My Friend and I Spent $1,700 to Fly to Singapore to Watch Taylor Swift

• Taylor Swift will be performing for six nights in Singapore, her only Eras Tour stop in Southeast Asia.
• Swaksha Krishnakumar is planning to fly in from India with a friend to catch the concert.
• She bought a $635 experience package, which includes two concert tickets and a one-night hotel stay.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Swaksha Krishnakumar, a 28-year-old Swiftie based in Bangalore, India. It has been edited for length and clarity. Business Insider has verified her expenses.

The first Taylor Swift song I heard was “Love Story” when I was 14.

I started listening to her more during her “Red” album era and was a proper Swiftie by 2014, during her “1989” album era.

When Taylor first shared the US dates for her Eras Tour in 2022, there was a lot of chatter online about the possibility of a world tour, too.

I’m very active in the Taylor Swift fandom, especially on X and Instagram. I had notifications turned on for almost every major social platform in case she dropped her Asia tour dates.

Mentally, I was already prepared to travel to see her.

When Taylor finally announced the international dates last year, she only had Tokyo and Singapore in Asia. Tokyo is too far, so I decided I’d try to catch her in Singapore instead.

But buying tickets for her concert was tough

My friend and I weren’t able to get tickets through Ticketmaster, so I started looking for alternate ways.

That’s when I learned that Klook, the booking platform, was launching an Eras Tour experience package that included two concert tickets and a one-night hotel stay.

The sale went live on the Klook mobile app during Singapore time, and due to the time difference, my friend and I had to wake up early for it.

After clicking on the link, I was immediately sent into the waiting room. I think I was 9,000 or something in the queue. It was a long shot, but I moved up the queue quickly.

It felt too good to be true

My friend and I had looked through the packages prior, trying to see which would fit our budget best. But when I finally got to the page, the cheapest package was already sold out.

At that point, the concert date and the seats didn’t matter — I just wanted to get tickets.

I ended up getting category six tickets to Taylor’s last show in Singapore. I paid 52,675 rupees, or about $635, for two concert tickets and a one-night stay at Capri China Square, a four-star hotel in Singapore.

I think we got a pretty good deal with the package, especially after we divided the cost between the two of us.

We’re nowhere close to the stage, but it doesn’t matter to me. Our seats are at the top of the stadium, slightly toward the middle, so we’ll get a good view of the stage and the screens.

We booked a direct flight from Bangalore to Singapore. We paid 56,335.80 rupees, or about $680, for return tickets for two people.

This will be my first time in Singapore, so we extended our stay by two nights. We booked a hotel outside the city center and paid 30,063 rupees, or about $363, for a two-night stay in one room.

This is going to be my first Taylor Swift concert

When she was on her Reputation world tour, I was doing my masters in the UK. Some of my friends were going to her concert in Manchester, and they offered me an extra ticket.

But I was on a student budget and I had exams, so I passed on their offer. I ended up watching the concert through their Instagram stories.

I regretted it, but one of the fun parts about getting older is that you make your own money to do stuff like this.

I’ve made about 25 friendship bracelets, and I’m planning to make some more for the concert.

I’m also planning to wear this “Eras Cats” shirt I bought online — it’s Taylor Swift’s cats dressed in the versions of her albums.

It’s not my first time flying overseas for a concert. If the cost is reasonable and the country isn’t too far away, I would definitely do it again for Taylor or for another artist that I love.