While the City of Toronto got the signs for free, it still spent tens of thousands of dollars on Taylor Swift Way.
The Toronto Sun has received 211 pages from City Hall related to the Taylor Swift concerts following a freedom-of-information request. Of those, nearly half are emails from city bureaucrats, most of them with the strategic public and employee communications division, brainstorming ideas to promote the pop concerts or informing staff of guidelines – even rules – regarding Swift-related social media posts.
A city spokesman has confirmed what the documents reveal: Toronto spent at least $25,000 on promotional material because of Swift. While the municipality says the campaign was largely related to a poetry initiative, a spreadsheet itemizing $15,000 worth of online ad purchases is labelled “Taylor Swift Way Campaign Fall 2024.”
Taylor Swift Way – a ceremonial designation for a route that connects Rogers Centre, where the concerts took place, and City Hall – was marked with a series of temporary street signs. When the idea was approved by city council in July 2024, a beaming Deputy Mayor Jennifer McKelvie said costs related to the signs would be covered by Rogers, owner of the Rogers Centre.
The street signs were later auctioned off to benefit the Daily Bread Food Bank.
In a statement, Russell Baker, manager of media relations for the city, said $25,000 was the “total investment for communications related to hosting” Swift’s tour, and was justified by an expected $282-million “economic impact” for Toronto.
Most of that – $15,000 – was for digital ads “to promote the city’s T.O. Poets Department program, which showcased the works of local poets with live pop-up poetry readings and stencilled poetry decals” and included interactive elements, Baker wrote. The remainder was for decals, one set for the poetry program and the other to promote a web page hosted by the pro-tourism non-profit Destination Toronto.
The emails obtained by the Sun described that ad spending differently.
On Nov. 13, Deputy Mayor Ausma Malik wrote to Beth Waldman, who heads up the city’s strategic public and employee communications department. Malik said after a “briefing with the mayor,” she was looking for a list of influencers the city “has engaged with.”
Waldman replied that “on the paid side, we have an agency that is targeting Taylor’s audience on TikTok in our area through paid posts outside of that platform and (the website) Streets (of) Toronto is sharing through their newsletter and (Instagram).”
The email does not suggest this is specifically related to the T.O. Poets Department. The spreadsheet labelled “Taylor Swift Way campaign fall 2024,” which lists online ad placements with Streets of Toronto, Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat, puts the total estimated media cost at $15,000.
The city provided the Sun with one of the ads from the campaign, which, in bold font, says “T.O. Poets Department, are you ready for it?” In a brief statement, the city said those online ads linked to details about the poetry program “and other information related to the Eras Tour on the City of Toronto website.”
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Waldman also told Malik that Destination Toronto was working with three “paid influencers.” The TTC, meanwhile, “informed us yesterday afternoon that they have cancelled their influencer campaign due to costs,” Waldman wrote. (The documents also suggest some “influencers” posted for the city free of charge.)
“For operational and security reasons,” Waldman wrote, “the City of Toronto is unable to provide a cost estimate in advance of the concerts. However, any expenses will be in service of the city’s core responsibilities to maintain public safety, manage traffic and maximize the economic benefit of the concerts to the local economy, and will fall within the city’s operating budget.”
The emails only hint at the human resources devoted to the communications campaign.
In a Nov. 7 email, Laura McQuillan, a communications adviser with the city, wrote to staff at the digital engagement unit that “any information related to the Eras Tour during the event command centre’s operational period” – from noon until past midnight on the same day as a concert – “needs to be approved by the emergency information officer before being shared.”
On Nov. 15, Anastasia Saradoc, a manager at the strategic public and employee communications division, wrote: “I know our social team is down staff and already been putting in long hours around Taylor. … I’m on call for Taylor until 2 a.m.”
Baker said the city’s communications team operated in a manner that was “typical for a major event” and staffing requirements, including the use of an emergency information officer, were “not unusual” given those circumstances. Overtime “was only accrued where work was actively required to respond to or provide guidance on an urgent issue,” and there were “no major issues during the concert series,” Baker wrote.
In an email, Councillor Brad Bradford told the Sun that news “of excessive overtime and hiring of influencers for a Taylor Swift concert will make a lot of folks very frustrated and angry.”
“Mayor (Olivia) Chow wouldn’t need a property tax increase that’s triple the rate of inflation,” Bradford added, referencing Chow’s proposed 6.9% hike, “if she would cut unnecessary spending like this, or her plan for a big ad campaign to talk about Uber drivers’ wages. Torontonians deserve better.”
Perhaps Toronto taxpayers should count themselves lucky: One email of ideas – described by their own author as “not-fully-baked” fantasies – could’ve cost the city a fortune.
The city staffer asked: “Can we paint all her different album covers on (Nathan Phillips Square) for Swifties to take selfies at? Can we paint ‘Welcome to Tay-Ronto’ at Canoe Landing Park in big enough letters that she could see from her plane?”
City Hall has promised to release a report to the public on the economic effects of Swift’s time in the city, including costs. That report will be released “in the coming months,” Baker wrote.
At least one expert thinks the economic hoopla is overblown. A report by a TD economist, released last month, said Swift’s influence on Ontario’s money matters was “modest.”