Months after its last notes, the residual economic impacts of Taylor Swift's record-setting Eras Tour are still coming into focus. While reports suggest that small businesses, tourism and hospitality and even the National Football League experienced a boost — dubbed "The Taylor Swift Effect" — from the tour, new research from Drexel University looking at how opening for an established headliner can affect the career trajectory of an emerging artist indicates that the Eras Tour might also have helped its opening acts grow their fan bases.
Recently published in the Journal of the Music and Entertainment Industry Educators Association , the study looked broadly at the impact for emerging artists of serving as opening acts for larger tours and how that exposure affects their streaming numbers and audience growth. It also takes a closer look at the trajectory of artists who were openers for the Eras Tour, finding that while being an opener doesn't always translate into sustained success, the boost that emerging artists received from touring with Taylor Swift appears to have translated into sustained audience growth.
"There's often a perception that opening for a major headliner is a guaranteed career boost for emerging artists—but the reality is far more complex," said Jeff Apruzzese , an assistant professor in Drexel's Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design , who conducted the study. "There hasn't been much research into how accurate that conventional wisdom really is. This research aims to unpack some of the less visible dynamics in the music industry—especially those that shape the career paths of rising artists."
Apruzzese, who is the director of Drexel's Music Industry program , drew on his experiences as a founding member of the band Passion Pit — which rose to commercial success in the late 2000s and 2010s with top 10 records, appearances on Saturday Night Live and The Late Show with David Letterman and playing sold-out arenas, including Madison Square Garden — to guide his inquiry into the economic and career impacts of being an opener.
Opening on Tour
Apruzzese sought to quantify the impact of being an opener on tour by examining their streaming metrics and ticket sales before and after the tour. The study looked at 57 artists — ranging from those early in their career to well-established acts — who served as openers for the top 10 grossing tours of 2022 and 2023, based on data from the music industry site Pollstar. To measure the impact of the exposure they gained on tour, the study compared the artists' Spotify monthly listenership from four weeks before the start of the tour to the same measure four weeks after the tour had ended.
The study found that "developing" artists — a classification established by the industry website Chartmetric for artists early in their career — saw an 18% increase in streaming prior to the tour, followed by a 6% decrease after the tour. "Mainstream" artists, like MUNA, Beabadoobee, and Role Model, experienced smaller increases and decreases, suggesting a more stable audience engagement; and "superstar" artists – such as Phoebe Bridgers, Paramore, and Steve Lacy – increased their numbers and, in some cases, maintained those increases following the tour.
Breaking this down by genre, pop/rock, country and hip-hop artists saw the most significant increase in streaming numbers. Of those, pop/rock artists also experienced the largest declines in streaming post-tour, according to the study.
Opening for Taylor
Apruzzese conducted a focused analysis of Taylor Swift's Eras Tour, comparing his overall findings to the metrics for Swift's openers to discern whether a strong fanbase for a headliner could substantially elevate the profile of their opening acts. The tour also lent itself to comparison in the study because it included a variety of openers, both in genre and prominence.
"Swift's previous tours helped elevate artists like Ed Sheeran, Shawn Mendes, Justin Bieber and Florida Georgia Line early in their careers," Apruzzese said. "This study offered a chance to dig into that perception—what some might call part of 'The Taylor Swift Effect'—and explore whether those associations with superstar headliners translate into lasting career growth for emerging artists."
The study revealed that genre alignment or compatibility — how closely the act's style hewed to Swift's own — likely played an important role in sustained popularity for the openers. For example, Gracie Abrams, whose songs are similar to Swift's indie pop and introspective ballads, experienced a sustained streaming increase following the tour; while Owenn, whose music is more closely aligned with R&B and dance, saw a 188% increase in streaming during the tour but a precipitous 75% decline after it ended.
Paramore, a well-established act, saw a 1% decrease in streaming during the tour with no change after, which according to Apruzzese could be due to the group's existing popularity or a perceived mismatch in the audience's expectations. By contrast, Phoebe Bridgers, also an established artist whose music more closely aligns with Swift's recent albums "Folklore" and "Evermore," experienced as 6% increase in streaming during the tour and only a slight decrease after it. The study notes that Bridgers' continued touring with her group, boygenius, also likely contributed to her sustained post-tour popularity.
Similarly, MUNA, a mainstream synth-pop and indie artist, also sustained interest following the tour by appearing with boygenius and releasing new music, suggesting these continued activities immediately following a prominent tour play a role in sustaining the momentum it provided.
"These findings challenge the simplistic assumption that exposure through association with leading artists is uniformly beneficial," Apruzzese wrote. "Instead, they reveal a complex interplay of factors — such as genre compatibility, external activities and audience alignment — that contribute to an artist's streaming trajectory post-tour, highlighting the multifaceted nature of career development in the music industry."
View from the Audience
To better understand the consumer behavior behind these observations, Apruzzese surveyed 525 people, ages 18-55, about how their perception of opening acts and how their consumption of their music might have changed after seeing them perform.
What he found was that while prior knowledge of the opener generally did not influence ticket purchases, 68% reported discovering new bands as openers and 50% said they purchased tickets to see the opener perform as a headliner the next time they appeared in town. The survey also confirmed the initial boost observed when openers are announced for a tour: 73% indicated they actively seek more information about opening acts after purchasing a concert ticket and 67% said they stream music of opening acts.
"These findings illuminate the complex dynamics of concert attendance and the discovery of new music, highlighting that while consumers may not prioritize opening acts when making ticket purchases, the live concert experience significantly influences their subsequent music choices and spending behaviors," Apruzzese wrote.
View from the Stage
From an artist's perspective, the experience of being an opener is more of a mixed bag. Apruzzese surveyed 47 artists with varying levels of stature and experience, 38 of which had experienced opening for an established act. Of that group, 63% experienced noticeable social media activity and growth in followership after opening.
But nearly 40% of surveyed artists reported a financial loss as a result of choosing to open for a larger act. While these opportunities can offer valuable exposure, they often come with substantial costs that smaller artists are expected to shoulder. Travel, lodging, food, crew salaries and gear transportation are rarely covered by the headliner or promoter, meaning opening acts must fund their participation out of pocket. Additionally, many support artists are restricted by radius clauses or exclusivity terms, which prohibit them from booking additional shows in the surrounding area—eliminating opportunities to supplement their income during the tour.
In addition, the lion's share of revenue from live shows typically goes to the headliner, who is responsible for driving ticket sales. Unless an opener is added specifically to help sell tickets, they are not factored into the financial upside of the show. In these cases, Apruzzese noted, the opportunity cost of participating is exposure — and that exposure often comes with a very low performance guarantee, particularly when compared to what the artist might earn from headlining their own smaller shows.
In some cases, the economics are even more skewed. There are instances — particularly on major arena and stadium tours — where emerging artists "buy on" to a tour, meaning they pay the headliner or promoter for the opportunity to open. While this practice is rarely discussed publicly, it is more common than many realize, and underscores how high the barrier to entry can be for artists trying to break through via traditional touring channels.
"Overall, while the role of opening acts in career development is undeniable, it must be viewed as part of a broader strategic framework aimed at cultivating and sustaining an artist's presence in the competitive landscape of the music industry," Apruzzese's study concluded.
He suggests that future research should look more granularly into a variety of genres over a longer period of time and seek to examine the compounding effects of performances at high-profile festivals, new music releases and viral social media activities on the career trajectory of these artists.
