About 15 years ago my wife and I went to a River Dance performance in San Diego. She liked it and I was bored but tried not to complain too much. One thing that did catch my eye afterward was a tractor-trailer parked on the street outside the theater. Its van was lettered “River Dance” so it was obvious that the rig had carried props, costumes and such to the show. One truck was all that was needed to support that rather simple production.
One semi would’ve had to make 80 or more trips to Columbus this past weekend because pop music star Taylor Swift’s Reputation Tour needed so much stuff to pull off. It was an extravaganza, and supposedly one of the biggest single shows to ever hit Ohio Stadium, normally the home of the Ohio State Buckeye football team.
Swift and her large troupe came to town with a sizeable logistics train. Local media said it included 52 semis carrying costumes and props, plus musical instruments (including a grand piano), big screens, a complex sound system with mixers and monster speakers, electrical and lighting gear, and on and on.
Another 30 flatbed semis carried steel gantries and other structural members that supported the stage and much of the equipment during the show. A neat play on names would’ve been the hiring of Swift Transportation semis, but no, they all appeared dedicated to this hauling job and many of the vans had special graphics.
Workers labored for two days setting everything up. Swift’s show on Saturday night lasted two hours. Taking it all down and loading everything back aboard the trucks took about a day. No doubt the 60,000 fans who attended the event loved it, and her.
“To be sure, it was as dazzling a show as this town has seen,” said a reviewer for the Columbus Dispatch, ”and her gesture rang genuine.” That gesture was her thanking the 500 workers, some local and some in her employ, who set it all up.
I suppose Swift and the other performers traveled in special buses, though news reports didn’t mention them. Somehow my wife and I didn’t make it there in our car, even though there was room in the stadium for another 42,000 people. Maybe next time, if only to see all those trucks.