Taylor Swift concert in Pittsburgh

Dear readers, hope all of you are having a great summer. This school year has been busy. With a change in my role and change of the campus, my writing has been few and far between. I am still working but it is almost time for my summer break to begin! Last weekend we travelled to Pittsburgh to watch Taylor Swift’s The Era Tour and it was breathtaking! This past weekend was our anniversary, so the weekdays as well as weekends have been quite busy this month. Today’s post is about our experience at the Taylor Swift concert as well as Father’s Day celebration last weekend- June 16-18. So read on.

Introduction

Well, Taylor Swift doesn’t need any introduction but here are a few things that you may or may not know about her: Taylor Alison Swift is a multi-Grammy award-winning American singer/songwriter who, in 2010 at the age of 20, became the youngest artist in history to win the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. In 2011 Swift was named Billboard’s Woman of the Year. She also has been named the American Music Awards Artist of the Year, as well as the Entertainer of the Year for both the Country Music Association and the Academy of Country Music, among many other accolades. As of this writing, she is the top-selling digital artist in music history. Credit: imdb.com

Taylor was born in Pennsylvania and raised there till she was 14 years old, when the family moved to Nashville TN. So she calls PA her home and reminded her Pittsburgh fans of this a few times during her show. My oldest teen is a die hard fan and the reason for us to go from Houston to Pittsburgh to watch the concert!

The Era Tour started on March 17 and will be ending on August 9. Taylor Swift opened her tour in Glandale, Arizona & will end her tour at Los Angeles, California. The states in order for her tour are Arizona, Nevada, Texas, Florida, Texas again, Georgia, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania again, Minnesota, Ohio, Missouri, Colorado, Washington, and California. The last 3 tours are in CA, one in Santa Clara & last 2 in LA. I am sharing this in case anyone is genuinely trying to catch any of her last tours:) The Era Tour includes 4 of her newest albums- Lover (2019), Folklore (2020), Evermore (2020) and Midnights (2022).

Our trip

We took a flight from Houston on Thursday night. Since we had to use American Airlines credit, we had to do a layover as AA does not have a direct flight. We always fly United airlines when we go to visit our older one there at college, which is a 3 hours flight (4 hours if you include the time zone difference as they are a hour ahead of us) but this time it took us a total of 6 hours. Our flight from Houston to Charlotte, NC was couple hours followed by next flight to Pittsburgh. We started from our home at 4:30 pm to catch the 5:45 pm flight which was delayed to 6:30 and reached Pittsburgh just after midnight.

Our 3 nights stay at Holiday Inn was comfortable. After a late night rest, we got up to grab some complimentary breakfast and went back to sleep. All 4 of us started getting ready at around 1 pm. The concert started at 6:30 pm but the recommendation was to reach at 4 or 4:30. We took an Uber at 4:30 and reached the venue, Acrisure Stadium, previously called Heinz Field, by 5. It was a sold out performance with about 70,000 seating capacity. The entry was smooth and no chaos even with such a big crowd. We stood in line for some food and were already seated by 6 pm or so. The 1st performer was Gracie Abrams & next came the Girl in Red. At 8 pm was the grand entry of the 11-time Grammy winner Taylor Swift. She entertained for 3 1/2 hours and was as lively, cheerful and energetic as ever! The stadium was resounding with 72000 people singing to every song. People stood, danced and cheered the entire time. Many young girls stood the entire time including the row right ahead of us. What a breathtaking performance!

Next day was Saturday and since we arrived back late from the concert, we had a late start to the day. We walked on the Forbes Avenue and explored some more of the Pitt campus. We did a campus tour for the Carnegie Mellon University that afternoon, which we had registered for online. Then we went to watch the movie, Spider Man: Across the Spider Verse. Movie was great but we, along with others in the movie hall, were little disappointed in the end, as we didn’t know it was a 2 part movie. Sunday, June 18th, was Father’s Day. Kids had booked table for lunch at an Indian restaurant, and had bought an ice cream cake. We took some pictures, did some shopping for my older one, and by 4 pm were in Uber. Our flight was at 6:30 pm and we reached back to Houston after midnight.

To summarize

It was a wonderful weekend spent with family watching Taylor Swift’s The Era Tour concert at Pittsburgh. We got to see our older teen and also got to celebrate Father’s Day on Sunday before flying back late at night. Monday was off due to Juneteenth, so we got to rest and take it easy after the hectic 3 days long weekend trip from TX to PA. I am not sure if I will pay a few 100 $ again per person for the 4 of us for the tickets and then to fly to another state to see any other concert but this was worth it!

Dear readers, we always love to hear from you. Let us know if you are a Swiftie, or not. What has been your best concert and why? Tell us about your 1st or any experience of a concert and what was the best part of it? Any other travel plans or ideas for summer, do share.

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