Taylor Swift fan Kelly Hall was elated when she beat the odds and was allocated three coveted tickets for The Eras Tour in Vancouver. Then she started looking for a hotel. Hall, who lives in Oshawa, Ont.
, planned to fly to Vancouver with her husband and a friend for the weekend of the Dec. 8 show, but the cheapest room was about $1,200 a night. "We decided that if this weekend alone -- just three nights -- is going to cost us three to five grand in accommodation, it just wasn't worth it for us," said Hall, who is a financial adviser.
So, they did the once-unthinkable: "We decided to sell the tickets." The situation facing out-of-town Swift fans now may be even worse, with some hotel rooms and short-term rentals in Toronto and Vancouver on show weekends costing 10 times more than other weekends. Some fans, like Hall, are cutting potential losses and selling their tickets, while others are coming up with creative solutions, including bartering spare tickets for accommodation.
The British Columbia Hotel Association declined requests for an interview about price fluctuations, and the Greater Toronto Hotel Association did not immediately respond to an interview request. Swift begins the Canadian leg of her record-breaking tour this month with six dates in Toronto between Nov. 14 and Nov.
23. Hotel rooms near the venue during those dates, including the Toronto Marriott City Centre Hotel, attached to the Rogers Centre, are being advertised for around $2,000 per night. That same hote.