{"id":56183,"date":"2022-11-21T21:52:48","date_gmt":"2022-11-22T02:52:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=56183"},"modified":"2022-11-21T21:52:55","modified_gmt":"2022-11-22T02:52:55","slug":"taylor-swift-played-lehigh-acres-in-2007-and-tickets-were-free","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2022\/11\/taylor-swift-played-lehigh-acres-in-2007-and-tickets-were-free\/","title":{"rendered":"Taylor Swift played Lehigh Acres in 2007 and Tickets were free"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In 2007 Swift was just an up-and-coming country singer when she played at the annual Lehigh Spring Festival in Lehigh Acres. And tickets for that March 17 show were absolutely\u00a0free.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A lot\u2019s changed since 2007, of course. The Lehigh Spring Festival is no more. And Swift went on to win 11 Grammy Awards, pack arenas worldwide, and sell more than 200 million albums.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But 15 years ago, Swift was just at the start of her climb to mega-stardom. And the tiny Lehigh Spring Festival managed to snag her for a concert on that cold Saturday night in March 2007.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How Taylor Swift played Lehigh Acres<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back in 2006, the Lehigh Spring Fest was looking for live bands for its 2007 festival \u2014 especially country singers for its planned \u201cGone Country\u201d theme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luckily, Swift was still available for festival bookings through her talent agency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Months later, the 17-year-old Swift and her band rolled up for sound check at Veterans Park in two huge tour buses. \u201cI was like, \u2018Oh dear, where are we going to park those things!\u2019\u201d Andy Reisinger recalls. \u201cIt took a little finagling on the driver\u2019s part, but we made it happen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reisinger met Swift for the first time on her tour bus and later at a meet-and-greet with fans. She even posed for a photo with him.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cShe was absolutely warmhearted, caring, very personable,\u201d he says. \u201cYou can tell she was really sincere.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, 8 p.m. arrived and it was time for Swift hit the stage. An estimated 3,500 to 4,000 people packed the audience for the outdoor show.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Swift performed for about 90 minutes and sang every song from her debut album, Jackson says, including \u201cTim McGraw,\u201d \u201cTeardrops on My Guitar,\u201d \u201cShould\u2019ve Said No\u201d and \u201cOur Song.\u201d She even hopped off the stage and danced with a kid in the audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They’ll always have Lehigh Acres<\/p>\n\n\n

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Now, 15 years later, many of the people who saw that show cherish the memory. Especially considering how huge of a star Swift became afterward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow much do you think it would cost to book her now?\u201d Debbie Jackson says. \u201cI paid $8,500 (laughs). And that was a stretch for the Lehigh Spring Festival, you know?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 2007 Swift was just an up-and-coming country singer when she played at the annual Lehigh Spring Festival in Lehigh Acres. And tickets for that March 17 show were absolutely\u00a0free.… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":56187,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[1934],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56183"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56183"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56183\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56189,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56183\/revisions\/56189"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}