Tickets for Taylor Swift’s Vancouver Eras Tour shows raise almost $2-million for B.C. charities

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The economic boom left behind in Vancouver by Taylor Swift’s three-concert finale has also lifted the province’s charities and helped make permanent a community benefit program sparked by the blockbuster.

BC Place donated four suites and more than 100 complimentary Eras Tour tickets it received for hosting Ms. Swift’s shows last weekend and raised almost $2-million for charities across the province.

BC Place General Manager Chris May said the experiment was so successful, the venue plans to do similar for all events held at the stadium, which is owned by PavCo, a Crown corporation.

Venues generally receive some complimentary tickets and private suites for the shows they host, and those tickets have traditionally been donated to venue partners, which include major corporations such as Molson Coors, PepsiCo, FritoLay and Heinz, as well as the Vancouver Sun and The Province.

But Ms. Swift’s massive fan base and the magnitude of her tour stood out, presenting a unique opportunity for the tickets to benefit the community, said Mr. May.

“I looked at the mandate of community benefit that the government gives us and then I looked at the value of those Taylor Swift tickets. And we had a choice to make, right?” he said.

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Mr. May said he had a hunch that BC Place could donate the tickets to help charities, but it wasn’t clear how much money they could actually raise. As a test, they donated one suite to the Canadian Cancer Society’s Daffodil Ball this past April. When it raised $125,000, Mr. May was confident they could turn suite and ticket donations into a larger program.

“I went, ‘I think we do this right, I think we can generate a million dollars for charity in B.C.’ And everybody was like, ‘Chris, I think you’re a little bit nuts,‘” Mr. May said.

After some research, BC Place went on to donate three more suites strategically to the province’s largest fundraising charity galas. On top of the Canadian Cancer Society’s Daffodil Ball, suites were donated to the VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation’s Vitality Gala, the Victoria Hospitals Foundation Visions gala, and the BC Children’s Hospital Foundation’s Crystal Ball.

But the real innovation was its decision to make 25 pairs of tickets available for ticket donations to charities across the province through open applications.

To be eligible, organizations had to be registered as a charity and operate in B.C. without political or religious affiliations. Once the charities applied, selections were made through a random draw, with tickets awarded in pairs.

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Recipients represented a range of industries, from hospitals to Special Olympics BC and the Greater Vancouver Food Bank.

While it’s not unusual for venues to donate tickets, Mr. May said BC Place is the only venue he knows of that hosted an Eras Tour concert and developed such a large-scale ticket donation program.

Mr. May said some of the ticket recipients used the tickets as centrepieces for fundraising galas, such as the $320,000 raised by the BC Hospital Foundation.

But he said the real promise of the program may lie with smaller organizations. For them, fundraising tied to ticket donations can significantly increase their total budget and allow the funding of entire programs.

Laura Ballance, spokesperson for Hospitality Vancouver Association, said the program has the ability to bolster fundraising efforts for smaller charities and distribute economic benefits across the province.

“I hope that this program is seen and replicated across our country,” Ms. Ballance said.

The BC Place Community Benefit Program now has a goal for every event to donate a portion of its assets to charities, which can then be used for their fundraising efforts.

“It doesn’t happen without the Eras Tour and Taylor Swift. It took something that would have the ability to make this kind of impact,” Mr. May said.

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