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Taylor Swift and Paris, story of a bygone love affair
“You know, we’ve been in contact with Taylor Swift’s team for several yearswe slide Bathilde Lorenzettivice-president of Paris La Défense Arena. In 2019 we were supposed to receive her, but she preferred to do a festival tour”. The famous tour mentioned never saw the light of day: Lover Fest has, like many other events organized in 2020, paid the price of the global pandemic. On this occasion, Taylor Swift had to defend Lover, his seventh studio album, at the Arènes de Nîmes. However, despite the aborted tour, the pop star still went to France for a promotional concert (and by invitation) at the Olympia. A room with barely 2,000 seats. Apart from this event, the artist’s last concert dates back to 2011, at the Zénith in Paris. She then presented her third album, Speak Now. Meanwhile, thirteen years have passed, Taylor Swift released seven records. However, still confined to mainly American success, the artist struggles to think outside the box. To defend his sixth album, reputation, on stage in 2016, she prefers to do a series of dates in London, rather than risk a Parisian adventure. Surprising, when we see the enthusiasm caused by his arrival today.
“We’ve had Paul McCartney, we’ve had the Rolling Stones, but the magnitude of Taylor Swift is beyond beliefassures Bathilde Lorenzetti. This is the first time I’ve given so many interviews, especially to international media! For merchandising, we doubled our staff and we opened three days before the concert, which had never happened”. Far away is the time when we still heard that “Taylor Swift does not speak to the French public”. And if some continue to doubt it, the astronomical figures of The Tortured Poets Department can serve as formidable arguments. For its first week in France, the album came close to going gold, with some 46,000 sales. And the security that accompanies his return to France is colossal,”worse than for a head of state” has fun Bathilde Lorenzetti. “We held a meeting for Emmanuel Macron, I can tell you that it was much lighter!” she continues. Last year it was Beyonce who sat in the room to rehearse his tour Renaissance, started in spring 2023 in Europe. “His presence ended up leaking, but the leak did not come from our teams! It came from a member of his security, who had ordered from Pizza Hut with the name Beyoncé!” tale Bathilde Lorenzetti. If the anecdote is particularly funny, it nevertheless highlights the rigor of the Paris La Défense Arena teams, when it comes to discretion. In the case of Taylor Swiftthis discretion has for example made it possible to preserve, for as long as possible, the surprises added in this new stage of the tour.
