Taylor Swift Fans Prepare for 44-Song-Long Eras Tour Shows

She will swap her usual cocktail or white wine for an electrolyte drink, she said. Mentally, Ms. Meiler is pulling confidence from the 24-hour dance marathons she completed in college. “If I can do that, I can do a Taylor Swift tour.”

Ms. Swift stunned fans opening night on her first tour in five years by performing a 190-minute set that followed two opening acts. Word spread quickly online of the show’s length, prompting nervous strategy brainstorms among fans now rethinking everything from their elaborate outfits to hydration methods.

The Eras Tour, which is scheduled to run 52 stadium dates, is forecast to become the highest-grossing of all time, according to concert-data tracker Pollstar. The show is a combination of Ms. Swift’s pandemic pursuits and her efforts to take ownership of her life’s work by rerecording her early music. After her festival-style shows for her 2019 “Lover” album were canceled because of Covid-19, she released two surprise albums penned in pandemic isolation. 

The Eras Tour set list spans her entire catalog, including songs from “Folklore,” which won the Grammy for Album of the Year and “Evermore,” which earned a Grammy nomination—as well as hits that she rerecorded from “Fearless” and “Red.” Late last year, she released “Midnights,” which shattered sales records. 

Packing so much material into one show amounts to an endurance test for Ms. Swift, too. Her 44-song set dwarfs that of other rock stars known for long shows, according to data from Setlist.fm. Prince’s 2004 shows and Beyoncé’s 2018 Coachella sets each averaged 32 songs. Bruce Springsteen averaged 29 songs in 1985 and 27 in 2012. Bob Dylan’s 1978 world tour averaged 28 songs, according to Setlist.fm. 

Stadium shows are a badge of honor for music’s biggest stars. Only an elite few can fill them, and on this tour Ms. Swift has sold out multiple nights in each city she visits. Her Homeric effort, which includes the 10-minute version of fan-favorite song “All Too Well,” is baffling fans and industry insiders. 

“Sure, Springsteen and Prince played these legendary long shows, but they were not singing the entire time. They had bands, and a whole lot of instrumental work that extended out the show,” said Nathan Hubbard, former Ticketmaster chief executive and co-host of the Ringer’s “Every Single Album: Taylor Swift” podcast series. 

“Taylor is singing as the center lead for the entirety of the show, and she’s doing it in heels,” he said.

A representative for Ms. Swift didn’t respond to a request for comment.

In addition to singing and dancing, Ms. Swift flies, runs, climbs and, yes, even dives (spoiler alert: at one point it looks like she’s swimming) around the stadium—in a series of custom Christian Louboutins. 

“Three-hour shows. @taylorswift is definitely a distance swimmer,” Olympic gold-medalist swimmer Katie Ledecky tweeted Tuesday.

Mr. Hubbard estimated that if Ms. Swift’s movements were tracked as soccer players were during the World Cup, she travels a mile during the show, maybe two. 

Former NFL defensive end J.J. Watt lauded Ms. Swift’s rigor in a 2½-minute video posted to Twitter after seeing her Saturday show in Glendale, Ariz.  

“She did not stop the whole time—there was no halftime, there was no TV timeouts,” he said. “She crushed it, and she didn’t even look tired. I was tired, and I was just sitting there.”

Daniela Morgan, 40, is doubling up on Las Vegas shows this weekend. On Friday night, she is attending solo with a $760 standing-room-only floor ticket. For Saturday night, Ms. Morgan initially planned to take a friend, but her 10-year-old son, Eli, begged to go instead. 

Eli has heard reminders from his dad about the responsibility that comes with taking a $350 ticket to see his mom’s favorite artist, Ms. Morgan said. Still, she is worried about her son needing snacks and bathroom breaks. “Is my kid going to be able to hang three hours?” she said. 

Claire Ginther, a 26-year-old from Huntington Beach, Calif., has a shoe dilemma. To see Ms. Swift in Las Vegas this weekend, she had planned an outfit based on the pastel, 1960s aesthetic of Ms. Swift’s “Lover” album. Her new go-go boots arrived this week, but now she is debating switching to sneakers for comfort. With her 5’1” height and $750 floor tickets, she risks not being able to see much, she said.

