How Advisors Help Music Lovers Combine Concerts with Dream Destinations

Partly thanks to the “Swift Effect,” vacationing centered around seeing live music – also known as gig-tripping – is resurging in the industry. 

For the past year, travel advisors have been sending clients on trips to see Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour, which has taken the entertainment and travel industry by storm. This summer Swift is touring Europe, presenting opportunities for travelers to bundle a concert and a bucket list trip all in one – “double the excitement,” as one advisor puts it. 

“[Music] is such a joyful, exciting thing for people to plan travel around so I’m not surprised by it,” Angela Adto Tepper, of AZA Luxury Travel in New York, part of Travel Edge Network, told TMR. “Song is transcendent and can transport you back to a certain time in your life, so people get nostalgic about that.” 

Tepper has organized travel for a group to see Taylor Swift six times in cities throughout the United States. She had also booked them a package deal, which included a Four Seasons hotel stay in Madrid and concert tickets, but the plans fell through. In May, she sent a pair of friends on a girls’ trip to Paris, also to see Swift on the smash-hit tour. 

Concert trips trending 
Gigtripping is not new – it was popularized by Deadheads following The Grateful Dead’s shows in the 1960s. Taylor Swift has just revived the trend, which is present for other artists, especially bands and music groups who have summer European tours or are appearing at U.S. music festivals.     

“These artists will do a world tour so that if they go to Japan or to Europe or Australia, anyplace in the world, their fans [in that destination] have an opportunity to see them perform live. People can’t all just fly to Los Angeles or New York,” Tepper said. “But the difference now is that they have such a following that people will follow Taylor Swift to Paris, or Justin Timberlake to the UAE, so it’s interesting. It’s reminiscent of the Rolling Stone-type days where people would really invest in this and make it an adventure.” 

Gabriella Horvarth, of Now-or-Never-Travel in Colorado, part of Signature, has sent a few clients to see Taylor Swift in Europe, as well as a couple to London to see alternative rock band The Killers. 

“There’s such momentum, I don’t think it’s going away,” Tepper said. “A lot of artists see the success of it and want to capitalize on that, and the travel clients will continue to follow.” 

Maci Cozart, of Passport for Adventure in Texas, also part of Signature, recently sent a pair of clients to follow the Dave Matthews Band in Europe. The couple already had their concert tickets purchased in Dublin, London, and Paris, and needed her expertise to book transportation and tours in the cities. 

Cozart noted that concert tickets tend to be pricier in the states, so many music fans figure they can get better value when making their trip a two-in-one concert experience and sightseeing adventure. 

“It’s like, well, you know, I can get tickets in Spain for 200 bucks versus 2,000 bucks in the States,” she told TMR. “So, I might as well take a trip. I do think it’s on people’s radar way more than it used to be.” 

What advisors can offer 
Travel advisors offer the same value to travelers who are gig tripping to see their favorite musical artists as they have to any other vacationer. But advisors with connections in the entertainment industry can offer even more to their clients. 

Michele Schwartz, of Makin’ Memories Travel in Texas, part of Signature, specializes in “set jetting” trips, where clients travel to visit movie and television sets. She has translated this expertise to send clients to Taylor Swift’s Switzerland tour dates in July. 

“I can tell if a client is really going to want that VIP experience, or if they just need to be in the room, ” she told TMR. “There’s levels of that. My clients who are going to Switzerland are outdoorsy and explorers in nature, so even though it’s not ski season, finding what they could do was really fun and exciting for me.” 

For massive tours like Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, it seems advisors are not booking those concert tickets themselves or finding too many VIP packages or hotel deals. However, there are plenty of exclusive experiences elsewhere in the entertainment industry that have given advisors business – and are becoming even more popular for fans to book through travel agents. 

Wallis Fairvalley, of Red Letter Travel, part of Brownell, is also sending clients to Switzerland for Taylor Swift in July and is hooking them up best she can with fast-tracking at the airport and smooth transportation within the cities they visit, especially before and after the concert when traffic is heavy. 

Fairvalley also books trips to many U.S. festivals, shows at the Sphere in Las Vegas, and other secret shows that she learns about through her inside entertainment contacts. She also noted that experiential travel in general has seen an uptick since the pandemic. 

“A big selling point is the VIP and unique experiences that you’re not going to hear of,” she told TMR. “There are so many cases where artists are doing private events at resorts or collaborations with chefs, and we have access and get notified by our partners, whereas public will not know until it’s happening or after.”