AMC attempts to one-up Ticketmaster as Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour comes to movie theaters

Another inevitability has come to pass in Taylor Swift’s quest for world domination. A concert film for the Eras Tour was a near-certainty, given that she’s released one for her previous tours and that cameras were spotted at the Los Angeles shows. Less than a month after that tour stop (and just a week after the North American leg concluded), the pop star dropped the big news that the Eras Tour concert experience will be hitting theaters October 13.

“The Eras Tour has been the most meaningful, electric experience of my life so far and I’m overjoyed to tell you that it’ll be coming to the big screen soon,” Swift posted on social media. “Starting Oct 13th you’ll be able to experience the concert film in theaters in North America! Tickets are on sale now at http://taylor.lnk.to/TSTheErasTourFilm…. Eras attire, friendship bracelets, singing and dancing encouraged. 1, 2, 3 LGB!!!! (iykyk).”

(N.B.: That’s “One, two, three, let’s go bitch,” a chant fans invented for the song “Delicate” during the Reputation Tour. Now you know too. You’re welcome!)

Swift has partnered with AMC to deliver this premium experience to the Swifties, and AMC fully battened down the hatches. “In anticipation of this announcement, AMC has upgraded its website and ticketing engines to handle more than five times the largest influx of ticket-buying traffic the Company has ever experienced before,” the company said in a statement on its website. “But AMC is also aware that no ticketing system in history seems to have been able to accommodate the soaring demand from Taylor Swift fans when tickets are first placed on sale. Guests wanting to be the first to buy their tickets online may experience delays, longer-than-usual ticket-purchase waiting-room times and possible outages. AMC is committed to ensuring any delays or outages are addressed as quickly as possible.”

AMC is taking a lot of precautionary measures, including restricting the use of AMC Stubs A-List memberships or free movie passes and even refusing to give out refunds, “To discourage speculation on secondary-ticketing sites.” That’s right, it’s not just the actual tour that’s worried about scalpers, the film about the tour is now contending with them too. What a world!

Of course, AMC was right to prepare, as the Swifties turned up in full force to preorder their tickets. So many fans flocked to the site to purchase that AMC actually enacted a queue on Thursday morning not unlike what one might find on Ticketmaster. That’s a queue for the entire website, by the way, so God help you if you’re trying to get a ticket for a flick that’s not The Eras Tour. (AMC advises that “for movies that are now playing, please visit an AMC Theatre near you or check back later.”) Within hours of the announcement, fans reported participating theaters being almost entirely sold out for the opening weekend.

There will be opportunities to see the concert film outside the U.S., and indeed outside AMC: the company will serve not just as the exhibitor, but also the distributor for the movie. Cineplex in Canada and Cinepolis in Mexico will be showing the Eras Tour film, as well as Cinemark and Regal in the U.S. AMC also “expects that numerous other movie theatre operators will show this concert film experience in their theatres” as the big day grows closer. Meanwhile, AMC has pledged the film will “play at least four showtimes per day on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, at every AMC theatre location in the United States.”

For how long this experience will continue is unclear—there are showtimes programmed at AMC through October 29. (Cinema fans shudder to consider that Taylor Swift might steal IMAX theaters from Martin Scorsese’s Killers Of The Flower Moon.) Knowing Swift’s power, the experience is sure to break some obscure concert film exhibition record that no one ever even considered before she came along. (Swift just became the “first female to hit 100M monthly Spotify streams,” by the way.) Not long after the Eras Tour takes over theaters everywhere, 1989 (Taylor’s Version) will hit the airwaves, meaning that the Grammy winner will have near-complete dominance of the media. Just another day in the life of a conquering warlord!