There are some travel experiences that end up not panning out no matter how much planning went into it. Anyone who lived through the pandemic knows this. We are now a generation hardened to last minute cancellations. But little could have prepared my friends and I for the beautiful disaster that became the fateful weekend of August 9, 2024.
This particular weekend in August was planned over a year ago in July of 2023 when Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour went on sale in Europe. I’m the furthest thing from a Swiftie but enough of a fan to agree to spend up to exactly €200 to see her in concert. And having seen the Eras Tour mania sweep through the US, my wife and I were excited to finally enjoy it. Even more excited than we were to attend were our card-carrying Swiftie friends and family from the US, for whom tickets there were nearly impossible to obtain or prohibitively expensive. So we immediately set off on the mission of signing up for presale codes. When you go to a big concert like Taylor Swift or Harry Styles, you have to hedge your bets by casting a wide net of cities you’re willing to travel to for the concert. This pool is then whittled down by the lottery for fan presales codes. In the end, we had a handful of codes for shows in Germany, Poland, and Austria in Vienna.
If I were to rank European cities I’ve visited from most to least favorite, Vienna would be scraping the bottom. But as fate would have it, tickets for Vienna went on sale before all the other shows despite being the last date in the EU. In an attempt to ensure we got anything at all, we tried for the first city that was available for sale and ended up with 8 tickets, 6 of which would be used by people flying to Europe from Florida.
Adele enters the chat
As if this weekend wasn’t complicated enough, in February of 2024, Adele announced a month-long residency in Munich. Knowing I would probably be traveling out of Europe at some other point in August and in an attempt to minimize the amount of time we have to leave our dog with a sitter, we decided it would be a good idea to try to get tickets for the same weekend. We succeeded easily, despite overpaying for tickets that weren’t even together because Ticketmaster is a grossly deceptive company that the EU needs to regulate better.
All things considered, everything was poised to be a success. Our friends and family would fly to Prague because Prague is awesome with or without any concerts. We would spend two days in Vienna and see Taylor and then journey to Munich for two days and see Adele – a relatively normal itinerary for Americans traveling to Europe, even if it’s one that is insane to anyone else. A good old fashioned Eurotrip.
In hindsight, the universe sent signs
The lead up to the trip was riddled with complications. Hotels in both cities were at least double the price, and demand for transport between them was also high for already busy summer season. We paid through the nose for accommodation and then booked ridiculous connections from one place to the other like a non-refundable bus, Europe’s worst way to travel.
Our friends from home weren’t faring any better. From potential emergency medical cancellations to last minute pet sitting failures to Covid, the people in Florida trying to get to Europe were struggling to get their shit together for this trip. Then came Debby. Hurricane Debby, barely a category 1 that will probably not be remembered by anyone, began to cancel flights all across the eastern seaboard. People that were supposed to fly out Sunday, August 4, were delayed until Monday. Others that were set to fly Tuesday, August 6, were delayed and nearly cancelled altogether, arriving in Prague almost 12 hours after their scheduled time. And we were set to take a train to Vienna less than 24 hours later.
But despite all that, everyone was in high spirits. We spent the week celebrating Prague Pride and showing our friends who had made it around Prague in preparation for our whirlwind concert weekend in Vienna and Munich. All our friends had brought tour outfits, including some that had been handmade specifically for this show. Admittedly, I had nothing but a pair of borrowed heart-shaped sun glasses, but the excitement was palpable nonetheless.
Breaking news
My wife and I were on our way to meet up her sister and brother-in-law who had just landed in Prague when we saw the TMZ article about a foiled terrorist plot targeting the Eras tour in Vienna. A little shaken, but nonetheless reassured, we went on our merry way. Surely this would only mean that security would be increased as a precaution. After all, the perpetrators had been caught. We rejoiced in seeing our family for the first time since last Thanksgiving and we took them to their favorite Irish bar in Prague.
We were halfway through dinner merely an hour after these guys had finally landed from their hellish journey when everyone’s phones started to buzz with the news that all of Taylor Swift’s three nights in Vienna had been cancelled. The shock and then sadness rippled over everyone as it did all over Vienna and surrounding European cities. My friends who were scattered around Prague immediately cut their evening short, all of us scrambling to figure out what to do. Would we still go to Vienna? Would we extend our trip to Munich? Of course, just a couple of hours away from the day of our trip, cancelling hotels and trains for free became impossible so we decided to go to Vienna anyway.
Displaced Swiftie weekend in Vienna
We arrived in Vienna on Thursday, August 8, a day before her three-day run of shows was set to begin. Having no Eras Tour to attend, all of Vienna became the Eras Tour. There were sobbing Swifties littering hotel lobbies, wandering the streets aimlessly, and holding near-constant tearful sing-a-longs all around town including the busy Stephanzplatz and Corneliusgasse. Which begs the question, if it was safe enough to gather thousands of people out in a public square, why wasn’t it safe to do it inside a secured stadium?
But of course, 80,000 people don’t fit in one square, so bars and restaurants all over town were spilling over with loud Swifties trying to recreate the experience they might have had at the concert. Except without Taylor and with a slightly increased chance of terror. The city of Vienna even put out information about scheduled Taylor parties at some of the city’s nightclubs. Evidently those were just as difficult to get into as the Eras tour because they were quickly at capacity. We found a nearly empty bar in the center of town and logged into Disney Plus on their computer to put the Eras Tour movie on in attempt to capture some of the magic, and generally drowned our sorrows away until the wee hours both nights of our visit.
