“I’ll give up my bedroom for a Taylor Swift concert.” This is how you can earn money

Concerts of foreign stars are enjoyed not only by fans, but also by hoteliers and owners of short-term rental apartments. Concerts by Metallica (July, Warsaw), Ed Sheeran (Gdańsk, also July) or Justin Timberlake (this weekend in Krakow) attract tourists from all over Europe. Fans want to see the performance, they also do some sightseeing, they spend money in restaurants – the tourist business is booming.

Accommodation during Taylor Swift concert

Seeing the huge interest, world stars play not one, but two or three concerts day after day. The largest stadiums gather 80,000 spectators – that’s how many will enter the PGE Narodowy, where Taylor Swift will play on August 1, 2 and 3. The more forward-thinking fans rented a room or apartment immediately after buying tickets – and still paid more for accommodation than at any other time. In April, Wirtualna Polska checked that a two-person room at the last Metro Bemowo station costs PLN 575/night in July, and PLN 1,625/night during the concerts. That’s over 180 percent more and PLN 3,250 for the entire stay.

If someone didn’t take care of accommodation early enough, they can still rent something. We check available apartments on Booking – starting from the lowest prices. The cheapest apartments are in districts far from the city center – for example, a studio apartment in Włochy can be rented for one day for PLN 660, and by Metro Zacisze for PLN 700 (in both cases it’s an apartment for two people). Not bad, it’s still not a ruinous price. The closer to the stadium, the more expensive. The service has no shortage of offers from Śródmieście or nearby Ochota for PLN 1,600/day.

I will give up my bedroom for the duration of the concert.

People who have family or friends in Warsaw who are willing to put them up are in a good situation. If you look hard enough (preferably on Facebook groups that exchange accommodation: barter, house swapping), you can arrange to spend the night with a stranger in exchange for a favor or for sharing your own apartment. The more resourceful Varsovians rent out their apartments or parts of them for a small fee. This is what my friend does.

– Three years ago, students from Vietnam came to me, and a few days before Ed Sheeran’s concert, the owner of the apartment they rented via the platform canceled their reservation. They got compensation, but what good were those extra few hundred zlotys for, since the only options left were apartments starting from PLN 1,600 per night – and they wanted to spend two more days in Warsaw after the concert, so it was a horrendous amount of money – says Ola.

Since the students wrote to her through a solo traveler service, my friend put them up for two nights in exchange for buying dinner and feeling like she had done something good. A year later, a tourist from Ireland stayed at her apartment for a Beyonce concert, and in early July, during a Metallica concert, her friends stayed overnight.

– In March, people from abroad started writing to me on a travel group, asking me to put them up for the Taylor Swift concert. I turned them down because I had outgrown Couchsurfing. Later, it occurred to me that I could rent a bedroom for a small amount of money – Ola continues.

She decided to rent a room to a couple for 200 PLN per night. The guests will stay for two days because they want to do some sightseeing in Warsaw.

– My husband was sceptical that strangers would be hanging around the apartment again, but I convinced him that it would be a minor inconvenience for us and we would get some small but tangible money – concludes my friend.

There are many who go much further in their business and move to their parents’ house for the duration of stadium concerts or go on vacation and rent out the entire apartment to their fans.

How much are Taylor Swift concert tickets?

How much do you have to pay for tickets to the American star’s concert? The cheapest tickets start at PLN 199. This is the price for the upper stand, with the worst visibility. Lower stands cost from PLN 599-749. The main floor costs from PLN 519-669. VIP seats are the most expensive – up to PLN 2,250.

Taylor Swift is the first star in the history of PGE Narodowy to sell out three concerts, one day at a time. The Warsaw concerts are part of the worldwide The Eras Tour.