I Spent 6 Hours with a Bunch of Taylor Swift-Obsessed Doctors; Here’s What I Learned

By Josh Katzowitz, WCI Content Director

Swirling through the delicious dichotomy of New Orleans two weeks ago, you couldn’t walk more than a few feet without hearing something, seeing something, driving through something, or stumbling over something Taylor Swift-related. She was in town, playing three nights at the sold-out Superdome for a total of about 200,000 screaming, glittery fans who chanted all of her lyrics as she strutted, danced, gave innocent come-hither looks, and showed over and over again why she’s the kind of behemoth pop star we haven’t seen since Michael Jackson or The Beatles.

New Orleans is a great time because you get to experience every vibe you can imagine: it’s the jazzy French Quarter vibe, the passed-out-on-the-street vibe, the jambalaya-and-beignets-straight-into-my-stomach vibe, the strip-club-next-door-to-the-praline-shop vibe, the drink-daiquiris-all-day vibe and the why-does-every-stairwell-smell-like-urine vibe all at once.

It’s sensory overload in the best and worst ways.

But in the last weekend of October, all of those sensations (both the miserable and the magical) were trumped by Taylor. Every bar we walked by on Bourbon Street was playing her music, just about every person we passed was wearing her merch, and just about everybody else was trying to cash in on the sensation.

The zenith was the Sunday night show at the Superdome where I spent about six hours with some Taylor Swift-obsessed doctors. Here’s what I observed.

 

#1 These Docs Do Their Best to Find a Deal – and If They Don’t, They’re OK with It

Ever since Swift started her Eras tour in March 2023 (the first tour to ever gross more than $1 billion), at least one Swift-obsessed doctor mom group on Facebook has transformed into an unofficial ticket vendor that gives advice and strategies on how to land the best seats while building relationships (both online and in person) among the various ages and specialties of the women entrenched in the group.

It's a Facebook group that dispenses good advice while also giving great support and encouragement to its members.

Some people in this group traveled to Europe together to watch Swift perform in London or Cardiff or Lisbon or Paris, because it was actually a cheaper experience than trying to buy a ticket in the US. Some spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to rent suites for a weekend block of shows in the stadiums she played and then sold tickets inside that suite to their fellow doctors so they could all sit together and bask in the Swiftness of it all. Just about all of them traded a bunch of money for their happiness.

As the tour progressed through the US in the summer of 2023, cheap tickets were nearly impossible to purchase. Although the docs in that Facebook group had all kinds of data showing when venues released last-minute seats and when the prices on third-party ticket sites dropped, sometimes you just had to buck up and prepare to spend in the high four figures for entry into the show.

And many of these docs, with their high incomes, were fine with it. Why? Because it was all about the experience of living through something so enchanting. At the show I attended, some of the physicians likely spent closer to five figures so they and their families could experience what was likely a once-in-a-lifetime event. Spending more than $100 on a bottle of prosecco in a suite? Done. Spending hundreds more on grabbing an elusive blue crew sweatshirt that could only be bought at the Eras tour? No problem.

Still, my wife, my daughter, and I tried to save money where we could. We ate for free in airport lounges on the way to and from New Orleans, and we used credit card points for one of the hotels. We scarfed down a free hotel breakfast and flew deep in economy.

But let’s not kid ourselves. This was an expensive and time-consuming weekend trip.

One non-doctor woman we met woke up at 5am the night before the show, drove four hours to an airport in Canada, connected on a flight through Philadelphia, and got to her airport hotel in New Orleans at about 11pm. Oh, and she said she had broken her leg the day before (she was hobbling around on crutches when we met her at the front desk). That’s how determined people were to see Swift perform.

And you know why all of these people made this much effort and spent this much money? Because when Swift started playing, the kids in the suite began dancing and singing like nobody was watching, friends (Facebook or otherwise) hugged in ecstasy, tears flowed when Swift gave away her hat to an awestruck little girl on 22 and when she hit the climax of Love Story. Thoughts and worries about spending the money weren’t in the equation.

The experience—the unbridled joy and hope of it all—was what mattered.

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#2 It’s Better to Be an Owner Than an Employee

Despite her fame and fortune, Swift, like just about every artist who has ever lived, has also gotten screwed by the music industry. One of the biggest blows of her career came in 2019 when the company owned by infamous manager Scooter Braun bought the masters of Swift’s first six albums in a deal worth $300 million.

Swift didn’t own her music at the time—Big Machine Records and CEO Scott Borchetta did—and the sale devastated her.

“I had to make the excruciating choice to leave behind my past. Music I wrote on my bedroom floor and videos I dreamed up and paid for from the money I earned playing in bars, then clubs, then arenas, then stadiums,” she wrote in a 2019 Tumblr post. “ . . . When I left my masters in Scott’s hands, I made peace with the fact that eventually he would sell them. Never in my worst nightmares did I imagine the buyer would be Scooter. Any time Scott Borchetta has heard the words ‘Scooter Braun’ escape my lips, it was when I was either crying or trying not to. He knew what he was doing; they both did. Controlling a woman who didn’t want to be associated with them. In perpetuity. That means forever.”

Swift then pulled off a move that hardly any artist in the music industry could have engineered. She decided to rerecord her first four albums (and the announcement of another album, Reputation, should be coming at any moment) and stamp them as Taylor’s Version. She owns those masters, meaning she gets to take back her work and the money she makes from it. Since she started rerecording her albums, Forbes has stamped her a billionaire.

As we’ve written before, ownership has its privileges.

