Ravens Insider: What would it take for Taylor Swift to bring her tour to Baltimore? Local music experts weigh in.

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Audrey Fix Schaefer first watched Taylor Swift perform in 2009 at Merriweather Post Pavilion thanks to the job she’s now held for 17 years: head of communications for IMP, which operates the popular concert venue in Columbia.

In the decades since, Swift has grown from an impressive young country music artist to unrivaled fame and influence as a global pop star. But back then, Fix Schaefer could tell the 19-year-old Swift, at the time in black cowboy boots and big blonde curls, had a special gift for conjuring devotion and electricity from her crowds.

What Fix Schaefer and those Maryland Swifties did not know was that would be the last time Swift would play in the Baltimore area.

Of all her musical eras that Swift pays tribute to on her record-breaking Eras Tour, only Fearless — the oldest and her first headlining concert stint — hit Baltimore. Swift brought her Speak Now World Tour to Washington, D.C. in 2011, her Red tour to D.C. in 2013, her 1989 World Tour to D.C. in 2015, and her 2018 Reputation Stadium Tour to Landover in 2018.

The closest the Eras Tour in 2023 came to Baltimore, let alone D.C., was Philadelphia last May.

But now, because the Kansas City Chiefs are coming to town for the AFC championship and Swift dates the team’s tight end, Travis Kelce, Baltimore will host arguably the biggest artist in the world after all. Just not in the way the Swifties might have hoped back in 2022, when Swift announced the U.S. leg of her Eras Tour, or last August, when she announced the second leg.

“I couldn’t answer why she didn’t come here. But the desire for people to attend is there,” Fix Schaefer said.

‘Maybe she’ll come back to Baltimore’

Bundled up in the brutal cold of the Texans-Ravens AFC divisional round last Saturday, Sarah Fishkind, 22, peered up with her father, Paul, at the suites at M&T Bank Stadium, trying to guess if she’d be able to see Swift.

Columbia natives, Fishkind and her sister Emily devoted themselves to the Ravens since girlhood, thanks to their father’s season tickets. Emily Fishkind, 25, calls herself more of a Swiftie, but both love Swift’s music.

What they didn’t love was seeing Baltimore miss Swift’s list of Eras Tour dates, twice. Nor did they love how impossible it was to win Philly Eras Tour tickets in the Ticketmaster presale fiasco in November 2022, nor the cost of the resale price, nor how far the closest city really was.

Taylor Swift, right, and Brittany Mahomes, second from right, react during the NFL AFC division playoff game between the Buffalo Bills and the Kansas City Chiefs on Jan. 21 in Orchard Park, N.Y. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

But by chance, Swift is likely coming to Baltimore anyway. And while they’re worried she’ll be booed by fellow Ravens fans who aren’t so fond of the pop star, the Fishkind sisters can’t wait to combine their loves at last.

“It feels personal and exciting. Even though she’s not performing or doing anything extraordinary — she’s watching her boyfriend play football — it feels like we can relate to her in that moment,” Emily Fishkind said. “That she’s doing something that we’re so passionate about doing in the same space.”

“Maybe,” Sarah Fishkind said, “she’ll come back to Baltimore for a tour where everything can really be about her.”

But what does it take for a city to attract that caliber of artist?

In 2022, the more than 60-year-old, 15,000-seat CFG Bank Arena underwent $250 million in renovations to modernize its suites and acoustics, among other changes. Per Frank Remesch, the arena’s general manager, it was a “C building that became an A building.”

“Everything is new, everything’s hip, everything’s modern,” Remesch said, “but we also have the history: the floors that Martin Luther King stood, where Elvis Presley and [Frank] Sinatra played.”

Bruce Springsteen & E Street Band concert

Karl Merton Ferron/Baltimore Sun

Bruce Springsteen performs at Baltimore’s CFG Bank Arena on April 7, 2023. (Karl Merton Ferron/Sun Staff Photo)

It’s those things that can make an artist want to play there, Remesch said. While Bruce Springsteen skipped Baltimore for 32 years, he made sure to hit the forme 1st Mariner Arena in 2009 and served as the remodeled CFG Bank’s first concert last April.

And Swift has notably coveted that kind of history. When she broke attendance or booking records in her various U.S. tour stops last summer, the artist always made sure to mention it at her shows. On past tours, such as the 1989 tour, she has reached out to fabled artists like Mick Jagger and Mary J. Blige to join her on stage.

