Fans queue for merchandise days before Sydney concerts

Thousands of Taylor Swift fans have descended on Sydney's Olympic Park to stock up on merchandise, ahead of her Sydney shows.

Transcript

00:00 Well, it's really starting to feel like Taylor Swift is here.

00:06 The concerts are only two days away, the first concert on Friday night.

00:10 And today we've got day one of the merchandise sales here at Sydney Olympic Park with the

00:15 stadium that she's going to be performing in on Friday night through to Monday night

00:20 right behind me.

00:21 The lines here are massive.

00:23 It's about, people are saying, a three or so hour wait to get to the very front there.

00:29 The people on average, it appears, are spending $300 to $600.

00:36 I've spoken to one family who spent over $1,000.

00:40 So you can see that people, by the time they get to the front, are getting very excited,

00:46 potentially making some impulse purchases, getting some t-shirts, getting jumpers, which

00:52 are costing upwards of $100 each.

00:55 But people are doing whatever they can.

00:58 In the anticipation that the merchandise could potentially sell out, we know they were having

01:02 some issues with stock and keeping stock filled and up with demand in Melbourne.

01:08 So people are wasting no time and trying to get down here.

01:13 These merchandise tents will remain open right through until Monday.

01:17 But many people who aren't coming to the concert until Monday are here today because they don't

01:22 think that there will be enough stock.

01:24 We're actually from Auckland, New Zealand, so we flew in about two days ago just to see

01:29 Taylor and we're staying with our cousin's family, doing us a huge solid and letting

01:33 us crash at her place for the next week.

01:35 About 55 and 65, that's around $120.

01:39 And I spent all of that out of my savings.

01:41 Now it's anticipated by some researchers at the University of Technology, Sydney, that

01:46 Swift's team could actually make upwards of $66 million from selling merchandise here in

01:53 Sydney and that Swift herself could potentially take a cut of $22 million.

01:59 So you can imagine how much merchandise they will have to sell.

02:03 We know there's issues with people getting flights, extremely expensive.

02:07 We've heard that there's an almost 100% occupancy rate across hotels in Sydney.

02:13 We know that people's short-term rentals are cancelling on them at the last minute.

02:18 People are going through it to try and get here.

02:21 I've spoken to people who've come from New Zealand, Brisbane.

02:24 The hype is real and everyone is getting extremely excited.

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