B.C. charities report benefiting from Taylor Swift effect

B.C. charities say they too are benefiting from the arrival of Taylor Swift and her Eras Tour concerts this weekend.

Some good causes are raising what’s being called “transformative” amounts of money from auctioning off tickets to the show and hotel suites.

Howard Blank with Point Blank Entertainment has helped some of the charities with auction events and says he’s had pairs of tickets go for up to $50,000 and suites going for $200,000 or $300,000.

“When a charity is given a pair of tickets with, say, a $2,000 face value, and they can do 10 or 20 times that value. It’s unbelievable,” said Blank. “And the great thing is, many charities can offer a tax receipt based on the difference. So it’s a win, win.”

Blank highlighted the Langley Lodge Senior Society, where he says an auction winner paid around $16,000 for tickets.

He says Swift is a phenomenon, bigger than what he witnessed working at BC Place during a Michael Jackson tour.

‘I think we’re all Swifties. And the great thing about being a Swiftie is you don’t have to go to the concert to love it. But as a charity, you can even love it more, because she has performed a transformation to the budgets of many charities, and as we know, will be to the lives of many people who attend.”