“But the most important thing is can you sell tickets,” Remesch said about venues that compete to book performers. “When you can prove you can, that gets you in the top whatever 30 in the nation, that’s great.”

‘All the little nuances’

Between 2015 and 2018, Merriweather invested $60 million in renovations, according to Fix Schaefer, including physically raising its roof to accommodate taller rigging, backdrops or screens that couldn’t have been dreamed of when the amphitheater opened in 1967.

In 2023, Merriweather led the world in concert amphitheater’s gross sales with $34 million, according to Pollstar’s year-end summary, and sold 403,544 tickets.

“But what else separates you from the elite of the elite?” Remesch said. “And that’s all the little nuances. That’s the reputation of the company and organizations in the building, how they treat the artist, but also all their roadies, backup singers. That’s all super important.”

CFG Bank Arena hosted another pop music heavyweight, SZA, in September. By 3:30 a.m., the arena staff had escorted all 27 of her tour trucks out. At 4:15 a.m., they’d moved in 30 trucks for the next show headlined by the band Queen.

“Think about the dynamics of those two shows moving in, and that tells you absolutely this is a building in a market that can sell the tickets, handle the load and unload out, and physically put on the show,” Remesch said.

Those little things include venue staff knowing how to prepare for specific types of audiences, such as Swift’s, which is predominantly women and girls. Merriweather had to prep for exactly that scenario when the All Things Go Music Festival arrived last fall, featuring Grammy nominees Lana del Rey and Boygenius, Fix Schaefer said.

“So for instance, you might take some of the restrooms designated men’s rooms and convert them,” Fix Schaefer said. “It’s about contemplating who the audience is and making it a better experience for them.”

Taylor Swift performs at Merriweather Post Pavilion in June 2009. (Leslie Furlong/Handout)

The Eras Tour as it stands can only be hosted in stadiums, eliminating most of Baltimore’s typical concert venues like Merriweather and CFG Bank. Even Camden Yards, with just under 46,000 seats, would not fit the bill. The stage and catwalk consumes most of a football stadium’s floor. Swift’s shows are selling out 70,000 to over 100,000 stadium seats for as many as eight nights. While her tour sizes may change in the future, Swift played only NFL stadiums this round, which for Baltimore, leaves just one option: M&T Bank Stadium.

Why Swift skipped the Ravens’ home for the Eras Tour is a mystery. Only six cities with NFL stadiums will miss her show: Charlotte, Cleveland, Landover, Green Bay, Buffalo and Baltimore, the last three of which, ironically, drew her in for Chiefs games.

But maybe that could change after her presumed visit this weekend. Al Hutchinson, president and CEO of Visit Baltimore, certainly hopes so.

Hutchinson knows hosting the AFC championship for the first time since 1971 will undoubtedly boost local businesses even more than the average game, as football fans outside either Ravens or Chiefs fandom stream in to watch, too. The real goal, he said, is for the celebratory energy of this weekend to provide visitors with such an appreciation of Baltimore that it will bring people back.

But Hutchinson can recognize how the inflated viewership Swifties are giving Chiefs games will help, too. The Texans-Ravens game attracted 32.4 million viewers, becoming ESPN’s most-watched NFL game ever. NBC reported that Swift’s first attendance to a Chiefs game saw a 53% in increase in female viewers between ages 12 and 17, and that Swift’s appearance at the Oct. 1 Chiefs-Jets game drew an audience of 29 million and was the NFL’s most-viewed game since the previous Super Bowl.

That kind of viewership marriage on Sunday could spell an unprecedented number of eyes on Baltimore.

“We want the Chiefs to lose, but we want Taylor to have such a beautiful experience in Baltimore: that she sees the love we have for football, for our city, that she’d go back and say, ‘Look. Baltimore has to be a must stop on my tour next time,'” Hutchinson said.

Time magazine reported the Eras Tour garnered around $5 billion in consumer spending in the United States. Baltimore, should it treat Swift well, could experience that kind of windfall.

“Come here, Taylor. Have a good time. Enjoy the great cuisine and all Baltimore has to offer,” Hutchinson said. “We’re going to give you an ‘L’ this time, but we want you to leave with a love of Baltimore.”

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