Selling Merch for Taylor Swift

I go halfway up the stair which takes you to the seated section, out of the eyeline of the security guards. They wouldn’t be able to tell I wasn’t meant to be there...

Hi friends!

This email will be LONG. It’s a story about how I took a merch sales shift at one of the Taylor Swift concerts in London.

It’s also about how I got scammed for tickets a couple of weeks later.

Funnily enough, I posted on Substack notes that I’d been unable to write because I was so bummed out about the scam, and everyone responded, ‘WRITE ABOUT THE SCAM!’ You bunch of masochistic artists, you!! Well, here it is. My magnum opus about Taylor Swift. And about some other things. Enjoy.

When I was in primary school, I was bad at getting work done. I’d sit at my desk, my maths worksheet untouched. I’d be fixated on some point in the middle distance, living my fantasy.

The British pop-group Steps had just walked in to the room, scanning the classroom before landing on me.

“Olivia, is that you?” they’d ask in unison. I’d rise up like an orphan about to sing a song in a broadway musical.

And they would whisk me away. Into the world of 00’s pop. It would be an endless, plastic-coloured, juicy pink heart-shaped dream. With bubbles and butterflies and cute tops and fluffy pens and iridescent eyeshadow and flower patches ironed on to flare jeans.

Every day I would dream about these pop stars revealing that, yes, they were my best friends. That they loved me. That they were here to come and take me away. That I would get to be with them, living inside a pop song, every day.

When you live inside a pop song, your biggest concern is your crush.

When you live inside a pop song, you are automatically beautiful.

When you live inside a pop song, you are constantly surrounded by a group of choreographed friends who all feel the same thing you feel and together you get to sing about it and do a cool dance with lots of easy-to-practise movements.

Your heart’s desires recognise you. They are on your side.

🪩 Facing The Mirrorball

I’m inside a cabin on Olympic Walk, a pedestrian street that leads to the steps of Wembley Stadium. Hundreds of people chatter past me in sequins and SHEIN cowboy boots.

I feel weird. So many people like Taylor Swift, I think, as if it’s a disappointment.

I’m reminded of writer and actor Tavi Gevinson’s Fan Fiction, a fictional (?) essay about her relationship with Taylor. On the zine-style, photocopied cover of the PDF, there’s a mirrorball: a common Swiftie motif, after the Folklore song of the same name.

‘Mirrorball’ is about the culture of celebrity and this idea that an idol’s appeal is both in their brokenness, and their ability to reflect light back on you. “I’ll show you every version of yourself tonight,” TS sings, making me think of a thousand faces around a single spinning disco ball, each person seeing their own version of the object in the middle.

Tavi writes:

I’d never cared much for “All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault),” the 2021 rendition which includes verses that had been left on the cutting room floor back in 2012 . . . But experiencing the 10-minute version live, repetitive and trancelike, I finally heard the line, ‘It was rare.’ . . . Sung over and over, the lyric broke my heart. It sounded like denial. The more you hear the word rare, the less special it becomes. When 80,000 people are also crying, you become less special, too. The Swift of the Eras Tour seemed to accept what the masterpiece-maker couldn’t: the relationship was not unique. Other people could relate to its story. Find solace in it.

As I see the herd of bejewelled concert-goers skip up the Wembley steps, I realise that I am one of many: I am a face in a crowd of hundreds of thousands, seeing a piece of the mirrorball. It shines my hopes, dreams and fears back to myself.

I think I’m looking at Taylor, but I’m really seeing me.

I see the person I imagine I could have been if I had had a little more daring and conviction about the songs I was writing when I was fifteen. I see the career I could have had if I had been bolder, brasher, and cared less about what people thought of me. My mirrorball and I, we both write songs, we both used it as a mechanism throughout our teens and twenties to make sense of relationships and the world around us. We both play open chords and smile through sets, taking on the veiled criticism of “oh, is this another song about a boy?” and wondering why men never get a similar line of questioning.

I could have been Taylor Swift, I think, with some level of conviction, or at least someone who would be her friend.

If I crack open the glitter-flecked head of every person around me, I might find the same thought.

I fold the T-shirt and my thoughts return to the task at hand: merch sales.

