Fearless Tour

in 2007. Big Machine Records released Fearless, the second album of the American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift, on November 11, 2008, in North America. She wrote the majority of the album while touring as an opening act for country musicians such as Brad Paisley and Rascal Flatts throughout 2007–2008. Fearless topped the US Billboard 200 for 11 weeks and made Swift the best-selling musician of 2008 in the United States. The first 52 shows visited cities across the United States, kicking off in Evansville, Indiana, on April 23, 2009. Kellie Pickler and Gloriana were announced as opening acts. The tour took place after Swift, aged 19, finished high school. and a Manchester show announced in August; both were scheduled for November. Justin Bieber was announced as the supporting act. On September 30, 2009, Swift announced a February 2010 Australian leg, and a week later, she announced 37 additional shows in North America, scheduled for March–June 2010. In January 2010, she announced a show in Tokyo, Japan, scheduled for February. The last US show was held on June 5, 2010, at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts. The Fearless Tour also visited the Bahamas and, in total, covered 118 shows over 15 months, until July 10, 2010. == Production and stage ==

Swift was inspired by her childhood years at the community theater to incorporate theatrical elements to the stage: "[...] I never want people to think that they're just seeing a show where I'm playing song after song after song. When I play a song, I want people to feel like they're experiencing exactly what I went through when I wrote the song as I'm singing it for them." She involved herself in the stage designing process with the production designer Jonathan Smeeton, who helped realize Swift's vision for theatrical and dramatic settings that accompanied the narratives of her songs. Smeeton conceived the ideas and collaborated with Barry Otto from the production company CT Touring over a few weeks at a studio to execute the designs. In total, the equipment included 12 Barco FLM HD projectors, 56 Martin Professional 40mm LED panels, 4 Sony HDC 1500 HD cameras, and 1 Grass Valley Kayak 200 HD flypack system. The tour's front of house (FOH) engineer, Russell Fischer, and mixer, Andrea "Vito" Carena, chose Audio-Technica's 5000 Series Wireless System for the lead and background vocals. Swift used Audio-Technica's Artist Elite 5000 Series UHF Wireless System with an AEW-T4100 handheld transmitter for her lead vocals. Fischer selected other microphones from Audio-Technica for the background vocals (AEW-T5400), systems (AEW-R5200), guitars and overheads (AT4050 Cardioid), and kick drums (ATM25 Hypercardioid). Fischer selected Audio-Technica because their products had "massive rejection and controllable gain before feedback" and ensured that the feedback generated by Swift's movements around the audio systems did not get into the mix. One month before the tour kicked off, Swift held open-call auditions to recruit dancers. Six dancers in total were finalized: three males and three females. Rehearsals took place in an old steel factory in Nashville, Tennessee, starting in February 2009 and lasting for over a month. There were over 150 personnel working full-time for the Fearless Tour, including band members, dancers, stage designers, logisticians, chefs, wardrobe personnel, public relations personnel, and drivers for trucks and buses. ==Concert synopsis==

Each concert lasted for two hours and encompassed 17 songs for the 2009 shows The set list consisted of songs mostly from Fearless and some from Swift's 2006 album Taylor Swift. Before the concert began, the screen showed footage of celebrities including Miley Cyrus, Faith Hill, and Garth Brooks sharing their definitions of the word "fearless". {{multiple image The show opened with the stage decorated as a school hallway as background videos showed lockers; six background dancers were dressed as cheerleaders, and the seven-member backing band wore marching band outfits. Swift appeared at the top of the stage, in a drum majorette uniform, and sang "You Belong with Me". Midway, the dancers removed her marching-band outfit to reveal a sparkling, silver cocktail dress and boots. She then played a sparkling rhinestoned acoustic guitar to sing "Our Song" before she performed "Tell Me Why". Then, she spoke to her audience about an unrequited love in high school, as the background screen showed a library, and performed "Teardrops on My Guitar"; After speaking to her audience about finding true love, she sang "Fearless", strumming an acoustic guitar and twirling across the stage. .|alt=Swift singing onto a mic, wearing a teal dress and cowboy boots. The next segment began with a video showing Swift doing a mock interview with Hoda Kotb, who asked Swift why any male should date her if she would call out their wrongdoings in her songs. Swift responded that if the boyfriends did not want that they "shouldn't do bad things". The concert proceeded with a video skit titled "Crimes of Passion" featuring a detective tracing how Swift's name-dropping ex-boyfriends in her songs affected their lives. Midway through the song, Swift, in a knee-length dress and cowboy boots, went down the aisle toward a rotating B-stage at the floor level, as she hugged her fans and signed autographs for them. For the performance of "Love Story", the backup dancers wore Victorian clothing and danced to Pachelbel's Canon as a castle backdrop was projected onto the stage. Swift appeared at the top of the stage, donning a crimson gown with golden accents She then changed to a sparkling purple mini-dress to sing "The Way I Loved You", accompanied by a male backup dancer in a tuxedo. to sing "You're Not Sorry"|alt=refer to caption Next, she played a baby grand piano at the top of the stage to sing "You're Not Sorry" The next number was "Picture to Burn", accompanied by background projections of burning flames. The encore for the 2009 shows included two songs: "I'm Only Me When I'm with You" and "Should've Said No"; For the 2010 shows, Swift replaced "I'm Only Me When I'm with You" with the soundtrack single "Today Was a Fairytale" and sang it alone. For the closing number, "Should've Said No", she recalled an ex-boyfriend who cheated on her in a speech to the audience before singing the song as the stage was accompanied by artificial rainfall. == Critical reception ==

