She has a reputation to stop a city - now Taylor Swift fans and residents are being warned to prepare for delays when the world-famous star performs in Brisbane next month.
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The singer-songwriter will perform at The Gabba on Tuesday, November 6, and plans to smoothly move a crowd of up to 48,000 to and from the stadium are in place.
On Tuesday, three weeks out from the Reputation Stadium Tour at The Gabba, Brisbane City Council Brisbane Transport branch manager for strategy and network services Greg Spelman said extra buses had been allocated to move crowds to and from the venue.
“The demographics and travel patterns of concert-goers are a little bit different to our normal attendees at sporting events. They are generally less familiar with the venue and the transport arrangements and often are a lot younger,” he said.
“We usually have large crowds so sometimes our clearance times can take a little while.”
The council was expecting it could take up to 90 minutes to clear the venue at the end of the concert.
When The Gabba hosted singer Adele in March 2017, crowds of more than 60,000 attended the stadium, with the higher capacity due to the stage being in the middle of the field.
Before the Adele concert, Public and Active Transport chairman Adrian Schrinner had warned of travel trouble ahead of the shows and criticised the choice of The Gabba as a venue.
Mr Spelman said having two warm-up acts ahead of Swift taking the stage would help ease congestion, which was not possible when Adele played as she did not have a support act.
“A full house for Taylor Swift would be 48,000: we don’t think we’re going to get those numbers, it’s probably more likely to be in the low 40s, maybe 40,000 to 45,0000,” he said.
About 30,000 fans will be seated, with another 18,000 on the field with a screen at one end of the stadium.
Road closures will be in place around The Gabba from 2pm on November 6, which will include widening footpaths and rolling out barriers to cater for a large number of pedestrians.
Mr Spelman asked concert-goers to plan their travel and for attendees as well as residents to expect delays.
"Pre-event services will operate in the peak so we are expecting to encounter congestion," he said.
"People will need to plan for longer travel time and that's going to be something that's not just going to affect the concert-goers but it's going to be affecting a lot of people travelling in the south and eastern part of the Brisbane who are either going over the expressway or even on the busway."
Gates will open at 5.30pm, with warm-up acts Charlie XCX and the Broods to start at 7pm.
Swift is due to start at 8.30pm.
Ticket holders have free travel on council buses and QR services from noon.
Pre-event shuttles will run every two to three minutes from Carindale, Chermside, Ann Street in the CBD and Eight Mile Plains from 4.30pm.
Post-event shuttles will run every one to two minutes to Carindale, Chermside, Ann Street in the CBD and Eight Mile Plains for 90 minutes after the concert ends.
