Taylor Swift fans sporting friendship bracelets and glittery cowboy boots packed into early screenings of the pop megastar's concert film at movie theaters across the United States on Thursday.
Thanks to the hysteria surrounding the singer's ongoing and record-setting world tour, a filmed version of her concert -- "Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour" -- is already tipped to be one of the year's biggest movies.
Usual cinema etiquette has been thrown out the window, with multiplexes such as AMC encouraging customers to dance, sing and even take selfies throughout screenings.
"At the top of my lungs, I will be screaming in my seat, and dancing around, and hopefully trading more friendship bracelets," said Jamie Concha, 20, at a screening in Los Angeles' Century City.
"I love every Swiftie. I think we're all very connected," she said, referring to the nickname adopted by Swift's fiercely loyal fanbase.
Shot during three recent sold-out Los Angeles shows, the film contains no interviews, commentary or behind-the-scenes footage.
Instead, the film's demand relies on drawing fans who missed out on tickets to the actual tour, or want to relive the phenomenon again, up close and alongside fellow obsessives.
In the concession line before the first screening in Century City, a pair of teenage girls arrived carrying a bag stuffed with friendship bracelets, which they handed out to fellow Swifties.
The colorful, beaded accessories have become a key part of "Eras" fandom, with concertgoers creating and swapping bracelets bearing references to their favorite Swift lyrics and quotes.
The Midwest-based Marcus Theatres has even promised "friendship bracelet making stations" at its screenings.
- Swift-branded popcorn tins -
Almost all the moviegoers at Century City on Thursday had been to see the live shows already, and many were planning repeat viewings at the multiplex.
"I'm coming to four screenings, and I saw the concert three times," said Amber Eaves, 33.
"It was the best concert experience I've ever been to... I was crying the entire time, I had makeup streaming down my face," said Kasey Longstreet, 24.
"It was such a special night that I wanted to come back and see it again."
Domestic opening weekend box office estimates are as high as $150 million -- a record for a concert film, and numbers comparable to this summer's reigning smash hit movie, "Barbie."
Theaters -- still recovering from the pandemic, and faced with a dearth of new movies thanks to the ongoing Hollywood strikes -- were also cashing in on demand for Swift merchandise Thursday.
AMC charged $19.89 -- a reference to Swift's album "1989" -- for Swift-branded popcorn tins.
Staff reported fans arriving since the morning just to purchase empty soda cups, at the full price of $11.99. Some left with the maximum five cups allowed per movie ticket.
The movie had been set to hit screens Friday, but the singer announced on Wednesday that "due to unprecedented demand," preview screenings would begin a day earlier.
"I'm already going this weekend, but when she dropped this at the last second, I was like, 'I gotta go after work, oh my god," said Eaves.
"It's just gonna be one of those cultural phenomenons that you can look back and say 'I was a part of that.'"
How stars power economies
Three years after the pandemic wiped out the live music scene, fans are flocking again to see their favourite stars on stage, with Taylor Swift and Beyonce raking it in with tours that are giving local economies a boost.
- Big-spending Swifties -
Swiftmania is at an all-time high, and it is leaping from the stadium to the cinema, where a film on Swift's Eras tour out Friday in over 100 countries worldwide has already clocked up more than $100 million in ticket pre-sales.
The tour itself, which finishes in December 2024, is poised to become the first tour to make $1 billion.
According to Maria Psyllou, an economist at Britain's Birmingham University who has written about the trickle-down effect of Swift's tour, the six concerts in Los Angeles added $320 million to that county's GDP.
"A big phenomenon," was how New York Federal Reserve President John Williams described the Taylor Swift effect last month.
- Queen B stings -
The war in Ukraine is usually cited as a key factor for the cost-of-living crisis in Europe but in Sweden, the party held up as responsible for higher-than-expected inflation in May was none other than Beyonce.
Consumer prices rose by a higher-than-expected 9.7 percent in May year-on-year, with increased costs of certain goods and services, such as clothing and hotel visits, offsetting a decrease in electricity and food prices.
Michael Grahn, chief economist for Sweden at Danske Bank, said Beyonce's first two dates on her first solo tour in seven years were probably to blame.
Tens of thousands of fans flocked to Stockholm for the gigs, adding between 0.2 and 0.3 percentage points to the inflation caused by hotel and restaurant prices, according to Grahn.
- K-pop fever -
In its decade-long existence, K-pop boy band BTS -- on pause as several members do their compulsory military service -- has added billions of dollars to the South Korean economy.
The Hyundai Research Institute in 2018 estimated that the first entirely South Korean group to top the US and UK charts brought its country more than $3.6 billion in annual economic benefits.
In 2022, the Korea Institute of Culture and Tourism estimated each BTS concert made 1.22 trillion won (more than $900 million).
- Beatles nostalgia forever -
More than a half century after The Beatles broke up, Liverpool, the birthplace of its four band members, continues to attract nostalgic fans.
Beatles-themed museums, restaurants, souvenir shops and tours of key sites in their journey as a band, including the Cavern Club, where they started out, and the storied Penny Lane all contribute to Fab Four tourism estimated at 120 million pounds annually (nearly $150 million), according to the city's council.
Liverpool is not alone in the pop nostalgia market.
Memphis in Tennessee, home to Elvis Presley's former property Graceland, is another key site of pilgrimage for fans, while Jamaica is an essential destination for Bob Marley lovers.