The Eras Tour Stage: See the Intricate World-Building of Every Set in Taylor Swift’s Most Ambitious Shows Ever

Photo: Kevin Mazur/TAS24/Getty Images

Since kicking off in March of 2023, the Eras Tour stage has provided an immersive backdrop to Taylor Swift’s most ambitious shows to date. Indeed, there was a joke circling the internet following the opening weekend of the now nonpareil: look at any random collection of photos taken throughout the night—some even snapped mere minutes apart—and you’d never know they all came from the same show. What starts in a hazy pink, cotton candy dreamscape ends in a sultry, sparkling twilight—with plenty of undulating stops in the middle, from ethereal fairytale woods to the energetic skyscrapers of the concrete jungle.

“[The stage] changes for almost every song, which is crazy to think about considering most artists have the same stage for their entire set list,” Maya Minocha, a fan who has attended multiple shows, tells AD. Broken down by “era,” the concert takes fans on a three-plus-hour journey through nearly every album in the singer’s 18-year career. “The sets absolutely made this possible,” Ginnie Low, a fan who attended the tour and runs the TikTok account The Thrifty Swiftie, says. “I didn’t move from my tiny little seat area the whole concert, but was transported to 10 different worlds.” Ariel Miranda, another concert-goer agrees. “It was such an immersive experience,” she says.

Now, over a year into the global phenomenon, the singer is still keeping fans on their toes with an ever changing assortment of costumes, track lists, and even a brand new set to commemorate her latest release, The Tortured Poets Department. With a distinct focus on world building, AD takes a look at the incredible set design that helps bring her music to life throughout the triumphant concert.

The Lover Era

Swift opens the show with tracks off of her seventh studio album, Lover. “It was as if she picked up right from where she left off,” Miranda says, referring to Swift’s COVID-19-induced cancellation of her sixth headline tour, Lover Fest, in 2020. Having characterized the album with yellow, pink, and blue pastels, Swift—outfitted in a shimmering leotard—belts songs like “Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince” and “Cruel Summer” while dancers wielding billowing tapestries perform beneath a rosy glow. Screens show two pink triumphal arcs, which were historically built to honor a person or commemorate an important event—a fitting gesture to begin the one-of-a-kind spectacle.

A familiar dollhouse-like home appears behind Swift later in the set, which many fans recognize from her “Lover” music video. “The screen begins flashing images that eventually piece together to become the Lover House, which was a huge Easter egg,” Miranda adds. In the video, Swift and costar Christian Owens move through various colored rooms within a house in a snow globe. When the music video first dropped, fans theorized that each room represented one of her existing albums, and with the release of three new albums, many believe the home is now complete.

Other notable scenes from the Lover section of the show include a full-scale office cosplay moment during “The Man,” where Swift sings about the sexism she’s faced throughout her career. While it’s been a part of the show since 2023, it certainly fits into the “corporate fetish” trend of late, in which offices have become unlikely muses.

The Fearless Era

Next up in the night, Swift performs three songs from her second album, Fearless, for which she won album of the year in 2010 at the Grammys (the youngest artist to ever win the accolade). Though she was certainly popular in country circles following her self-titled debut album, it was this second record that established her mainstream success. And not only does the singer bring back some classic circa 2009 dance moves, she also showcases a dazzling gold motif that she employed when promoting the album over a decade ago.

Outfitted in soft curls and sequins, Swift was often portrayed as the girl next door and an American sweetheart during this period. Though she did, at times, lean into this persona, fans remember her determination to be bold, strong, and, yes, fearless. The sparkles and shine acted as visual representation of this.

For fans, perhaps the most exciting Easter egg was a nod to the bedazzled guitar that she toured with during her Fearless era. In an Instagram story, Swift revealed that it was her parents who artfully stuck the shimmering crystals onto her acoustic instrument just days before the Eras Tour started.

The Red Era

During the European leg, Swift switched up the order of her sets, and moved the Red era to the third spot. The original tour for the album, which took place between 2013 and 2014, was her biggest at the time. It included a seven-piece band, fifteen dancers, multiple costume changes, as well as jumbotrons and multilevel stages. Though the Eras Tour stage certainly honors some of these larger-than-life moments from the first Red tour, it also shows considerable restraint.

During one particularly emotional moment, Swift sings the 10-minute version of her critically acclaimed “All Too Well” with just her acoustic guitar. However, this doesn’t mean it wasn’t exciting. “Even some of her slower songs like “All Too Well,” where it was just her and a guitar, had insane stage effects that you wouldn’t expect, like snow confetti falling across the stadium and the stage rising when she starts singing a high note,” Minocha tells AD.

The Speak Now Era

Though Swift only performs one song from her third album, Speak Now—much to the disappointment of some fans—she makes sure it counts. The singer belts in a ballgown in a digitally crafted field of flowers, thanks to projections on the screens and the stage floor. The color purple defined the album’s aesthetic, and, though the shade is often associated with royalty, it can also symbolize ambition, power, and independence. Following her historic win at the Grammys for Fearless, Speak Now was a pivotal moment in her career. Could she keep up the pace or was she another teen star who lost momentum as they reached young adulthood? Not only did Swift deliver, she proved she could do it on her own: Speak Now was the first album she wrote entirely solo.

