Not only are Tampa Taylor Swift tickets pricey — hotels are too

Growing up, Natalie Ferguson and her mother Jennifer bonded over listening to Taylor Swift. So seeing her live in concert has been at the top of their bucket list.

When Swift announced her Eras tour last year — after a long hiatus during the pandemic — Natalie, 20, asked her extended family if they could send birthday and Christmas money early to fund tickets for a Tampa show two-and-a-half hours away from their home in Sebastian. They were able to snag two seats after waiting half a day in an online queue amid the Ticketmaster turmoil.

While getting tickets was “smooth” compared to other fans who dealt with chronic site crashes, they didn’t know the trouble they would deal with later. While looking for a hotel to stay after the show to avoid a long drive late at night, they found high prices for rooms. The trip they’d long planned for was becoming too expensive.

“This is on a level I’ve never seen. It’s not just Ticketmaster,” Jennifer Ferguson, 43, said. “It’s funneled down to every aspect of the concert.”

A month before Swift’s tour in Tampa, Natalie told her mother she didn’t know what to do. Prices were “astronomical” and “unattainable.”

Hotels near Raymond James Stadium that typically ranged between $200 to $400 a night for an average April weekend cost more than $1,000 the weekend Taylor Swift was in town. In some cases, room rates reached nearly $2,000. Some prices have dropped slightly as the Tampa shows starting Thursday approached, but they’re still above average for this time of year. The AC Hotel by Marriott going for $2,000 a night in March had rooms available on Tuesday for about $1,300.

The Taylor Swift show will bring people from all over Florida and different parts of the country as fans snagged whatever tickets they could get — and hotels booked up fast.

Local hotel statistics count for all things happening in the area, not just one concert, but there’s no event as big as the Eras Tour in Tampa this week. Tampa Mayor Jane Castor handed Swift a key to the city and declared the artist “mayor for a day,” after all. Hillsborough County also temporarily renamed itself to Swiftsborough ahead of her arrival.

The number of hotel rooms booked in Hillsborough County between April 13 and 15 doubled from last year, according to early projections from Visit Tampa Bay, the county’s tourism bureau. In 2022, there were about 18,300 rooms booked during that same time period. This year, there are nearly 37,000 and prices jumped 51%, the agency said.

What’s driving demand?

When Swift announced her first tour since the pandemic would highlight her entire career, not just a new album, it drew tons of interest from fans. Then she kept adding new show dates.

Tampa had one show for the tour. Then two. Then three.

When tickets dropped, Ticketmaster crashed for many fans nationwide and made them wait in queues for hours only to be kicked out and start over from scratch. Last-minute tickets were selling between $400 and more than $4,000 just days before concert.

High prices spilled over throughout the experience from hotel rooms, Airbnb rentals, Uber rides, concert merchandise and even $50 just for parking.

Florida’s geography also plays a role in prices, said University of South Florida professor and economist Michael Snipes. Because the state sticks out from the rest of the country and requires a long drive to travel through it, it’s not economically viable for many artists to travel here despite the high population.

“Florida doesn’t really get a lot of big name acts coming through. So when you get somebody who is as big and as popular as Taylor Swift, coupled with the fact that, artists of her caliber don’t come here very often, that’s going to be part of what’s going to be causing these prices to rise,” Snipes said.

Tampa was likely chosen as the Florida location because it has the tourism infrastructure to hold traveling fans, Snipes said. The concert is also conveniently timed during a dead zone in tourism as the Spring Break season wraps up after Easter.

The event is expected to be an economic boon for the Tampa Bay area.

In the past, Taylor Swift brought in $2.2 million in revenue to the Tampa Sports Authority, the operator of Raymond James Stadium, for her 2015 and 2018 shows. That doesn’t include the cost fans spent outside of the venue at hotels and local restaurants.

But fans are feeling the pressure from inflation, as Tampa Bay has some of the highest increases in costs and inflation hasn’t been slowing as fast as other parts of the nation.

“Some of it is just going to be they know that you’re here,” Snipes said. “They know that you’re going to be willing to pay it so they’re going to charge high prices if they can.”

Is it price gouging?

Economically speaking, price gouging is when businesses raise costs exorbitantly during times of high demand. Nearly $1,000 hotel rooms ahead of the event could been seen as price gouging, Snipes said, but not legally.

Price gouging in Florida is only illegal if a business raises costs to be “unconscionable” during a state of emergency like a hurricane.

Even with the financial help of family, the Fergusons said the search for a place to stay in Tampa was stressful. Natalie and Jennifer finally found an Airbnb about 10 minutes away from the stadium for anout $500 a night and called it a win. While looking to book Ubers ahead of time, the minimum they would spend would be at least $75 roundtrip — so they settled on the $53 parking.

In all, they’re spending more than $1,000 to see Taylor Swift and that was the best they could do, Jennifer said.

“I understand people want to make money off of the event,” Jennifer said. ‘It’s great for our state. It’s great for the city of Tampa. But it’s going above and beyond at the point they’re charging.”