“She is an artist who breaks absolutely all records”, testifies her turner Arnaud Meersseman

It’s big day for Taylor Swift fans. The American singer releases her new album “The Tortured Poets Department”. The next stage of his tour is in France, in Paris and Lyon, in six dates. The first will be on May 9, in the capital.

In France, star Taylor Swift’s “turner” is Arnaud Meersseman, general manager of AEG Presents France. AEG is the second largest concert organizer in the world, with nearly a million spectators in France, at more than 500 concerts and shows each year. The singer will perform at the Défense Arena in Paris, every evening from May 9 to 12 inclusive, then at Groupama Stadium in Lyon, on June 2 and 3. These French dates are the start of his European tour, so the pressure is even greater.

Arnaud Meersseman: She is an extraordinary artist. We have sold more than 250,000 tickets and I think the demand was such that we could have almost doubled this figure and reached half a million sales, or perhaps, who knows, even a million.

Everything is sold there, then.

Everything is sold out, we had almost 1.2 million people in line trying to buy tickets when they went on sale.

You follow other artists in France, like Céline Dion, Greenday or Blackpink. This tour is not like the others, is it out of the ordinary?

Ah yes, she is truly extraordinary. I believe she is an artist who absolutely breaks all records. She is the first artist to become a billionaire thanks to her music.

“His concert documentary has exceeded $260 million in sales, it’s crazy. Never has a concert film done so much.”

Arnaud Meersseman

at franceinfo

And there, just on the tour, it almost exceeds 2 billion dollars in turnover. These figures are exceptional. It’s a unicorn as we can say in the world of economics.

It went on sale during the first half of July on Ticketmaster. And then, a hell of a bug occurred…

Oh yes, I will always remember. Sales start at 10 a.m. At 10:03 a.m., I called my ticket office to find out where we were, and they told me that we had sold five tickets. So we said to ourselves that either we had made a huge mistake, or there was a problem.

“A problem occurred during ticket sales, on the Ticketmaster servers, from a service provider who was unable to keep up with the load of requests.”

Arnaud Meersseman

at franceinfo

We had taken all the precautions we could take in advance, we had worked for a month, we had put in place a whole system of draw codes, etc., precisely to try to reduce this load. Unfortunately, France once again stood out among the other European countries and the same thing happened as in the United States, where we had to stop the sale, put everything back in place and put it up for sale. sequentially one date after the other for almost a week.

It still has its price to see Taylor Swift. Places range from around 70 euros to 245 euros. I’m only talking about French prices, because in the United States, sometimes it was in the thousands of dollars. Is this comparable to other artists whose tours you organize?

So I realize that it’s an amount, but it’s still affordable compared to other superstars or other groups who have a slightly older audience. I work with the Rolling Stones for example, who will charge slightly more expensive ticket prices given that they are an older audience. We will say that it is in the high average of this type of artist.

Do you know the nationality of the people who bought tickets to see Taylor Swift in France, are they only French fans?

No not at all. Of the 250,000 tickets for the six dates, about a third were foreigners. I think it was people who were trying their luck in several European countries and who are such fans that they are ready to travel. We even have American spectators, because the United States practices dynamic pricing, where the higher the demand, the higher the price and can reach stratospheric levels.

“With dynamic pricing, it was perhaps cheaper to buy a plane ticket and a concert ticket for the Paris concert than to buy a ticket in the United States.”

Arnaud Meersseman

at franceinfo

For you, what does a tour like this represent in terms of logistics?

It’s a team that has been mobilized for almost three months, whether at the box office or in production. The marketing was quite simple, but consistent. And then, the production teams, more than 300 people will work on these concerts. We are expecting around 90 semi-trailers. That’s a lot of people to welcome, and then we have fairly high standards.

Is there a little stress?

Yes, there is always a little stress and excitement. That’s why I do this job. We are behind the scenes to make sure things go well on stage. And there, we’re talking about the biggest artist in the world. And it’s also the start of the European tour which takes place in Paris. It’s certain that we’re going to have the spotlight on us, so we better make sure everything goes well. But I am quite confident, I have a very good team in place and we have already welcomed some very big stars.

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