Was Taylor Swift's Eras Tour in Detroit bigger than NFL draft crowds? It's complicated
How does the record-breaking attendance for the 2024 NFL draft on Thursday compare to other peak days in Detroit? It's hard to tell given the crowd estimates are created with different methodologies and geographic boundaries.
Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour visit to the Motor City last June spanned two days, with two sold-out shows of about 60,000 fans each day at Ford Field. But that is the number of people attending the concert, not the number of people estimated visiting Detroit's business district. All told for just one day Swift was in the city, June 10, nearly 350,000 people flocked to Detroit's Central Business District. Motor City Pride Fest was that day at Hart Plaza, too.
That's higher than Thursday's draft crowd of about 275,000 fans — the largest daily NFL draft attendance on record, according to NFL officials. But 275,000 is the NFL's estimate, which is measured differently over a different geographic area. Magnetometers or metal detectors that fans walk through to enter the draft areas provide real-time crowd estimates, according to an e-mail from an NFL spokesperson.
Swift day data was compiled by the Downtown Detroit Partnership from Placer.ai, a firm that analyses foot traffic data from mobile phones.
The daily estimates include the number of people visiting or working in Detroit's Central Business District − an area bounded by the Lodge Freeway (west), Interstate 75 (north), I-375 (east) and the Detroit River (south). The median number of people visiting or working in the central business district between April 1, 2023 and April 7, 2024 was 102,000; foot traffic was higher at about 122,000 people on weekend days.
Back to the draft
Thursday's 275,000 attendance figure includes fans spanning from Campus Martius Park to Hart Plaza and satellite viewing areas such as the Corner Ballpark (Detroit's former Tiger Stadium). If the draft attendance in Detroit continues at this pace over the weekend, Detroit is on track to break the 600,000 record for total attendance, previously held by Nashville in 2019.
Nashville previously held the NFL draft record for daily attendance, too, with about 200,000 fans in 2019.
Within the last year, people visited Detroit for a variety of jam-packed concerts, sporting and other events. Pink set a record for a reserved seat concert at Comerica Park, with more than 45,000 fans and 207,955 people in the central business district; Detroit Lions' home games extended into the playoffs; Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Metallica and many more brought thousands of people to downtown Detroit.
Where the record NFL draft in Detroit stands in relation will have to wait until the draft is over and more comparable data is available next week.
Contact Kristi Tanner at ktanner@freepress.com. Follow her on X @midatalove
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Taylor Swift's Detroit tour stop crowds: Bigger than 2024 NFL draft?