Freebies for would-be concertgoers
Stores and restaurants were also happy to play ball. With a valid ticket, you could get free burgers, a free Taylor-themed drink, and even a Swarovski crystal (while supplies last). There may have even been others that were less publicized, because it seemed like everything had a line outside of it. And while sweet if a little opportunistic, these freebies in practice were just long lines and more disappointment as people got turned away when inventory ran dry. I did appreciate how little the Swifties cared about enjoying Vienna, choosing to instead spend their weekend waiting for hours for Taylor-themed bullshit. Although Swifties that did want to see Vienna were also taken care of as museums opened their doors for free to ticket-holders.
Honestly, it’s more than Ms. Swift did for her devastated fans on this fateful weekend. She couldn’t even post an 
emoji? Her silence was louder than the crowds of singing fans in Vienna. Despite the threats, we made it out of Vienna alive. The terrorists didn’t get us, though we did have to narrowly escape aggressive Uber drivers and the horse-drawn carriages.
The journey to Munich
One of the reasons we felt okay about booking a 5.5 hour bus to Munich is that we thought we’d be riding high after the Eras Tour and pregaming Adele after sleeping like babies. So we’d spend our bus trip fresh-faced, listening to our favorite pop girlies.
Without the concert, we were instead out until 2 am, drinking more than you ever want to be drinking before you need to be trapped on a long journey anywhere. We barely got 3.5 hours of sleep and we were on our way to the dump that is Vienna’s bus terminal where we waited almost an hour for our bus which was delayed. And instead of arriving in Munich at the scheduled 2:40 pm, we arrived at 3:30 pm. The worst part of our trip to Munich is that we had to pass Messe, where Adele was performing to get to our hotel. So we took the U-bahn an extra 35 minutes to city center just to check into the hotel, drop off our bags, and travel those same 35 minutes back to Messe.
And despite all that, we lucked out. By this part of the weekend, we had left almost everyone else behind. Some people dropped off in Vienna, some people didn’t even make it out of Prague after the Taylor concert was cancelled. The only other two people coming with us to Munich decided to take a high-speed train. And while it was approximately 2.5 hours shorter than our trip, they made half of the trek standing in the aisle because it was oversold and there were no seats.
We arrived in Munich exhausted 6 hours later. We barely had time to get a coffee and change before we had to be on the way to Adele.
Healing with Adele
When a concert you were scheduled to attend was almost attacked by terrorists, you feel a little skittish around record-breaking crowds. So boarding the U-bahn and setting off into the 80,000 person stadium that Adele built herself for this residency in Munich the day after the aborted Taylor show felt a little precarious. But when we entered the surrounding Adele World, we were charmed by the scale of the whole thing and forgot all about the ever-present threat of danger.
I have to hand it to Adele. She’s as extra as she is down-to-earth. The grounds of Adele World had everything you might imagine including an Adele beer garden where the Bavarian band plays nothing but Adele songs, carnival rides, entertainers on stilts, and a second stage with some performers and karaoke. You almost forget you’re attending a concert and not just walking around enjoying the festive atmosphere. The merch situation was insane and the lines for a shirt or custom Adele Haribo gummies were three or four times the wait of the lines for food and drink.
Unlike Swifties who dress like they’re about to be transported to a sparkling world of glitter and bubblegum pop, Adele fans all dress like they’re going to a funeral, an ode to the simple and classy black dresses she always performs in. I suppose black is an apt outfit for the amount of crying everyone did as she belted out some of her greatest and most emotional hits. Although wearing all black in that punishing sun was incredibly uncomfortable.
Since Ticketmaster is such a piece of shit, everyone around us was playing musical chairs to try to sit together with the people they came to this concert with. Luckily, everyone was understanding and ended up together. Thankfully the separate seat situation was the last of the hiccups of the weekend. The custom-made stadium is designed in such a way that you feel like you’re pretty close with a good view even if you’re in the very back of the second to last section of the stadium.
When Adele came on stage, her presence immediately enveloped us in awe and warmth. The experience was absolutely worth the exorbitant cost; Adele gave us catharsis, laughter, and joy. And it was so well-organized that after the show, we walked straight to the shuttle buses that take you right to city center with no wait at all. All things considered, it is without a doubt the best stadium show I’ve ever attended. But then again, I don’t have the Eras Tour to compare it to.
Auf Wiedersehen, München!
After all the effort, stress, and last minute shakeups of the weekend, we barely had the energy to do anything in Munich, which was exceptionally crowded and exceptionally hot. Every restaurant had a line and with nowhere to go on Sunday, people in town for Adele filled up museums and parks, making it nearly impossible to enjoy much of anything except liter after liter of beer.
With barely four hours of sleep and a mild hangover, we plopped down for the third 5.5-hour journey of the weekend back to Prague on a disgusting muggy train. Exhausted and broke, we survived the weekend of August 9, a weekend few of us will ever forget. We made the best of it despite all the odds, and in the end, the Eras Tour was the friends we made along the way. But next time one of these pop sensations has a tour stop nearby, I think I’ll stay home!
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