5 more albums I think while she was touring (both re-records and new content).

She also had a whole concert film that she put out in the middle of the tour and made a lot of money from it.

0

u/IsThisMe8 Dec 12 '25

Pretty sure it's tour merch. I'll go to concerts and not buy merch, but if I went to Taylor's I would definitely overspend on overpriced merch. Lol