I had the honor of getting to attend Taylor Swift's The Eras Tour not once, but twice, and it was fascinating to see just how much the tour had changed and evolved in a year and a half. My first Eras Tour show was the second night of Swift's weekend in Tampa on April 14, 2023, and my second show was the first night of Swift's weekend in New Orleans on October 25, 2024. These concerts were both just as thrilling, but also vastly different from one another.

Before I get into some of these notable differences, it's important to note some other factors that made them entirely different experiences for me. For one, I was in the nosebleeds for Tampa night 2, and I was also experiencing a serious case of allergies that made it almost impossible for me to physically see the second half of the show. In New Orleans, however, I was on the floor, not too far from the stage, and I was just beside the VIP section.

That barely even makes it a competition for which show ultimately ended up being the better experience, but my own seating position and personal health excluded, I was still blown away by how much more The Eras Tour experience had grown between these two dates. Those who attended early on in the tour definitely got a vastly different show than later on, and vice versa. Both shows were incredibly memorable in their own ways, but here are some key differences I noticed between them.

Taylor Swift's Confidence Rose Completely During The Tour

Her Stage Presence Was Even More Electric

One of the biggest things I noticed right away when Swift took the stage in New Orleans was that her confidence, and thus her stage presence, had risen immensely. Swift's never been a shy performer, but it's clear that both her increased familiarity with The Eras Tour itself and her perspective on how beloved it had become had a huge impact on her. Every move she made and note she sang was executed in a way that was bolder than I seeing and hearing in Tampa.

Swift's never been a shy performer, but it's clear that both her increased familiarity with The Eras Tour itself and her perspective on how beloved it had become had a huge impact on her.

This was especially the case with the songs written during the time that Swift was still with her ex-boyfriend. They had just broken up around the time my show in Tampa happened, and it's clear that the event rattled her, as it would with anyone (this would be further proven by her lyrics in "I Can Do It With a Broken Heart" for The Tortured Poets Department). It was much harder for her to sing songs like "Lover" and "the 1" when that heartbreak was still fresh, versus later on when she had Travis Kelce to think of instead.

The Tortured Poets Department Set Massively Enhanced The Show

It's Hard To Imagine A Tour Without It Now

The other major factor that made these two shows different from one another was the fact that Swift had an entirely different era added for New Orleans: The Tortured Poets Department. With the album releasing in April 2024, almost one full year to the day of my Tampa concert, this wasn't even a thought in our minds when I attended my first show. I had no idea Swift would be releasing a brand-new album during the course of the tour, and that I would get to see it performed live later on.

Of course, The Eras Tour still stood on its own with the original set list that I saw in Tampa, but The Tortured Poets Department is so strong that I can't help looking back on what we were missing before it existed. "Who's Afraid of Little Old Me?" and "The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived" especially are so electrifying live, and I couldn't be more grateful that I got to witness it in person. To know I attended an Eras Tour show where that segment didn't exist at all is just baffling in retrospect.

Merging Folklore & Evermore Was Actually An Improvement

It Helped To Maintain The Show's Pace & Energy

Swift had to merge the folklore and evermore sets in her later shows to accommodate for The Tortured Poets Department, and this may be a wildly unpopular opinion, but I do think it was the right call. I I hadn't yet gotten a deep familiarity with neither folklore nor evermore as full bodies of work by the time of my Tampa show, only knowing a few of the songs on each album, and that made their sets harder for me to get through as a more casual audience member.

Seeing those songs played live, however, convinced me to listen more closely to those albums, to the point where I now know them back-to-front just like any other Swiftie would. That made it thrilling for me to hear many of them again in New Orleans, and while I wished I could relive cut songs like "tolerate it" again now that I actually knew and appreciated the lyrics, I could plainly see why merging these two together was a good idea.

Because folklore and evermore are largely folk albums, it's harder to pull off long-standing, entertaining performances of their songs. This doesn't mean it wasn't possible; the folklore and evermore sets are still a strong and entertaining rewatch in Taylor Swift's The Eras Tour (Taylor's Version). Swift knew how to curate them to ensure that. They still, inevitably, slowed down the overall heightened energy of the show, and bringing them together improved that massively.

The Eras Tour Hype That Had Been Built Made A Difference In The Crowd

The Energy Was Palpable

When I saw Swift in Tampa, it was only her fourth weekend on The Eras Tour, and the hype surrounding the tour had only just begun. "Cruel Summer" hadn't yet soared to the top of the charts, despite having come out four years before then, and friendship bracelet making hadn't yet become a true staple of the tour. All those traditions and that hype had built after my first concert, and it definitely showed when I turned up in New Orleans.

For one, my sister - who attended both shows with me - and I both worked to make plenty of friendship bracelets for trading, something we didn't do the first time. The crowd was also much louder than they had been at my first show, and the energy was so much more palpable. Perhaps a significant chunk of that can be accredited to having nosebleed seats versus floor seats, but it still seemed different. The crowd was definitely much more familiar with each and every song.

Overall, there's nothing I really would have changed about either one of my Eras Tour shows. They were both special in their own ways, and I'm endlessly grateful that I got to attend just one, much less two - especially knowing that there are still so many fans who never got to see it at all. Most of all, I'm impressed by how incredible Taylor Swift really is, to the point where she made two major nights of my life both so similar yet also so different in the best way.