 

#3 It's Good to Be Generous

That Facebook group I mentioned earlier also can break news. On the Thursday before the show, as many in the group waited for more last-minute tickets to become available (apparently this happens after the stage is set up so concert organizers can determine if more seats can be fit in at whatever unique stadium where they happen to be), somebody reported that there had been a delay in the stage-building process. One of the trucks had apparently broken down on the journey from Miami to New Orleans.

Obviously, the crews and truckers who have made their way around the world to build, take down, and then rebuild the stage in city after city are vital to the Eras tour being such a success. Swift, of course, knows this, and last year, she showed them how much she appreciates them by giving each trucker (close to 50 people in all) a $100,000 bonus.

“The typical amount is $5,000-$10,000 each,” Michael Scherkenbach, the founder and CEO of Shomotion trucking company, told CNN. “So this large amount is unbelievable.”

More from CNN:

“Scherkenbach said his drivers were flabbergasted when they were called into what they thought was a routine production meeting on Monday. It was anything but that.

Then Swift’s father, Scott Swift, made a surprise visit.

‘ . . . Scott gave a speech saying that he had discussed this with Taylor and they thought that it was only right that everybody received a bonus. Taylor insisted on writing a handwritten note to each driver and [added] a wax seal on the envelope with her monogram.’

Each envelope stated the amount of the bonus. ‘The drivers didn’t want to be overly rude and look at it. But one looked and thought it said $1,000, another driver saw it as $10,000 and then the third said “Well this has to be a joke!”’ Scherkenbach said. After the letter, the checks were given with the corresponding tax document.

In addition to his staff, Scherkenbach said other tour crew members, including those in catering, video, audio and lighting, also received bonuses.”

While in New Orleans, she also did this.

 

 

She makes a similar contribution to a food bank in every city in which she performs.

More information here:

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Splurge on This, Not on That

 

#4 Plenty of Businesses Want to Make Money on Swift

If you lived in New Orleans on the last weekend of October, it was nearly impossible to avoid the Swift hype. That’s because the city (and so many of the businesses that reside there) embraced her name as much as possible in the hopes of making even more money.

Southwest added more flights to its schedule to cities where Swift was performing (for the New Orleans show, the airline added additional round-trip flights from Austin, Baltimore, Dallas, and San Antonio). One hotel we stayed at had a ballroom dedicated to making friendship bracelets. We ran across a Swift karaoke party in the middle of Bourbon Street (instead of Mardi Gras beads being thrown on Bourbon, it was friendship bracelets).

I saw a billboard from a local personal injury lawyer that read, “Karma is a lawsuit.” I attended a Taylor Swift-themed brunch at a downtown hotel (featuring “illicit eclairs” and “I don’t know about you but I’m feeling donuts too”). I saw a bearded male Uber driver dressed up like Swift in a glittery dress idling in front of the Superdome.

Everybody wanted a piece of the Taylor action, according to Eater New Orleans.

 

 

And it worked.

The airport reported a record number of travelers on the final day of the weekend, and Greater New Orleans, Inc. estimated that more than $500 million was spent for the three-day stop.

“I think about the musicians working at bars and restaurants that have extra gigs because this was going on,” New Orleans & Co. president and CEO Walt Leger said, via Fox 8. “I think about the artists that sold extra pieces of art this week.”

It’s a Taylor Swift economy, and business was booming. And so was the love.

Whatever criticisms people might have of Swift (her long history of writing about ex-boyfriends and the trouble they’ve caused her, her carbon footprint, the fact that she’s a powerful woman in an industry where it’s so difficult to make a nice living), here’s my biggest takeaway from the weekend.

Taylor Swift is a creator of joy. She exudes it from her being, and that oh-my-gosh-i-can't-believe-i'm-here-right-now vibe spread throughout the stadium like an expanding parachute. The bliss of it all was almost overwhelming.

And isn’t that the point of us making money and building a nest egg? So you can experience and remember (all too well) something like that with the ones you love the most. Isn’t that the karma everybody deserves?

 

Money Song of the Week

Despite all of my Swift fawning in this piece, I’m not a huge Swiftie. I like much of her music just fine (the Red, 1989, and Reputation eras are my favorite), and I had a great time at the show.

But I also had to go to the concert with my heavy metal security blanket in the form of this T-shirt.

 

 

Anyway, my wife and daughter (enormous Swifties) basically forced me to come up with my top 10 favorite Swift songs. Paper Rings is on the list. It’s one of her more rocking songs, and it tells the simple tale of how the pure power of love can triumph over wealth and expensive jewels.

As she sings,

“I like shiny things, but I'd marry you with paper rings/Uh-huh, that's right/Darling, you're the one I want, and/I hate accidents, except when we went from friends to this.”

 

 

As she once told her fans, via Genius.com, “Your whole life, you talk with your friends about how, like, ‘Oh my God. Do you wanna get married? What do you want your ring to look like? What kind of ring do you want?’ I don’t know, I just feel like if you really love someone, you’d be like, ‘I don’t care.’”

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Reddit of the Week

Who knew that reading could be so detrimental to your health in retirement?

 

I could just sit and read all day….but my shoulders and back are killing me!
byu/Mizzy_Lu_Fwinkley inretirement

 

Are you a Swiftie? Why or why not? Do you think her music moves economies, or will her star eventually fade? Comment below!

[Editor's Note: For comments, complaints, suggestions, or plaudits, email Josh Katzowitz at [email protected].]

The post I Spent 6 Hours with a Bunch of Taylor Swift-Obsessed Doctors; Here’s What I Learned appeared first on The White Coat Investor - Investing & Personal Finance for Doctors.