A week earlier, my cousin Clara heard me lamenting my lack of tickets to the London Eras shows. As if on cue, she got an email from a company she used to work for, asking if people wanted a shift selling merch at the Wembley shows next weekend. She forwarded it to me. I said yes, I’d work all weekend.

Now, I’m here, and have been here since 12pm this afternoon. Weirdly, or perhaps, not weirdly, there’s already a buzz going on. People are here early. People are dressed up. Teens, twenty-somethings, kids, Mums and Dads (wearing ‘It’s Me, Hi, I’m The Dad It’s Me’ t-shirts), everyone is here and bedazzled to the nines, ready for the best night of their life. I watch them go by.

The hours pass in a haze of t-shirts, no-sorry-we’ve-sold-out-that-size, transactions upwards of £100, and happy, smiling, excited faces. Even the bathroom queue-ers are graciously delightful when I cut the line in my hi-vis vest. I find sequins on the toilet seat. Everyone is in such a good mood and so am I but after a few hours I find myself starting to zone out from the amount of interactions I’m having.

It’s early evening when my supervisor tells me I can take fifteen, so I leave the merch cabin and walk up to Wembley with a granola bar and my water bottle. I can start to hear music as I get closer, and I take a seat on the kerb, in the shadow of the arch. There’s waves of cheers, sloshing around the stadium.

Taylor’s about to come on stage.

When the roars die down and ‘Cruel Summer’ begins, the audience sings along with heart-bursting intensity. People standing outside the stadium — some set up to listen to the whole show from outside — clutch their hands together, trying to digest that bittersweet feeling of being so close and yet so far.

I’ve not really been around anything like this before. Everyone is participating, from the people inside Wembley to the people outside it, some with picnic blankets and friendship bracelet kits set up for the summer evening. Taylor’s voice travels and half a second later the crowd joins in, creating a bounce of sound which confuses the spectators outside, unsure of which tempo to sing along with. I finish my oat bar and go back to the merch stall.

After slinging a few more overpriced t-shirts, one of our supervisors comes up and asks if anyone wants to work extra hours. No thanks, I think, my feet already smarting.

“There’s a chance you might get inside,” he offers. Suddenly everyone’s ears perk up. I’d just worked an eight hour shift on my feet, but could I do a few more hours for the chance to hear Taylor a little better?

🏟️ Entering the Arena

After we lock up our booth on Olympic Walk, I head to the stadium itself. It looks like a spaceship. I walk past the camped-out Swifties who couldn’t get tickets, still there, singing along to the songs as best they can. I take a left under the steps and head to the basement floor. It’s a car park with trestle tables. There’s a small crowd of people in hi-vis jackets, ready to start their shift and direct people when the concert ends.

On the breeze, I can hear the Folkmore set.

Two very tired people sitting at the desk greet me — the same people that signed me in this morning.

“Hi, I was told to do some extra hours?” I say.

“Oh, okay,” the woman says, seemingly surprised that I’m back for more. She starts leafing through the papers in front of her, while the guy to her right chews on a Haribo. “Let’s see… we can put you on the concourse?”

I don’t want to go on the concourse. It’s slightly closer to the action, but you’re still on the outside. And you have to work ‘til midnight. There is NO WAY I’m leaving a 12-hour shift in the midst of a Swiftie concert exodus. I’m already thinking of ways to tell them that I no longer want to work any extra hours, and I mention that I can only work until ten thirty.

“Ah, we’ll have to put you inside, then,” she concedes.

YES.

They give me a wristband— oh, a coveted staff wristband— and tell me where to go. Level 2. The bougie level, apparently. I sling my backpack through the security scanners and feel a tiny thrill as my wristband grants me access to the belly of Wembley. Going up, I take the elevator with the other staff, some cooks, some cleaners, and one man in a very sharp suit, who is in charge of hosting the VIPs.

Now, inside, I can hear the songs crystal-clear. You showed me colours you know I can’t see with anyone else.

When the elevator opens up on Level 2, I find myself on a curved walkway, lined with bars and food stalls. Walking round, I get my first glimpse— every few metres there’s a glass doorway leading into the stadium bowl, and I can see the sparkling, dancing lights from the wristbands. A sea of people. From this angle I can’t see the stage yet, but everyone is swaying in sunset-darkness to Taylor belting ‘Illicit Affairs.’

