Taylor Swift may be the biggest name in show business, but she’s never one to miss a chance to thank the people who helped her succeed.
Swift’s new Disney+ docuseries, “The End of an Era,” features behind-the-scenes footage from the Eras Tour, which spanned 149 concerts in 21 countries. By the final show in December 2024, it had become the first tour in history to gross over $2 billion.
In the second episode of the docuseries, “Magic in the Eras,” Swift opens up about distributing bonuses to her dancers, musicians, and crew members as each leg of the tour comes to a close.
“Bonus day is so important because setting a precedent with the Eras Tour is really important to me. Because people who work on the road, if the tour grosses more, they get more of a bonus,” Swift tells the camera. “And these people just work so hard, and they are the best at what they do.”
Swift also says she hand-wrote notes to deliver with each bonus, all part of her effort to make the tour’s grueling two-year schedule “worthwhile.”
“It took me a couple weeks, but it’s fun to write them notes. It’s fun to think about everybody’s lives that they’re going to go back to, and the time off they’re going to have, and the kids they haven’t seen because they’ve been away for months,” Swift says. “It feels like Christmas morning when you finally get to say thank you.”
The next scene shows Swift personally handing out bonuses to her dancers, who’d recently been tasked with overhauling the three-and-a-half-hour show — reordering the set list and learning new choreography — to perform additional songs from “The Tortured Poets Department,” Swift’s 11th album, which was released between the tour’s stops in Singapore and France.
“This leg of this tour has been harder than anything I’ve ever done in a live setting. And you guys have taken this on with such excitement and such curiosity,” Swift tells her dancers. “The endurance you’ve shown, but the spirit you’ve shown, how much you’ve given to these crowds — that gives to me every single night. The tour has done really well, thanks to all of our hard work.”
One of Swift’s dancers, Kameron Saunders, reads the bonus amount out loud to the group. Although the number itself is censored in the footage, the dancers react with visible shock.
People previously reported that Swift gave $197 million in bonuses to the crew of the Eras Tour, including caterers, lighting technicians, audio technicians, riggers, carpenters, choreographers, and more. A shot of envelopes in the docuseries reveals a stack labeled “wardrobe/makeup/hair,” and another labeled “venue security.”
Michael Scherkenbach, founder and CEO of the Colorado-based trucking company Shomotion — one of two transportation companies used by the tour — has also said that each trucker received a $100,000 check and handwritten letter from Swift. He described the amount of money as “life-changing.”
“The typical amount is $5,000 to $10,000 each,” Scherkenbach told CNN. “So this large amount is unbelievable.”
The success of the Eras Tour propelled Swift’s net worth into the billions, according to Forbes. The publication’s estimates are largely based on the value of Swift’s musical catalog.
Earlier this year, Swift bought the rights to her back catalog in a reported $360 million sale.
“That’s how I spent that Eras Tour money,” Swift told Stephen Colbert. “My fans are why I was able to get my music back.”
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