As Taylor Swift’s record breaking Eras Tour kicked off in the UK in June, investment banking analysts at TD Securities flagged that the musical phenomenon could be blamed for keeping interest rates higher-for-longer.

The singer-songwriter’s tour will have spanned the globe and lasted 21 months by the time it finishes its 149th show in Canada this December.

Following the cancellation of an album tour in 2020 and the subsequent release of four brand new albums, and the re-recording of four existing albums, Taylor Swift upped the ante and decided that she would create a concert experience representing all 10 of her studio albums.

The result has been remarkable. It is estimated that there have been 4.35 million tickets sold worldwide, making Taylor Swift a billionaire. The tour itself grossed more than $1 billion during its first eight months, and is estimated to have given a £1 billion boost to the UK economy alone.

The scale of the tour’s economic impact has led to the coining of the term Swiftonomics. While concerts have been known to boost local revenues, who could have anticipated how much influence the Eras Tour would have on the local economies in cities where she performed.

Hotels and restaurants were inundated with national and international visitors, as many opted to get whichever tickets they could get their hands on, including in other continents. Travelodge reported as early as August 2023 that all rooms in Edinburgh, Cardiff, and Liverpool were sold out for the Tour dates, with revenue up at 21% per available room.

Coinciding with a high period of inflation, the Swiftonomics phenomenon was accused of contributing to its stickiness. Swiftflation has been used to describe the inflated prices in the tour’s host cities. When tour dates have fallen on key inflation data days, this has skewed the information. In turn, this affects the Bank of England’s decision of whether to cut interest rates, or not.

Earlier this month, while Swift was on the continental Europe leg of her tour, the Bank of England decided to cut rates for the first time since 2020, as some economists think that the UK is on track to shaking inflation off.

However, as Taylor Swift returned to perform in London over the weekend, data last week showed inflation creeping back up. Maybe the T.D. Securities analysts were right about the influence the Eras Tour has on holding rates? We’ll find out in the coming months what impact the second leg of the UK tour will have on the UK’s Swiftlation rate.