The Reputation Era

Spawned from Swift’s 2016 public feud with Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, Reputation represented the singer’s reflection on fame, public perception, and an opportunity to rewrite the “good girl” narrative she’d carried around for years. Though the album is often billed as defensive and reactive, it remains one of her most misunderstood collections: It’s also full of love songs and sweet moments. The dark stadium and blood red risers certainly support the most common perception of the album; however, it’s hard to miss the lit candles just below her. After all, it’s no coincidence burning is just as frequently used to describe rage and anger as it is passion and love.

During “Look What You Made Me Do,” Swift’s backup dancers perform in doll boxes dressed in outfits inspired by previous looks she’s worn. The moment is a direct nod to the song’s music video, in which Swift reenacts various moments throughout her time in the public eye in an eruptive, Easter egg-filled video.

The Folklore and Evermore Era

To make room for new material, Swift now combines two albums, Folklore and Evermore, into one set. “I was so obsessed with the Folklore set because it seemed like Taylor was living her best life in a little remote forest cabin even though some 60,000 people were watching her,” Minocha says of watching the opening night show in Glendale, Arizona back in 2023. (A version of this home was first seen in her 2021 Grammy’s performance.)

Thematically, Folklore explored a fictional woodland world Swift dreamed up during quarantine, and while a cabin certainly captures that aura, the choice of an A-frame specifically is notable. Because they were relatively cheap and easy to build, the style of home grew in popularity in the United States following World War II as vacation properties—an appropriate connection given the album is centered around an escapist fantasy.

A-frames also represented a unique moment for architects who, with little financial consequences at stake, were able to test out their more speculative creative ideations. In many ways, with lockdowns, limited promotion, and no obvious answer for how or if the music would be performed live, this is what Swift’s Folklore era represented too: the opportunity to explore, uninhibited. “I love that album and she really created this whole world for it,” Low adds, “Building the folklore cabin and bringing us all into that world with her was just so cool.”

Swift’s ninth album, Evermore, was positioned as a deeper exploration of the “folklorian woods,” the fictional, cottagecore-inspired place Swift used to direct her first foray into indie folk music. In the combined set, trees circle the singer on the screens behind her while Swift croons behind a moss-covered piano.

The 1989 Era

“Another thing that I loved about the stage design in general was how there are basically three different parts of it that all connected together: the main stage, the diamond stage, and the catwalk that leads to the end of the stage,” Miranda says. “She really utilizes each and every one of these sections of the stage at different times during the night.”

Though examples are abundant, a particularly creative use comes during Swift’s 1989 set, a record which won Album of the Year at the Grammys in 2016. While performing “Blank Space” on the central diamond, the raised portion displays a Shelby Cobra, which Swift and backup dancers “hit” with light-up golf clubs in a live reenactment of an iconic scene from the song’s music video.

The Tortured Poet’s Department Era

Following much speculation, Swift added a brand-new set to the Eras Tour when the show began its European leg in Paris on May 9. Designed for her latest record-shattering album, The Tortured Poet’s Department, the stage takes on a noir palette for this portion of the show. Screen projections and props include a UFO ship that beams a spotlight on the singer as well as a rolling bed-table hybrid seemingly designed to resemble a 19th-century hospital bed.

The Tortured Poet’s set also includes the addition of a new stage piece: an elevated box that mirrors the floor projections, giving the appearance that Swift is levitating around the stage. Some fans have endearingly describe the prop as a “stage Roomba.”

The set ends with a highly theatrical performance of the singer’s “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart,” in which the stage takes on the appearance of a vaudeville-, burlesque-style theater. Many fans linked the design to Clara Bow, a silent film star who Swift name-checks on the album. However, perhaps the most notable aspect is the simulated proscenium arch. In theater architecture, the detail marks the metaphorical plane separating performers from the audience, similar in concept to the “fourth wall.” It’s a unique addition considering the architectural detail is not possible in a stadium designed for 360-degree views—generally the only venues in which Swift performs.

It’s particularly impactful when considering a recurring theme on the album: Swift’s complex relationship with fame and fans. In songs like “But Daddy I Love Him” and “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart,” she sings about the pressure to please fans and her frustration with commentary about her life and decisions. The proscenium could represent a metaphorical separation between Swift, the performer, and Swift, the person, showcasing which version of her she believes fans are entitled to.

The Midnights Era

The non-stop show ends with cuts from Swift’s 2022 album, Midnights, with the stage cast in dark light, representative of both the title of the album and the end of the concert. Standing firmly in the present, Midnights still has its roots in the past, since the album tells “the stories of 13 sleepless nights scattered throughout my life,” Swift explained in a Instagram post. It’s easy to follow the way the previous two-plus hours of sonic reflection—aided through the incredible set design—brings her to where she is now. As Minocha summarizes, “I’ve been to almost all of Taylor’s past tours ,and the stage and production has always been above and beyond, but because this one explores all the eras of her career, everything is just next level.”

Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest

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