Super Bowl: Can Taylor Swift make it in time to see the game
LOS ANGELES –
When the Kansas City Chiefs beat the Baltimore Ravens last Sunday to advance to the Super Bowl, the question on fans’ minds quickly became: Will Taylor Swift be able to attend to support her partner, the Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, if she has a concert in Tokyo the day before?
It seems everyone is banking on Swift making it across the Pacific after her concert on Feb. 10 to cheer Kelce on in Las Vegas on Feb. 11: Even American Airlines and United Airlines took notice.
But can she do it? And what does her jet-set lifestyle look like for the next two weeks?
Feb. 4
Taylor Swift will likely head to Sunday’s Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, where she is up for six trophies. Those include: three for “Anti-Hero” (record of the year, song of the year, and best pop solo performance), two for her album “Midnights” (album of the year and best pop vocal album), and one for her collaboration with the rapper Ice Spice on “Karma” (best pop duo/group performance), making her one of the most nominated artists of the evening. If Swift wins album of the year, she will break the record for most wins in the top category, with four.
From L.A. to Tokoyo
Swift’s record-breaking Eras Tour — the first to gross over US$1 billion — kicks off again in 2024 in Tokyo, where she will perform for four nights. The travel time is an estimated 12 hours, 8,690 kilometres, flying across nine time zones and crossing the international date line. Swift flies private, so passing through customs and security will likely be much faster than commercial travel.
A long journey
Flying from California to Japan’s capital city, Swift will lose 17 hours. That means if she were to leave Los Angeles on the morning of Monday, Feb. 5 – say, around 9 a.m. – it would be around 2 a.m. in Tokyo on Feb. 6. She should likely arrive around 2 p.m. in Tokyo.
Feb. 7 to 10
Swift performs at the 55,000-capacity Tokyo Dome. There are no announced openers, and the show is scheduled to start at 6 p.m., typically running for three hours and 15 minutes – which means it could end around 9:15 p.m. A Tokyo Dome spokesman told the AP all parties must stop using the sound system at 9:30 p.m. That doesn’t mean everyone must leave by 9:30 p.m., but the concert must be over.
From Tokoyo to Las Vegas
Tokyo is 17 hours ahead of Las Vegas. If Swift leaves Tokyo at midnight after her last Tokyo concert, that’s 7 a.m. on Saturday in Las Vegas. An average flight from Tokyo to LA is about 10 hours. If she can fly directly to Las Vegas without refueling, that’s 11 or 12 hours (there are no direct commercial flights from Tokyo to Las Vegas, so this an exercise in private aviation). Barring delays, she would be on track to get to Las Vegas the night before the game.
Feb. 11
The San Francisco 49ers face off against the Kansas City Chiefs at 3:30 p.m. PST in Las Vegas. Airlines, by the way, have taken notice and changed flight numbers to reflect Kelce and Swift’s relationship. Both Kelce and Swift were born in 1989 – also the name of one of her albums. American’s Flight 1989 is scheduled to run twice from Kansas City, Mo., to Las Vegas on Feb. 9 and Feb. 10.
From Las Vegas to Melbourne
On Friday, Feb. 16, Swift kicks off her Australian tour in Melbourne with three back-to-back dates at the Melbourne Cricket Grounds, with Sabrina Carpenter as her opening act. If she chooses to fly straight to Australia after the Super Bowl for rehearsals from Vegas, that’s at least a 17-hour journey – or 16 hours if flying direct from Los Angeles – and more than 13,000 kilometres of air travel.
Totals
With all this in mind, Swift will have traveled more than 30,500 kilometres in just under two weeks, not including transportation to and from venues, hotels, the airport and any travel that occurs between the Super Bowl and her Melbourne tour dates. For reference, the circumference of Earth is 40,000 kilometres.
