What do you have to be willing to sacrifice to achieve your dreams? The WHO recommended amount of sleep at night? Great-grandmother’s engagement ring? In order to somehow get tickets for Taylor Swift’s sold-out US tour, the operators of “Zee’s Pizza” in New Orleans took what they already had enough of and wrote on a sign: “Free Pizza for Swift tix.” On their Instagram profile they showed then that they are serious: the deal is valid for one year.
After all, a “pizza supreme” at Zee’s costs $25. If the willing ticket donator actually stopped by twice a week, pizza boxes worth more than $2,500 would have been sold within a year. Pretty much money for two tickets. But what does that mean? After all, it’s Taylor Swift.
The Swifties, as the singer’s fans call themselves, usually go further. When she came to Glendale, Arizona for a concert four weeks ago, a couple in the audience took the opportunity to to marry in the front row. When she performed in Arlington, Texas the city renamed a street after her. And when the presale for her tour started last fall, the ticket servers collapsed immediately because millions of fans were overloading them. If a third major party ever wanted to have a serious chance at the presidency in the USA, they should definitely come up with something with Taylor Swift for their program: 53 percent of adult Americans stated in a survey that they were fans. That one of them hands out a card? Unlikely.
What the pizza makers can cling to now is a story from 2014. Back then, Swift invited a select group of fans to her apartment in New York drop in to listen to music, snap Polaroids, and talk about dating. There was food: pizza! Should Swift be merciful, she’ll order these from Zee’s the next time she’s in New Orleans.
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