What is Funflation? Impact of Taylor Swift and Beyoncé's tours in boosting the Economy explored 

Taylor Swift and Beyonce Knowles Carter are currently considered to be two of the greatest pop stars from the US and their impact is felt in more than just the music world.

The two stars have had impact on a whole host of area, especially the economy. They are set to generate a projected revenue of more than $5 billion and $2.4 billion respectively in the near future.

Now, the Bank of America, the second largest bank in the United States of America as well as the rest of the world, has released a report on the entertainment sector. The report has placed particular emphasis on mega stars such as these two and is titled "Funinflation in Full force."

The report suggests that the boom to the economy provided by the big scale artists such as Swift and Carter may continue beyond the immediate few months. It proposes that this could be a new trend in itself.

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Funinflation in Force: Bank of America, Taylor Swift and Beyonce Knowles Carter

The Bank of America report, published on September 13, suggests that live entertainment will remain the most robust sector of the entertainment industry for the forseeable future.

One reason for this was the COVID-19 generated cabin fever in the wider public. Combined with the prevalance of new age social and digital media based artist discovery, it believes this will drive several trends to be stable in the future.

This combination of cabin fever leading to people spending on live entertainment with their savings and digital media's prevalence is essentially what the report refers to as 'funflation.'

A section of it read:

"This backdrop has supported supply and demand tailwinds which all appear to be sustainable over the next several years.

"We view several of these intermediate to longer term drivers as sustainable and believe this sub-segment of the music industry should continue to outperform driven by: 1) Consumer spending shifts toward services and away from goods, 2) demographic shift in preferences toward experiences among the younger millennial and Gen Z population - which are also becoming more important elements of the workforce with increasing incomes and wealth as a result, and 3) the intersection between social media and music which is driving artist and event discovery, and also helping to drive demand by enabling experience sharing."

The report then goes on to note the increased market demand generated by social media and a broader global audience in the post pandemic era.

It states that this has also had a positive effect on the regulatory atmosphere. Increased scrutiny has been generated by companies such as Live Nation and Ticketmaster due to their failure to meet the increased demands.

The report concludes by putting Taylor Swift and Beyonce at the top of the North America live music artists list in terms of supply and demand, stating:

"Thus far, 2023 is trending towards being even bigger year than 2022, with Taylor Swift's Eras Tour leading the way with what is shaping up to be the highest grossing tour of all time (estimates currently sit at over $1bn in gross sales). Through the first half of the year, the Eras Tour grossed a little over $300mn."

The report continues:

"Conservative estimates indicate Beyonce's Renaissance world tour could gross between $275-$700mn, while more aggressive forecasts are calling for the tour to outgross Taylor Swift's potential record breaking run."

The conservative estimates of the report regarding the revenue likely to be generated by Taylor Swift and Beyonce have so far tallied up. Beyonce's tour currently sits at $579 million and Taylor Swift's tour has already exceeded $1.4 billion in sales.