As Dublin prepares for Taylor Swift’s arrival, dozens of pop-up events have been taking place around the city for fans to enjoy from friendship bracelet workshops to singalongs.
For those lucky enough to have tickets to Swift’s Aviva Stadium concerts this weekend, the events are helping to build excitement. For the fans who could not get their hands on tickets, they’re happy to enjoy the Taylor Swift-themed events regardless.
At a Taylor Swift-themed pottery painting class in the city centre, her music was playing from the speakers as Swifties decorated pottery pieces with their favourite song lyrics and channeled her various eras.
“We noticed that every time we have a pottery weekend on, people are always painting Taylor Swift things, so we decided to throw an event with the Taylor weekend coming up,” Ciara Fulham from Dublin Pottery Painting told RTÉ News.
“So many people missed out on tickets, but they still want to get involved somehow so we thought we’d throw an event and the tickets sold so quickly.”
As the Eras tour travels around the world, cities have been making grand gestures to welcome the star.
Glendale in Arizona in the US was renamed “Swift City” when she performed there, the mayor of Nashville placed a bench “for Taylor Swift to read on” in the city’s Centennial Park – a reference to her song “Invisible String”, and Transport for London released a London Underground (Taylor’s Version) tube map with its usual stop names replaced by song titles.
Has Dublin done enough to welcome Swift to the city?
“I don’t think you can ever do enough,” Ciara says. “There’s such a movement behind her and people want to get involved and there should be way more things on.
“A lot of countries are saying that Taylor Swift coming is bringing so much to their tourism industry, so I think there should be more things on all the time.”
Watch our video to hear from some of the Swifties who attended the pottery class.
