On Wednesday (October 23) evening in New Orleans, a white SUV peeks shyly around the corner of Chartres Street in the French Quarter. Although Taylor Swift’s “Fearless” is the song wafting out the window, the man behind the wheel is visibly worried as he drives his family past drunken partygoers stumbling toward Bourbon Street.

However, on Friday (October 25), Swift’s presence in the city turned all the tables. SUVs emblazoned with marker-scrawled song titles (“Getaway Car” is a popular choice) and bumper stickers depicting Taylor’s face clutter the streets as tens of thousands of tourists descend on the city for the first of three shows at sold out at Caesars Superdome.

Fans wearing Eras Tour merchandise (or unofficial t-shirts playing off the tour’s distinctive color palette) are everywhere, from the Bywater (Swift ordered her Lavender Haze birthday cake from Bywater Bakery in 2022) to Frenchman Street passing the Instagram-friendly Skeleton House beyond. by Audubon Park, whose theme this year is “Terror Swift: The ScEras Tour” (example offer: a skeleton in a yellow always the dress is holding a guitar next to a “No Body, No Crime” sign).

“Taylor Swift is taking over New Orleans” trumpets a “visitor’s guide” leaflet written by The Times-Picayune and NOLA.com. The infamous Bourbon Street is almost family friendly. Apart from “Blank Space”, “You Belong With Me” and “Anti-Hero” broadcast on loop, almost all bars and restaurants offer complementary programming (karaoke, quizzes, lookalike contests offering the winner up to $500). ) or themed drinks (Taylorita, Lavender Haze fizz, Holy Ground hurricane).

Even the city’s music hotspots, places oriented toward jazz and blues, are not immune to the popular the impact of the star. On Frenchman, dba runs a friendship bracelet making station; at the Mahogany Jazz Hall in Chartres, one of the bartenders throws out lyrical references accompanied by sazeracs (“I knew you were trouble when you came in,” he quips while serving two cocktails to a customer); while Esplanade Studios, where Swift recorded three songs from The Department of Tortured Poets (“Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me”, “Fresh Out the Slammer” and “Florida!!!”), inspires Swifties to explore the Treme neighborhood.

Back in the French Quarter, Antoine’s Restaurant – the city’s oldest restaurant and birthplace of Oysters Rockefeller – gets in on the fun by handing out pink takeout cups and writing “Eras Tour 2024” on its signature dessert, Alaska baked.

“(Right now, it’s) as big and as busy as Mardi Gras and it’s the busiest time of the year,” says Lisa Blount, who handles advertising for Antoine’s and is married to Fifth generation family business CEO. “In the next three days, we will welcome more than 3,000 guests.”

“New Orleans always enjoys a busy weekend before Halloween,” says Steve Pettus of Dickie Brennan’s, a New Orleans restaurant group that includes Tableau, a French-Creole restaurant that held a “bash on the balcony” Swiftie Saturday. “This weekend is more than double what we have traditionally seen. Requests for reservations have not stopped. I have never felt more popular in my life – I have more “friends” than I thought.

“Guests started calling us over the summer asking when they could reserve a table, so we knew what was coming,” says Kyle Brechtel, president and CEO of Brechtel Hospitality, which hosted a Friday Swift-themed rooftop party. (Thanks to the Swifties on staff, “Taylor Tenders & Seemingly Ranch” were on the menu, referencing a viral Swift-related tweet from September 2023.) “(Halloween) is always a big weekend in town, but it’s a whole new level. »

A growing Halloween tradition in New Orleans is the Witches’ Luncheon, where locals wear black dresses, pointy hats and eat brunch. While the witches were out in force earlier in the day on Friday (they even sang “Cruel Summer” in a karaoke bar in the crossover spirit of the weekend), by 5 p.m., the witching hour had given way. time for Swifting. Taylor Swift costumes – from the purple “Enchanted” dress to the gold pom-pom dress “Fearless” to variations on the “22” t-shirt (“A Lot of Potholes Going on at the Moment”, “A Lot to Vote on at the Moment) – and Kansas City Chiefs jerseys have become as essential as Mardi Gras beaded necklaces.

Fortunately, New Orleans is a city used to hosting massive cultural events. Case in point: Next year’s Super Bowl will take place at Caesars Superdome on February 9, bringing halftime headliner Kendrick Lamar to the same venue where Swift just sold out three nights. So even with the Eras Tour bringing an additional 100,000 to 150,000 people to New Orleans, the city isn’t missing a beat.

“We have a lot of experience in this area,” says Walt Leger, president and CEO of New Orleans & Company, the city’s official sales and marketing organization. “We have a lot of excellent professionals on the public safety side who know how to coordinate traffic and other issues that can affect us if there is a surge. Our city excels at these events – we have a professional hospitality community. It’s muscle memory.

However, the Eras Tour hits differently. “This weekend there will be more foot traffic, whereas the Super Bowl is a lot of corporate events scattered around the city,” Brechtel says. “I haven’t seen anything like the impact of a Super Bowl (here) until now.”

“The Super Bowl is first and foremost a corporate event,” echoes Blount. “Big parties, lots of VIPs. They buy the restaurant, things like that. It’s a different type of activity. She offers a point of comparison: “We love those weekends where it’s the Saints versus the Dallas Cowboys. We have a lot of people in town, the restaurants are busy, everyone is busy. A friend of mine said to me, “You know what’s great about that? It’s like a football weekend but we all support the same team.

However, not everyone is fully on board the Taylor train. At a Halloween-themed drag show on Wednesday, one of the performers announced that he would be hosting a series of Swift-themed drag shows over the weekend and was greeted by slight boos. “I know, I know, she’s ruining Halloween,” the queen said. “I feel the same way you do, but I have to pay rent.”

Another local, after quitting her job and finding herself in a sea of ​​Swifties, put it more bluntly: “I’m sick of these motherfuckers and their t-shirts.” (To be fair, if your coffee shop suddenly had a line of 150 people waiting around the block to get a themed plastic cup, you might be upset, too.) Karen-coded behavior also reared its ugly head at the occasion, as a behavior coded by Karen. two Swifties telling a local street musician playing blues instruments to sing Swift songs instead. Or a table of adults at Lafitte’s Forge chanting Taylor’s name at the pianist, although the pianist politely stated that song requests should come with a few dollars (they didn’t tip and their chants are remained unanswered).

But these brief moments of disagreement were rare. The town is more than used to tourists, and most locals were more than happy to strike up a conversation with visiting Swifties to offer food recommendations or share bits of the town’s history.

“Our city recognizes that we benefit greatly from those who invest in our community by spending money and supporting jobs and infrastructure,” says Léger. “Data shows that for the first leg of the Eras Tour, we expect additional spending of more than $200 million, conservatively. It will probably be more than that.

Ultimately, though, Taylor Swift’s New Orleans redemption — like the Eras Tour itself — is about something that goes deeper than dollars. While walking down a cobblestone street on Friday, a young woman on a cigarette break stops a new visitor to New Orleans with a quiet but enthusiastic question: “Are you a Swiftie?” As she puts out her cigarette, she reveals a wrist covered in friendship bracelets. “You want to trade? »

“Everyone is hanging out and having a good time,” Blount said. “It’s a very positive time. In today’s world, is he happy? My goodness, with the election in two weeks and all the caustic election-related things, it’s so nice to see people smile.”