If it felt like there were thousands of cars crowding the Peace Arch and Pacific Highway ports of entry into Canada, that wasn’t your brain exaggerating for theatrical effect.
Taylor Swift performed the final three shows of her world-spanning “Eras” tour in Vancouver at BC Place stadium starting on Friday, December 6 and going through Sunday, December 8. The throngs of supporters drawn across the border into Canada by the pop star not only shut down traffic through downtown Blaine for hours, but also showed a massive statistical change in border crossings from last year, according to data from the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA).
The first weekend of December 2023 saw a rough daily average of 20,000 travelers crossing land ports of entry into B.C. over a three-day period. The first weekend of December in 2024 – “Swiftpocalypse” as it will surely be known in Blaine from here on out – saw a daily average of just over 36,000 travelers, a roughly 180 percent increase.
On Friday, December 6, 35,699 people crossed into B.C. On Saturday, the high-water mark for the three-day Swift show was set at 40,693 people. By Sunday, the number of travelers dipped down to 31,884 on Sunday – still over 10,000 more people than the same weekend in 2023.
CBSA does not share crossing data for specific border crossings, nor does it record reasons for travel by those crossing into B.C. So while the massive increase in travelers may not all be due to the inescapable power of America’s pop darling, it’s tough to chalk up the increase to anything else.
Were there any other world-famous billionaire pop stars playing in B.C. that weekend?
