Tickets to the end of Taylor Swift’s iconic Eras Tour in Vancouver remain a hot commodity, priced at thousands of dollars per seat on resale sites.
They have also helped raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for local charities lucky enough to auction off seats to one of Swift’s concerts at BC Place on December 6, 7 and 8.
The most striking example of this came October 19, when the VGH UBC Hospital Foundation raised a staggering $320,000 from a winning bid at its Vitality Gala live auction for 15 private suite tickets to see Swift in concert next month.
It was the largest auction gift the foundation has ever received.
“Everyone was on the edge of their seats during that part of the auction,” Liza Jerome, the foundation’s senior vice-president of community giving and engagement, told BIV.
“It was a very generous donation from BC Place and PavCo for that suite and we knew a lot of people would be interested in it.”
In all, the foundation raised about $2.5 million at the gala event, which Jerome called its biggest fundraiser of the year.
The foundation’s annual budget exceeds $100 million, with the rest coming largely from individual donations, bequeaths and some other fundraising events.
“We are the leading charity investing in health-care innovation in B.C. so we’re focused on adult-specialized care and enabling groundbreaking research and life-saving therapies and innovative treatment options that people wouldn’t otherwise be able to get elsewhere,” Jerome said.
PavCo executives were pleased to see their gift get traction.
“For every concert that comes through, we have a certain number of suites and tickets that [we get as] part of our partnership with that tour,” PavCo senior manager of marketing and communications Jenny McKenzie told BIV.
PavCo sometimes gives tickets and suites to what she called “stakeholders” related to PavCo, but the organization also donates access to suites and tickets to charities, she said.
This year, it gifted 15-person BC Place suites on Swift’s Vancouver concert dates to three charities in addition to the VGH UBC Hospital Foundation:
- BC Cancer Society, which held its Daffodil Ball in April and raised $125,000 by auctioning off the suite;
- BC Children’s Hospital Foundation, which plans to auction off its suite at its Crystal Ball on November 30; and
- Victoria Hospitals Foundation, which plans to auction off its suite at its Visions Gala on November 16.
McKenzie said that PavCo has long had an informal system in place to provide suites and tickets to charities, and this year formalized what it is calling its BC Place Community Benefit Program.
“By donating tickets, BC Place enables charities to raise critical funds while offering unforgettable experiences to their supporters,” she said.
She added that the program reinforces PavCo’s role as a catalyst for positive change and social impact.
The Canuck Place Children’s Hospice is another charity that has cashed in on excitement about Taylor Swift.
It sold two sets of tickets—eight in total—to a Taylor Swift Vancouver concert for $46,000 at its November 2 Gift of Time Gala auction, which raised more than $1.63 million in support of Canuck Place.
Toronto-based telecom Rogers Communications Inc. (TSX:RCI-B) is a presenting sponsor of the Canadian leg of Swift’s Eras tour, which includes six shows in Toronto and three in Vancouver.
Because it is a presenting sponsor, it has access to many tickets for internal use.
Some of those tickets are being given away to forge customer loyalty while others are being given to charities, Rogers’ senior manager of communication in Western Canada, Leann Yutuc, told BIV.
Rogers has been giving away 35 pairs of tickets each week to different Rogers customers who enter draws, she said.
“Specific to charities, we have given tickets to BGC Canada, Jays Care, Big Brothers Big Sisters Toronto and Canucks for Kids to distribute to their beneficiaries,” she said.
Canucks for Kids received 40 tickets with those going to deserving families to attend a Taylor Swift concert, Yutuc said.
Swift has been a vocal supporter of food banks and that has spurred fan Heidi Van Schaik to launch a Canada-wide initiative dubbed Tay It Forward.
Waterloo, Ont.-based Schaik has set a goal to raise $1.3 million for Canadian food banks, with that amount chosen because 13 is said to be Swift’s favourite number, and it is one she has reportedly drawn on her hand before performances.
Schaik is encouraging fans to make $13 donations, with the campaign slated to end December 13.
