VANCOUVER — Devout Taylor Swift fan Carol Hansson was in Prince George, B.C., on Thursday evening awaiting her flight to Vancouver to catch the Eras Tour when another would-be passenger noticed that airport staff were taking luggage off the plane after it was already delayed multiple times.
"That's not good," Hanson thought, and she said booking another flight wasn't an option because the only alternatives wouldn't have got her to town in time for Friday's show.
"So all of us are like, OK, what the hell are we supposed to do now?," Hansson said in an interview.
Hansson, a diehard Taylor Swift fan, said she then approached a group of girls decked out in Swift gear about renting a car to make the near 800-kilometre journey to Vancouver in order to make the gigs.
Hansson said her flight was originally scheduled for Thursday night, but it kept getting delayed due to apparent safety issues with the aircraft, and an airport employee told her the cancelled flight's passengers were "90 per cent Swifties" and other hardcore fans were easy to spot in their merchandise.
Hansson said she got tickets to all three of Swift's concerts at B.C. Place this weekend, and she and three other fans and one non-fan rented a car, switching off drivers along the way and listening to Swift the entire time.
Hansson said the non-fan who joined the ride, who was in Prince George for work, was a Swiftie by the end of the journey.
"We converted her," Hansson said.
She said the road was luckily clear and dry for the trek, and she had to pinch herself at the thought of "breathing the same air" as Swift during Friday's "amazing" show.
Hansson said she's never seen Swift live before, but her fandom goes back to the star's debut and her devotion even compelled her to add Taylor as a second legal middle name in order to incorporate Swift's fierceness, loyalty and charitableness into her own persona.
"I changed my name because I wanted to intentionally add the parts of Taylor's personality that I wanted to be more like," Hansson said. "She's like all the things that I wanted to be in my life."
Hansson said she scored behind-the-stage tickets for Saturday's show for her and a friend, and also bought resale tickets for the final show Sunday "because I have to be at the last show ever. I must."
Swift's worldwide Eras Tour concludes at Vancouver's B.C. Place Stadium on Sunday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 7, 2024.
The Canadian Press
