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The Eras Festival: Indonesian 'Swifties' assemble in roaring joy and quiet hope
The fan-fueled event, taking place on Sunday, reflected the yearning of thousands of devoted fans for Taylor Swift as some of them still questioned the exclusion of Indonesia from her ongoing global tour.
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Swifties, assemble!: Organized by the Taylor Swift Indonesia Official Fanbase, The Eras Festival took place at the Bengkel Space SCBD, South Jakarta, on Sunday. The one-night-only festivity aimed to emulate the spirit of Taylor Swift's ongoing world tour, dubbed The Eras Tour. (JP/Felix Martua)
The floor of Sudirman Central Business District's Bengkel Space was throbbing.
It was 7:45 p.m., and more than 1,500 Swifties (the diehard fans of United States pop artist Taylor Swift) of different ages, genders and backgrounds could not contain their excitement when the jumbotron before them started yodeling the banjo-laden intro of one of their idol's signature songs, “You Belong With Me”.
In almost perfect unison, all the gathering Swifties chanted at the top of their lungs, "If you could see that I'm the one who understands you/Been here all along/So, why can't you see?/You belong with me", holding glow sticks aloft.
This scene was merely an illustration of how uproarious The Eras Festival was. Organized by the Taylor Swift Indonesia Official Fanbase, the one-night-only festivity aimed to capture what it would have been like if their idol had decided to stop by Indonesia during the Asian leg of her ongoing The Eras Tour.
The concert film of the tour, moreover, is set to premiere in Indonesian theaters on Nov. 3
For fans, by fans
For the committee of the Taylor Swift Indonesia Official Fanbase, the brief was simple yet demanding, ensure The Eras Festival is the biggest for-fans-by-fans event that they have ever held. Some of the committee's notable events of the past included a celebration of Taylor Swift's 2022 album Midnights, cheekily dubbed The Midnights Memories Jakarta and a trampoline-themed party to mark the re-recordings of Swift's 2010 album Speak Now.
