How popular is Taylor Swift? It’s the 2023 version of Beatlemania

Taylor Swift is the biggest thing going in the entertainment industry.

Turn on the TV or radio, scroll social media, listen to talk on the street, and there she is.

Her ongoing Eras Tour is on track to become the highest-grossing tour ever by a female artist, with Billboard Boxscore projecting $591 million in ticket sales.

Her sold-out concerts Friday and Saturday at Acrisure Stadium in Pittsburgh will contribute to that total.

Billboard says that figure would be good for fourth place on the list of highest-grossing concert tours. Elton John’s ongoing Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour has the lead with a gross of $817 million as of January.

There was such a clamor for Eras Tour tickets when the presale began in November that the Ticketmaster website crashed, leading to upset fans filing a class-action suit and the Senate Judiciary Committee holding a hearing.

Teens screaming and fainting for The Beatles in the mid-1960s is probably the closest equivalent to Swift-mania, said Gayle Pamerleau, a licensed clinical social worker and director of counseling at Pitt-Greensburg.

“It’s the 2023 version of that,” she said.