For advice, she is combing through TikTok, where concertgoers are trading survival tips. “You’d think people are talking about running the L.A. Marathon,” she said. “They’re talking about going to see Taylor Swift.”

Meanwhile, Ms. Ginther wonders about Ms. Swift’s stamina lasting until the tour’s closing shows in Los Angeles in August, for which Ms. Ginther said she paid $100 for a nosebleed seat. “Is she just going to be crawling to the finish line when she gets to L.A.?”

For an April show in Texas, Catherine Frisina, 33, plans to hydrate sparingly with Liquid I.V., a powder that is mixed with water and promises an energy boost. “If Taylor doesn’t need a bathroom break neither do I,” she said. 

Andrea Alfano, who fueled up with pizza for back-to-back concerts on the tour’s opening weekend, said making it through the actual show isn’t the hardest part. 

“The adrenaline of being there carries you through the show itself,” the 26-year-old daycare teacher said. It was after the show in Glendale—facing an hourslong wait for an Uber—when she realized she was tired and her cowboy-boot-clad feet hurt. “The hardest part is getting out of the stadium.”

When the long set list leaked ahead of the first concert, Ms. Alfano thought it was a joke until she realized—two hours into the show—that Ms. Swift still had several albums of material left to play. “I did pay a lot and put in a lot of effort for those tickets,” she said of the $1,050 she spent to go both nights. “I felt like I got a lot.”

At three hours, Rob Dobyns said his favorite part about Ms. Swift’s upcoming show in Kansas City is that his wife and three teen daughters are going and he isn’t. The 45-year-old prefers ’90s Seattle grunge bands but calls himself a Taylor Swift fan by proxy. “I couldn’t tell you the name of any songs but as they’re constantly screamed throughout the house, I could probably sing along to several.”

His wife, whom he calls “the hype man for our family,” will make the three-hour trek from Council Bluffs, Iowa, to Kansas City, Mo., where the ladies will stay in a hotel and take a limo to the show. Back home, Mr. Dobyns, a retired cop turned software engineer, has plans for a marathon of his own: scary movies, beer and steaks for himself and the dog.

Write to Anne Steele at anne.steele@wsj.com

She will swap her usual cocktail or white wine for an electrolyte drink, she said. Mentally, Ms. Meiler is pulling confidence from the 24-hour dance marathons she completed in college. “If I can do that, I can do a Taylor Swift tour.”

Ms. Swift stunned fans opening night on her first tour in five years by performing a 190-minute set that followed two opening acts. Word spread quickly online of the show’s length, prompting nervous strategy brainstorms among fans now rethinking everything from their elaborate outfits to hydration methods.

The Eras Tour, which is scheduled to run 52 stadium dates, is forecast to become the highest-grossing of all time, according to concert-data tracker Pollstar. The show is a combination of Ms. Swift’s pandemic pursuits and her efforts to take ownership of her life’s work by rerecording her early music. After her festival-style shows for her 2019 “Lover” album were canceled because of Covid-19, she released two surprise albums penned in pandemic isolation. 

The Eras Tour set list spans her entire catalog, including songs from “Folklore,” which won the Grammy for Album of the Year and “Evermore,” which earned a Grammy nomination—as well as hits that she rerecorded from “Fearless” and “Red.” Late last year, she released “Midnights,” which shattered sales records. 

Packing so much material into one show amounts to an endurance test for Ms. Swift, too. Her 44-song set dwarfs that of other rock stars known for long shows, according to data from Setlist.fm. Prince’s 2004 shows and Beyoncé’s 2018 Coachella sets each averaged 32 songs. Bruce Springsteen averaged 29 songs in 1985 and 27 in 2012. Bob Dylan’s 1978 world tour averaged 28 songs, according to Setlist.fm. 

Stadium shows are a badge of honor for music’s biggest stars. Only an elite few can fill them, and on this tour Ms. Swift has sold out multiple nights in each city she visits. Her Homeric effort, which includes the 10-minute version of fan-favorite song “All Too Well,” is baffling fans and industry insiders. 

“Sure, Springsteen and Prince played these legendary long shows, but they were not singing the entire time. They had bands, and a whole lot of instrumental work that extended out the show,” said Nathan Hubbard, former Ticketmaster chief executive and co-host of the Ringer’s “Every Single Album: Taylor Swift” podcast series. 