Walking round a little more I discover the merch stand I’m meant to be working on, but the supervisor isn’t there. I go up to a girl at the counter but she seems pretty clueless, so I take this opportunity to go on a walk. Following me is a feeling of I’m-not-meant-to-be-here, as if at any moment someone’s going to yell ‘STOP!’ and drag me back out again.

I’m walking round the mirrorball. Flashes of the concert through glass doors, turning, turning, turning, sparkling, sparkling, sparkling.

Finally I get to a doorway which shows the stage, and there she is. Tiny, so tiny. Like a Polly Pocket doll. Her face is projected on the massive screen behind her, where she’s large enough to eat us up. Part of me almost expects her eyes to swivel in my direction, to ask, “Olivia, is that you?”

I know, I know!!! Bring out the dictionary and whump it open at the entry that says parasocial: involving or relating to a connection between a person and someone they do not know personally.

I honestly did not grow up loving Taylor Swift. I loved 1989 but I didn’t really like Midnights. But there’s just a part of me that feels like I know her in some way, that she can take me by the hand and lead me into this world I always wanted to escape into, since I was a little girl.

“I’ve been looking for you.”

The supervisor — a woman in a red t-shirt— snaps me out of my daze.

She marches with me back to the merch counter, and lets me in through the back. “Are you on the stock group chat?”

I am not on the stock group chat. She sighs exasperatedly.

"How come nobody tells anyone anything?” A few taps on her phone and I am added to the stock group chat, a Whatsapp group I know I am never going to check and instantly archive the moment I leave this building.

I’m put in a room with boxes. It’s assumed that I know what I’m doing, and in fact, the staff at the merch desk seem to defer to me in a way which implies I come from an important place. I don’t know why.

I take stock out, break down cardboard, which then earns me another exasperated sigh from Red T-shirt Woman.

“No, no. That’s for them to do at the end,” she says, implying that the other staff are meant to do the grunt work. I have no idea what I’m meant to do, then. There are hardly any customers as the show is in full swing. I go out to the front counter.

A man comes up and squints at the display. He’s in his forties, or thereabouts.

“What’s that box?” he asks, pointing. We all turn and look behind us. We don’t sell boxes.

“What’re those boxes?” He asks again.

One of the team cottons on. “These?” she asks, pointing to the CDs and cassette tapes.

“Yeah. What are the boxes?”

“They’re the CD and cassette.”

This seems to disappoint him. “Oh, okay.” He walks away.

We all shrug our shoulders and the girl next to me asks what a cassette tape is.

🐠 Inside the Fishbowl

The night wears on, I sing under my breath to the songs. I compare friendship bracelets with the other merch sellers. A woman my age gives me a ‘Snow on the Beach’ (with a mercifully wide wrist margin, in contrast to the others I’ve got from teenagers which are cutting off my circulation). A man comes to buy a t-shirt for his girlfriend and we advise which one is best. The beige one, the cotton feels softer. Taylor comes on with an acoustic guitar and performs her secret songs. Every so often I go fill up my water bottle and take the long way round, lingering at each doorway.

On my way back from a water break, I return to excited chatter at the merch counter. “We just went inside,” one of them confesses.

“I thought we weren’t allowed inside?”

The girls smirk gleefully. “Just a few seconds!”

One of the guys ushers me out, “We’ll open up the door for you when you get back.”

I drop my bottle in the back room, and approach the glass door.

It’s like walking into an enchanted aquarium. ‘Midnight Rain’ is playing. The stage is a deep, glittering blue. Like, Titanic necklace blue. I go halfway up the stair which takes you to the seated section, out of the eyeline of the security guards. They wouldn’t be able to tell I wasn’t meant to be there, I’m not wearing my hi-vis vest anymore and my wristband is obscured by bracelets.

Still, I stand on tiptoed feet, ready to turn and scuttle back at any moment. Taylor swirls amongst the fabricated clouds. I watch for as long as my conscience allows, which isn’t long enough. It doesn’t feel as magical as I thought. I just keep thinking someone’s going to yank me out by a shepherd’s crook.

