Taylor Swift

We’d been waiting a long time. Thirteen years since Taylor Swift had last played a real concert in France. And when she finally chose to come back, she chose here — Plenitude Arena — to launch the European leg of her Eras Tour. Not one night. Four. From May 9 to 12, 2024, our venue became for four consecutive nights the meeting point of a global community. 45,000 spectators per night. 180,000 across all four evenings. An absolute record — and a collective experience unlike anything we had ever witnessed.

180,000 spectators. An absolute record. The European launch of the biggest show in pop music history.

What was happening outside our doors said everything. Fans had been camping in front of our entrance for days. Our merchandise stands had opened three days before the first concert — a first in our history. Our teams had doubled their headcount. 30% of the audience had come from abroad — including 20% from the United States, who had crossed the Atlantic specifically for these four Parisian nights. Some said it was cheaper to fly to Paris and back than to buy a resale ticket for an American date. For us, it was the first time our teams had lived through something of this scale. “We’ve had Paul McCartney, we’ve had the Rolling Stones — but the fervour around Taylor Swift is beyond comprehension.”

© Apolline Cornuet

These four nights were also a World premiere

Taylor Swift had just released The Tortured Poets Department — her eleventh album, one billion streams in five days. And it was on our stage that she presented the new musical era born from that album for the very first time in Europe. Each night, our 45,000 spectators were the first in the world to experience that moment.

An exceptional show

8:00 PM exactly. Under a shower of giant petals, she walked on stage. And for three hours and fifteen minutes, without stopping, she traversed eighteen years of a career — guitar, piano, voice, all live. 45 songs per night. Around ten costume changes. Tableaux that shifted universes with every album, colourful, luminous, razor-sharp. The entire room knew every word. The light-up bracelets distributed at the entrance turned our stands into a constellation breathing as one.

© Apolline Cornuet

Four Nights at the Center of the World

Two hours in, white pages flooded the giant screen. Taylor Swift reappeared in a white Vivienne Westwood gown. And began what she would herself call “female rage, the musical” — the Tortured Poets Department era, carrying an emotional intensity that stopped time in our room. Down Bad, The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived, Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me? — songs no one in Europe had yet heard performed live. That night, it was here.

Every night held its own surprise

The Surprise Songs changed from one evening to the next — every audience left with something unique, something no one else had experienced. On the final night, Travis Kelce was in the crowd. Plenitude Arena held its breath.

Extraordinary exchanges

Friendship bracelets traded in queues. Glittering outfits lighting up the stands. Languages mixing in our corridors — French, English, Dutch, Spanish, Korean.

For four nights, our venue was the centre of the world. We knew it before it began. We’ll remember it for a long time.