Taylor Swift tickets are so much more than Taylor Swift tickets when they can impact young women positively.Jon Kile
Follow up on Ren Dad’s claim he wouldn’t buy his daughter Taylor Swift tickets
When I jokingly asked my editor for a press pass for one of Tampa’s Taylor Swift concerts, she texted me back, “What date? Venue?”
She had no idea this was the toughest ticket to get in recorded human history. See, some people lived in ignorant bliss of Taylor Ticket Trauma: That horrible night when Ticketmaster’s website crashed as prices surged to $10,000 per seat. Parents without the resources — or underworld connections — had to tell their daughters that even though there were more than 200,000 tickets for three Tampa shows, they were gone before the breakfast cereal got soggy.
“What’s the big deal about Taylor Swift?” my editor asked. In response, I wrote her a column about my failure in procurement and the financial limits of a father’s love.
Then, that curious editor started listening to Taylor Swift and watching her videos. I created a Swiftie — so much so that when I originally submitted this follow-up column, meticulously detailing how I scored four face-value tickets in a “limited release” two weeks before the show, she had the audacity to send it back. She wanted less about my moment of parenting triumph and more about — and I quote — “the entire way she conducts herself in public and when meeting fans — she teaches young girls a positive lesson about how to treat people, and how to love themselves.”
So rather than bask in the bright reflection of my Father-of-the Century Trophy, I have to tell you how my daughter cried in disbelief when we told her she was going to Taylor Swift. At first she thought it was the meanest prank ever.
Why My Daughter Loves Taylor Swift
My daughter admires Swift for speaking publicly about equality, rather than listening to older men who said it would hurt record sales. And Taylor Swift’s support for the LGBTQ+ community was significant, coming from a person who started her career in country music. Taylor’s been “woke” since we called it “being nice.”
The cool thing is that, unlike the generations of kids who put their parents through David Cassidy, Tiffany, Wham!, Ricky Martin, Vanilla Ice, New Kids on the Block, and Britney Spears, my daughter has a musical obsession the whole family can get on board with (not to mention our skeptical newspaper editor.)
That made the Taylor Swift tickets even more special. More than a month after the show, driving back from dance rehearsal, singing along to one of Taylor’s deep cuts, our daughter told us, “That was the greatest night of my life.”
I just hope we’ve earned enough good grace to get us through the teenage years.