I give myself three more seconds and step down, going back outside. My merch friends open the back door for me.

When I check my phone, the stock group chat has a few new messages. We need more tote bags, someone says. Ask Olivia, my supervisor replies.

Me??? Why are they asking me??? I don’t even know what’s happening? Why do I know where the stock supply of tote bags are?

It’s almost ten-thirty. I get to clock out soon, anyway. I pick up my phone to put it in my pocket and start to get my things when Red T-Shirt and another Merch Man come up to the counter.

“Phones away guys, its unprofessional and management are doing the rounds,” Red scolds. They start to give us a pep talk, or a dressing down, or something kind of in-between. Apparently management are doing the rounds, like some sort of merchandising dementor.

I ask if I can clock out. Oh yes, sure thing. They thank me for my time and I scoop up my backpack and go.

Taylor’s still singing at this point, only a few songs away from finishing this night of the Eras tour. I don’t mind leaving before the closer, ‘Karma.’ I take the elevator and get ushered out with the concert-goers into the night. Some people have gotta make that last train home, so I leave with other Swifties who have gotten out before it gets hectic.

When I came in today, ten and a half hours ago, my wrists were naked. Now I have eleven bracelets. The dye of the ‘BEJEWELLED’ one has leaked onto my skin, like a slush puppy on the tongue.

I slump along into the tube station and manage to get on the first train. Lucky enough, as I know that people leaving after the finale will be stuck in Wembley for a long while.

That was fun, I think. I’d still like to get into the concert-concert, as someone watching. I want to be able to cry and sing and shout and just be there. As myself and not as the person who sold the t-shirts. But if I don’t get a ticket for the August shows, then I got close enough.

🎫 My Big Oops

A couple weeks later, I buy tickets for the concert through what I believe is a friend of a friend. We’re talking on Whatsapp. We mirror each other’s sentence structure and I see in her a girl who is probably like me, in some way. A Taylor fan who already went to the Cardiff shows. I crack jokes and try to be as pleasing and easy-to-deal with as possible.

Once I send the money through for one ticket, the cracks start to show. She wants to know if I’m scamming her. I’m not. Of course I’m not! How can I prove it? I send her the money for the next ticket. She thanks me and then asks for the £100 ‘transfer fee’ that Ticketmaster is demanding.

There’s a sinking feeling which has been stalking me for the last couple of hours. It finally hits. The glass shatters and I realise I’m no longer speaking to a young woman.

I call them out and ask for my money back and ‘Lucy’ tells me I am being stubborn. She says she doesn’t know why I am being difficult and just wants to give me my tickets so we can all be happy, OKAY!

I cut my losses and block her, report the scam and close my phone.

‘Lucy’, was definitely not a twenty-year-old girl from Surrey. I realise I’ve spent 2 hours talking to this person. I feel drained. And insane.

How did that happen? How did I look and see only what I wanted to see?

I tell my friends and everyone I talk to says, “Oh, I’ve been scammed too.” Or they have a story where it almost happened. You get pulled into this daydream. Someone takes that feeling you have of wanting wanting wanting, of the universe recognising your hearts desires, and…

When I was a kid, when Steps walked into the classroom, I never really thought about what happened next. The daydream was always about being chosen. Everything that came after was a hazy fantasy of colours and pop songs. It was about living inside the songs, because the songs were always worlds, to me. But I could never pinpoint what they were, I could only relive the moment, again and again, where I was recognised by the people I wanted to recognise me.

When the mirrorball stops spinning, you can step up close to it and choose a facet. Once all the lights and colours die down, you can take a look and see that there’s something real in there.

In the reflection, there’s you. Your dreams, your desires, your hopes. If you look close enough you get to recognise yourself. A part of you that maybe you’ve not allowed yourself to truly find.

It’s the part of you that wants to wear glitter or write heartbreak songs or stand in front of people and tell your story. It’s the part of you that wants to feel connection and romance and safety. It’s the part of you that wants to be thrilled, wants to stomp around in clothes that speak to you, in colours that make you feel powerful. It’s the part of you that wants to be the most exciting version of you.

That’s worth staring into the mirrorball, isn’t it?

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Til next time! Be good,

Olivia 🌈✨🏔🎶