TAYLOR'S TOUR: HATERS GONNA HATE

Despite reports in some corners claiming her reputation Stadium Tour was "shaping up to be a disaster," Taylor Swift has just announced new dates for the trek in Santa Clara, DC, Philadelphia, East Rutherford, Foxborough, Minneapolis and Dallas. These additional dates in locales already on the itinerary follow an added Rose Bowl date. Tickets for those shows go wide on 1/31 at 10am local time; registration for the pre-sale begins 1/5 and continues through 1/18, with prior Taylor Swift Tix registrants getting priority access. The tour kicks off 5/8 at University of Phoenix Stadium in Arizona.

The added dates further undermine the tabloid digs, which were based largely on Twitter grousing about the Ticketmaster-powered Taylor Swift Tix program (which rewarded album and merch buyers with a better spot in line, among other things). Meanwhile, further news out of the tour, presented by Messina Tour Group and AEG stateside and Live Nation overseas, was that its tactics were producing one of the most lucrative runs ever—even if that meant fewer immediate sellouts. This was achieved in part by directly selling premium tickets (many of which likely would’ve ended up with scalpers) at a higher initial fee. It's been reported that 30-50% of major concert tickets end up in the hands of scalpers.

As a result, the tour could, by some estimates, drum up nearly half a billion in business. That’s our kind of “disaster.”