The Fearless Tour received generally positive reviews in the press. Many journalists commented that Swift's stage presence and interactions with her audience contributed to her relatability. Craig S. Semon from the Telegram & Gazette and Kevin C. Johnson of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch deemed her stage presence confident and contagious. ".|alt=Swift playing a guitar, donning a yellow dress Other reviews praised Swift's songwriting and artistry. The Washington Posts David Malitz wrote that Swift did not have the "most dynamic" stage presence, but he said her performances made the emotional sentiments of her songs more palpable. Reviews of the last US show in Foxborough opined that Swift had improved her live vocals; Jay N. Miller of The Patriot Ledger admired Swift's vocal stability, == Ticket sales and box office ==

in Los Angeles; tickets for the show on May 22, 2009, sold out in two minutes.|alt=Swift singing on an acoustic guitar wearing a sparkly dress|left Tickets for the first Fearless Tour shows went on sale starting February 6, 2009, through Ticketmaster. and declared Swift one of the "rising stars" in touring. The first on-sale tickets were for the May 22, 2009, Los Angeles show at Staples Center, and they sold out within two minutes. The next on-sale shows were similarly sold out in minutes; the Evansville show sold out in just 30 seconds and the New York City show within 60 seconds. In honor of the kickoff of the sold-out tour in Evansville, Swift was presented the key to the city and the City Council President declared April 23, 2009, to be "Taylor Swift Day". High demands for the tour drove a secondary market where scalpers resold tickets at a much higher price than the original; Louis Messina, the president of the tour's promoter AEG Live, said that the situation demanded legal intervention and had lobbied for anti-scalping laws. Sales for the second US leg took place via Comcast starting October 23, 2009, after the first leg had wrapped. Tickets for all of the 15 announced stops sold out within two minutes, leading Swift to add additional shows. Her headlining performance at Country USA in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, on June 24, 2009, registered 42,000 people in attendance, the largest up to that point during the festival's 14-year history. Her headlining session at the North Dakota State Fair on July 25, 2009, attracted 50,646 people, marking the first time the festival recorded a daily attendance of over 40,000. Swift became one of the artists to sell out the Save Mart Center in Fresno, California less than 10 minutes, and she became the first female musician to headline and sell out Gillette Stadium in Foxborough. According to Pollstar, it was the 48th-highest-grossing tour of 2009 and 28th-highest-grossing of 2010. As reported by Billboard, the Fearless Tour was one of the "Hot Tours" and the 15th-highest-grossing of 2010, with 45 sellout shows out of 47 total, 643,168 in attendance, and $40,312,810 in gross. The highest-grossing show was at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough; it brought $3.7 million in ticket sales from 56,868 concertgoers. A finalized estimate by Billboard as of 2018 claimed that the total gross was $66.5 million. ==Recording and broadcast==

On May 31, 2009, NBC broadcast a one-hour special titled Dateline: On Tour with Taylor Swift as part of Dateline. The special was shot over three months and documented the making and behind-the-scenes of the Fearless Tour, including concert backstage footage from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Footage of the tour also featured in the music video for the track "Fearless", released in February 2010. From October 22–24, 2010, The Hub aired a three-part music documentary miniseries titled Journey to Fearless. Journey to Fearless was released on Blu-ray and DVD through Shout! Factory on October 11, 2011; it runs for 135 minutes and contains 13 live numbers alongside behind-the-scenes footage. American Songwriter Dan Weiss found the DVD release's timing odd because it was concurrent with the release of Speak Now World Tour – Live, when Swift was promoting her third album Speak Now. Giving it a 2.5-star rating, Weiss said that the DVD contained some lovely moments, but it was not groundbreaking and offered insufficient insights into Swift's rise to stardom. McDonnell was more positive and said the DVD was a "fun way" for fans to explore Swift more deeply. In 2016, Journey to Fearless was certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association for its DVD sales in Australia. ==Set list==

The following is the set list adapted from the show on May 1, 2009, in Jacksonville. It is not meant to represent all shows. Encore Notes • "Change" was removed from the set list on October 1, 2009. • "Today Was a Fairytale" replaced "I'm Only Me When I'm with You" for the 2010 shows. • "The Best Day" was performed in Evansville on April 23, 2009, and in Moline on May 8, 2010. • "Jump then Fall" was performed during the encore in Foxborough on June 5, 2010. Special guests • During the show in Los Angeles on May 22, 2009, Swift performed "Your Body Is a Wonderland" and "White Horse" with John Mayer. • During the show in Los Angeles on April 15, 2010, Swift performed "Hot n Cold" with Katy Perry. ==Tour dates==