I paid $16 to not see Taylor Swift at her Vancouver Eras Tour show, and the ‘no stage view’ seats were worth it

The view from our seats in Section 233 was better than I expected and well worth it for the same price as a movie ticket.Moira Wyton/The Globe and Mail

Some magic must have been at work when a friend of mine snapped up a pair of $16 “no-stage view” tickets to the Eras Tour’s first Vancouver show and asked me to go.

She had been closely monitoring fan-run X accounts alerting Swifties when Ticketmaster opened queues for last-minute tickets and we both pounced when she got the notification for Vancouver’s three shows. She’s a true friend, and I jokingly called her Mother Tay-resa when she offered it to me at face-value and refused to even think about reselling it for hundreds of dollars more.

I had already been not-so-silently griping about having to navigate the chaos descending on the city without the joy of attending the show. I figured $19 – including taxes and fees – was a small price to pay to be in the building.

Taylor Swift performs the first of her last three Eras Tour concerts at B.C. Place, Vancouver, on Dec. 6.BARBARA DAVIDSON/The Globe and Mail

But the thrill of our “no stage view” seats to Taylor Swift’s Friday show is proof even the star’s mammoth stage – which appeared to be at least 35 metres high and 50 metres wide – can’t eclipse the spectacle of her record-breaking Eras Tour. The energy of more than 60,000 people enveloped B.C. Place, wrapping around the stage and into our humble section, where I and nearly 3,000 fans – from young girls to a Swiftie whose shirt proclaimed she was turning 50 that day – shared a sense of solidarity and gratefulness. The two 30-something women sitting next to us said they had flown from North Carolina to see the show, their first time ever leaving the United States.

Despite the venue’s claim of “no stage view,” we could see the majority of the catwalk across the floor of B.C. Place from our spot in the lower bowl. We got a glimpse of her turning and singing to us on the left wing of the stage during Anti-Hero and a handful of other songs. At one point, she was probably closer to us than many of the fans in unobstructed seats in the upper level. And when she brought out the pyrotechnics for Bad Blood and the show’s dazzling finale, Karma, the flames were so close I thought my eyebrows would get singed off — a relatively small price to pay for a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Vancouver fans embrace the end of the Eras Tour

As a Taylor Swift fan – and someone interested in the wider story of the Eras Tour – my seat offered a glimpse into the logistical and technical feats of a music event that has become a cultural phenomenon since it kicked off in March 2023. Our section cheered as her backup dancers, vocalists and band members, well-known by die-hard Swifties, entered and exited the stage. We saw Ms. Swift wave to us as she left backstage.

It is objectively wild that the Eras Tour can sell out seats behind the stage because not even Ms. Swift’s nearly 150 shows across five continents were enough for the millions who wanted to attend and actually sit in front of the stage. But for me there’s no bad blood. Perhaps others in the section further behind the stage — or those who paid the more than $1,000 resale prices for tickets in our area — weren’t as thrilled. However with so many Swifties unable to attend at all, complaints about our view seem like champagne problems.