“Taylor is singing as the center lead for the entirety of the show, and she’s doing it in heels,” he said.

A representative for Ms. Swift didn’t respond to a request for comment.

In addition to singing and dancing, Ms. Swift flies, runs, climbs and, yes, even dives (spoiler alert: at one point it looks like she’s swimming) around the stadium—in a series of custom Christian Louboutins. 

“Three-hour shows. @taylorswift is definitely a distance swimmer,” Olympic gold-medalist swimmer Katie Ledecky tweeted Tuesday.

Mr. Hubbard estimated that if Ms. Swift’s movements were tracked as soccer players were during the World Cup, she travels a mile during the show, maybe two. 

Former NFL defensive end J.J. Watt lauded Ms. Swift’s rigor in a 2½-minute video posted to Twitter after seeing her Saturday show in Glendale, Ariz.  

“She did not stop the whole time—there was no halftime, there was no TV timeouts,” he said. “She crushed it, and she didn’t even look tired. I was tired, and I was just sitting there.”

Daniela Morgan, 40, is doubling up on Las Vegas shows this weekend. On Friday night, she is attending solo with a $760 standing-room-only floor ticket. For Saturday night, Ms. Morgan initially planned to take a friend, but her 10-year-old son, Eli, begged to go instead. 

Eli has heard reminders from his dad about the responsibility that comes with taking a $350 ticket to see his mom’s favorite artist, Ms. Morgan said. Still, she is worried about her son needing snacks and bathroom breaks. “Is my kid going to be able to hang three hours?” she said. 

Claire Ginther, a 26-year-old from Huntington Beach, Calif., has a shoe dilemma. To see Ms. Swift in Las Vegas this weekend, she had planned an outfit based on the pastel, 1960s aesthetic of Ms. Swift’s “Lover” album. Her new go-go boots arrived this week, but now she is debating switching to sneakers for comfort. With her 5’1” height and $750 floor tickets, she risks not being able to see much, she said.

For advice, she is combing through TikTok, where concertgoers are trading survival tips. “You’d think people are talking about running the L.A. Marathon,” she said. “They’re talking about going to see Taylor Swift.”

Meanwhile, Ms. Ginther wonders about Ms. Swift’s stamina lasting until the tour’s closing shows in Los Angeles in August, for which Ms. Ginther said she paid $100 for a nosebleed seat. “Is she just going to be crawling to the finish line when she gets to L.A.?”

For an April show in Texas, Catherine Frisina, 33, plans to hydrate sparingly with Liquid I.V., a powder that is mixed with water and promises an energy boost. “If Taylor doesn’t need a bathroom break neither do I,” she said. 

Andrea Alfano, who fueled up with pizza for back-to-back concerts on the tour’s opening weekend, said making it through the actual show isn’t the hardest part. 

“The adrenaline of being there carries you through the show itself,” the 26-year-old daycare teacher said. It was after the show in Glendale—facing an hourslong wait for an Uber—when she realized she was tired and her cowboy-boot-clad feet hurt. “The hardest part is getting out of the stadium.”

When the long set list leaked ahead of the first concert, Ms. Alfano thought it was a joke until she realized—two hours into the show—that Ms. Swift still had several albums of material left to play. “I did pay a lot and put in a lot of effort for those tickets,” she said of the $1,050 she spent to go both nights. “I felt like I got a lot.”

At three hours, Rob Dobyns said his favorite part about Ms. Swift’s upcoming show in Kansas City is that his wife and three teen daughters are going and he isn’t. The 45-year-old prefers ’90s Seattle grunge bands but calls himself a Taylor Swift fan by proxy. “I couldn’t tell you the name of any songs but as they’re constantly screamed throughout the house, I could probably sing along to several.”

His wife, whom he calls “the hype man for our family,” will make the three-hour trek from Council Bluffs, Iowa, to Kansas City, Mo., where the ladies will stay in a hotel and take a limo to the show. Back home, Mr. Dobyns, a retired cop turned software engineer, has plans for a marathon of his own: scary movies, beer and steaks for himself and the dog.

Write to Anne Steele at anne.steele@wsj.com