GREENVILLE — Every year, Group Therapy Pub & Playground hosts a Halloween Party. The best costume wins $1,000. It draws a big crowd.
But nothing like Taylor Swift.
Last year, the downtown Greenville indoor entertainment bar decided to test a listening party for a new "Taylor's Version" album, "Speak Now."
Lines snaked out the door at Camperdown Plaza. As many as 500 people showed up, dressed in glistening silver dresses, shaking their friendship bracelets in the air and waving patented “In My Lover Era” signs.
It was the best-performing event the venue had ever hosted.
On April 19, the 34-year-old Swift will release her 11th studio album, "The Tortured Poets Department," and Group Therapy founder and co-owner Matthew Hubbard is expecting hundreds to attend again.
“A lot of this is just beyond comprehension,” Hubbard said. “She's really setting unique trends in how she does things and how fans react to her phenomena.”
And Group Therapy isn't alone.
Joining in the listening festivities will be cafe and brewery Other Lands on Rutherford Road. Horizon Records in the North Main Community will open early at 8 a.m. with a stack of vinyl records. The Frosting Fairy bakery at Thornblade will decorate Swift-themed cookies. Vino and Van Gogh art studio on Augusta Street will offer instruction on how to paint Swift's likeness.
It's all part of a collective phenomenon.
The Taylor Swift effect
You don't have to actively listen to her music to know it.
“Cruel Summer” plays at parties, “Shake It Off” hypes up sports games, and “Bad Blood” lived on the radio month after month.
It's been true ever since she broke out as a 16-year-old country artist and then rocketed into a worldwide, billionaire pop star.
Still, this past year was different.
Time magazine named her Person of the Year, joining 14 U.S. presidents. Writer Sam Lansky — who compared her to Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson and Madonna — called her "the last monoculture left in our stratified world."
Cities have crowned her mayor. Couples get married at her concerts. Colleges such as the University of South Carolina have dedicated courses to studying her.
And in this presidential election year, pundits wonder aloud how any political endorsement she might offer could motivate the younger-skewing "Swifties" and possibly tip the scales.
Her crossover appeal famously skyrocketed when she started dating Kansas City Chiefs start tight end Travis Kelce. She regularly graced the homepage of ESPN, boosting record-level TV ratings and generating an additional $330 million for the franchise and the NFL.
“You can't turn on the news or entertainment culture news or TMZ — she's everywhere,” said Kate Blanton, an adjunct instructor at USC who teaches the class on Swift and will put on a three-day celebration of the album. “I think that she's definitely oversaturated in media right now. Everything she does is recorded.”
Since "The Eras Tour" launched in March 2023, it has grossed $1 billion — the most ever — generating over $10 billion in economic impact nationwide, the U.S. Travel Association said.
On the first day, she sold a record 2.4 million tickets. Ticketmaster crashed, and some on the resale market ballooned to $20,000 a piece.
The shows are of epic scale: More than three hours long, featuring 16 costume changes, over 40 songs, laser lights, indoor fireworks, fire cannons and a shifting set design portraying each phase of her musical career.
The Swift phenomenon swept through Greenville, too, where it seems like there's a themed event nearly every week. In March, local jazz artists reimagined her greatest hits at The Wheel Sessions. In April, the music venue Radio Room sold out a Taylor Swift dance party.
In the coming months, Vine Nightclub is organizing an album listening party, Spartanburg Day School of Zion Williamson fame will host a Swift-themed summer camp, and Roper Mountain Science Center will put on a laser light show in Swift's name.
For many Swifties, she's more than just a good musician.
"She transitioned from a lot of people's childhoods into their adulthood," Other Lands general manager Alexis Krcelic said. "I think a lot of people grew up with her and grew up feeling a lot of the things that she did."
'I need this high again'
Last April, Haileigh Hearn, a 28-year-old from Greenville and a "Swiftie my whole life," paid $250 to see her concert at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
Nearly 70,000 people squeezed into the NFL facility. Hearn sat in the upper seats, wearing a glittery “Speak Now"-themed purple outfit with nails painted different colors to represent each album.
“It was three and a half hours of pure magic,” Hearn said.
When Swift announced the second leg of her tour, Hearn waited online for eight hours and, after Ticketmaster crashed, found $400 tickets for a show in Germany.
Now, she will visit Europe for the first time on a two-week-long trip planned around the concert, bookending it with visits to London, Paris and Amsterdam.
“Once you experience almost that high and adrenaline of seeing her live once, you’re like, ‘holy crap, I need this high again,’” Hearn said.
Courtney Powell, a 33-year-old Greenville native, listened to “Picture to Burn” and put flames to photo after a boy broke her heart. She listened to “Our Song” while staying up late, sneaking phone calls and falling in love with her high school sweetheart and future husband. She danced to “Love Story” at their wedding.
Group Therapy, shown above, will host a listening party for Taylor Swift's new album "The Tortured Poets Department" on April 19. Provided/Group Therapy
“She was telling her personal story, and it just mirrored so much of my own,” Powell said.
For Powell's best friend, 35-year-old Kathryn Martin, Swift guided her through one of the darkest moments of her life.
In 2014, Martin's 3-month-old daughter, Kellie Rynn, died in an overcrowded daycare.
Three years later, Swift released her sixth album “Reputation,” following a widespread feud with rapper Kanye West and a hiatus from the public eye.
The album drove Martin to find herself anew after a lengthy lawsuit, court case, countless media interviews and unending grief.
“('Reputation') was the first time she was unapologetically herself," Martin said. "Obviously, it's a lifetime journey of trying to redefine yourself, especially after trauma. That gave me a push I needed."
Martin still remembers when the music video to “Look What You Made Me Do” touched her for the first time.
“At the beginning, she literally crawls out of the grave, and it's just this outpouring of emotion," she said. "And I just clung to that. I just loved, like, ‘Hey, this is me, right now. This is how I feel. And I'm not gonna say I'm sorry.’”
Thirteen years ago, Martin and Powell met at work and bonded as Swifties. Now, they attend concerts together. Powell recently threw Martin an Eras Tour-themed surprise 35th birthday party.
When the second leg of her U.S. tour dropped, they logged online to buy tickets at 8:30 a.m. They were 18,000th in line for a show in Indianapolis.
They clicked on countless seats, some on the floor or hidden in the nosebleeds. Then, magically, they found a pair for $49.
The seats were sequestered next to the stage with a partially blocked-off view.
They jumped up and down, screamed at the top of their lungs and cried.
