Taylor Swift’s 16th soldout show at Staples Center, Los Angeles, put her in the record books and earned her the first-ever artist banner hanging in the sports-filled rafters of that four-team arena.
It also earned promoter Louis Messina, TMG/AEG, and Lee Zeidman, president, Staples Center, the Venues Today 2015 Hall of Headlines Award for Bookings.
Her feat is even more astounding given that she began the run to 16 just six short years ago, May of 2009. It will be a long time, if ever, that another artist could eclipse the record, especially since Taylor isn’t done yet.
Taylor performed a run of five shows, Aug. 21-22, 24-26, this round.
“Taylor loves Staples Center. At the end of the Red tour I remember she told Lee Zeidman, ‘I want to do my whole tour here,’” Messina said. Her loyalty dates back to 2009 when she put her debut headlining tour on sale first in Los Angeles. It wasn’t her first date, but it was the first onsale, to make a statement that Taylor had arrived.
“Staples Center is a stamp-of-approval center,” Messina said. “You play Staples, you know you’ve made it. We did five shows this year, but there were four more shows for her to do.”
Zeidman agreed, saying he tried to convince Messina to do 10. In his dreams, in her own good time, he hopes Taylor will some day do a residency at Staples Center.
“Understand that in May of 2009, we were thinking about where should Taylor play on her first headline tour. We thought possibly two shows at Nokia Theatre [now Microsoft Theater]. And Taylor’s mom said what about Staples Center? We had that date available. She sold out; it was amazing. I’ve never been at a show where everyone sang every word. The energy was amazing.”
She came back and played two more shows at Staples Center in 2010, four in 2011, four in 2013 and now five in 2015. All 16 of her shows sold out immediately.
“This year, you could actually see the girls in the audience who were now six years older. Then you had the new group, a younger audience coming into their own. When she does come back in two more years, there will be another group. It will continue to perpetuate until whenever she stops,” Zeidman said of the phenomenal singer.
Given L.A.’s entertainment capital status and the number of Taylor’s friends in the industry, every night she had a different celebrity guest, but no guest quite compared to Kobe Bryant, Lakers star, who presented her with the banner on stage during the first show.
This year, Staples Center staff had to figure out what to do for Taylor given that she was about to shatter the record for soldout performances at the arena. It couldn’t be your usual artist swag. “We’d exhausted our arsenal of gifts we give performers because she had been here so many times,” Zeidman said. Communications Senior Director Cara Vanderhook actually came up with the idea of raising a championship banner in her behalf. They then reached out to Bryant to make the presentation. Now that Bryant has announced his retirement, maybe Taylor will return the favor when his jersey goes up, Zeidman said with a laugh.
Taylor Swift’s banner joins 38 other championship banners/retired jerseys, hanging at Staples Center, all of which relate to tenant sports teams — The Los Angeles Lakers, L.A. Kings, and L.A. Sparks.
Now that she has been nominated for seven Grammys, the staff at Staples Center can welcome Taylor home again for that awards show.
Taylor actually visited fans and industry in Staples Center’s famed Chairman’s Room behind-the-scenes club to accept her framed version of the banner from Zeidman and Christy Castillo, AEG VP of booking and events.
Still, Taylor Swift takes nothing for granted, Messina added. “It was exciting when they dropped that banner. I got chills. She knew she set the record but she didn’t know about the banner. She was quite surprised. It was definitely a thrill. She wanted that banner — she told to them put another one up. That’s what it meant to her.”