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Working in a public policy environment, it is always important to keep up with the news - especially at election time. However, what recently caught my eye as I had a post-lunch browse of the headlines wasn’t commentary on the future of devolution policy or plans for health and social care. It was Taylor Swift. More specifically it was the “Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour to provide nearly £1bn boost to UK economy” headline. This was based on the ‘Swiftonomics Report’ issued by Barclays as a press release. It got a huge and – with one of two exceptions – largely uncritical coverage across the media landscape, including the BBC.

The roughly 1,000-word press release highlights two cultural phenomena: the scale of Taylor Swift fandom, and the rise of the ‘experience economy’. It is a relatively light touch piece of analysis, and certainly has a higher song title per 100 word ratio than the typical academic publication in a peer-reviewed journal (although perhaps not those written by attendees at this symposium). It does, however, illustrate two issues that we come across in our own economic impact work: what do we mean by ‘impact’, and what data can we use to estimate it?

What impact is being estimated?

The £1bn figure relates to estimated expenditure by concert goers, which is equivalent to turnover for businesses. This shows the amount of money changing hands. But it does not capture the value generated for the UK economy. We typically estimate this using Gross Value Added (GVA), which is the difference between the value of goods and services produced (‘output’) and the cost of raw materials and other inputs which are used in producing these goods and services (‘intermediate consumption’).

On average (and depending on the sector and geography), ONS data shows that GVA is normally around a third of turnover. That is, the £1bn expenditure associated with the Eras tour is more like £333m in GVA terms. That is a sizeable number from 15 tour dates, but not quite the headline-grabbing £1bn figure.

Even the £333m estimate doesn’t tell the whole story. It measures the expected gross impact. But what about the net impact, taking into account what would have happened anyway? For example, Barclays states that the expected £848 average spend by those attending a gig is “more than 12 times the average cost of a UK night out.” But if people are spending £848 to see Taylor Swift, then they don’t have £848 to spend across 12 nights out (or other leisure activities) in other locations. So, the Eras Tour has not created more money for people to spend, rather it has changed what they spend it on.

An argument could be made that the tour will influence the spatial pattern of spend across the UK. After all, ‘Tay Days’ will only be enjoyed in Cardiff, Edinburgh, Liverpool, and London. However, we would expect some displacement to occur. For example, if hotels and Airbnb’s are filled with Swifties, that means there is no space for anyone else who might want an overnight visit to the respective city that day (which also has implications for the availability of temporary accommodation for the homeless, at least according to reports in Edinburgh).  Conversely, might Liverpool’s “Taylor Town” plans put non-Swift fans off visiting the city that week?

A second issue with changing the spatial pattern of spend is that only a quarter of “fans say they had to or will have to travel to a different city in order to attend the Eras Tour.” If the vast majority of fans aren’t travelling away from home, presumably they aren’t paying for accommodation (estimated by Barclays at £121, although reports show average last minute costs of hotels in Edinburgh at almost £700 per night) or travel (estimated at £111). And if only a quarter of fans are travelling, does that mean that the UK’s Swifties are overwhelmingly concentrated in just four cities? We’ll have to look at the underlying data to find out.

What data are being used in the estimates?

The notes to the Barclays press release refer to “consumer research [with] 200 UK adults who have secured or are trying to secure Taylor Swift tickets, providing a representative sample of UK consumers by age, gender, region, and income group.”

The population of people with tickets is known (at least to the vendors and venues, if not Barclays) but identifying the population of people who are still trying to get tickets is much harder. It is not unreasonable to include this second group in research focused on consumer spending – people do spend considerably more than face value to buy last minute tickets for live events – but without knowing the total population of this group, how can a representative sample be assured? And if the 200 respondents are not representative, it is harder to credibly scale-up the spend estimates to the almost 1.2m seats available across Swift’s 15 tour dates. To provide greater confidence in the impact figures, more people could have been included in the sample and the estimates presented as ranges, for example consumer spending of £0.8-1.2bn.

Going beyond consumer spending

The data discussed so far relates to consumer spending. A more detailed analysis could also consider wider factors related to the tour venues and staging the shows. For example, have the four venues sold more tickets for the Taylor Swift gigs than they might do for another artist on those dates? If so, are there additional temporary employment impacts relating to stewarding, catering and security? And beyond the venue, is the supply chain for staging a Taylor Swift show with the sets and special effects different from a ‘standard’ gig at Wembley?

There may also be wellbeing benefits to fans attending the gigs and dancing the night away. These are likely to be temporary rather than permanent wellbeing benefits and are certainly harder to robustly monetise, although new data sources are emerging.

Including a wider range of factors would provide a more comprehensive picture of the true economic impact from the tour. However, it creates a risk of double counting impacts under different headings, and so needs to be managed carefully.

Final thoughts

We’ve seen that the headline grabbing £1bn boost to the UK economy figure is better expressed as a c.£333m gross GVA impact, and that the net GVA impact will be lower still. These figures all come from consumer spending, but there are also wider impacts to be considered in a more rounded assessment.

Fast forward a month or so, and this blog could instead be about the economic impact of people watching Euro2024 in beer gardens, eating strawberries and cream at Wimbledon or attending Glastonbury. Rather than taking the impact figures at face value, it pays to spend a minute looking at what impact is being claimed, and the data behind it. Both are issues we’re familiar with from our own economic impact studies which have covered everything from tourism and heritage assets such as Tatton Park through to science and technology focused developments like Sci-Tech Daresbury.

At this point of the blog, I’ve written slightly more words than the original press release and, perhaps, am guilty of taking Barclay’s estimate too seriously. Although some would argue you that can never take Taylor Swift too seriously. It is certainly safe to say that this is not what I thought I’d be doing when I opened up the news on my computer that lunchtime!