Judith Morales del Barco 
This is why the Swifties are the Swifties.
On Friday, torrential rain in Buenos Aires forced Taylor Swift to move her second show to Sunday, November 12. This left countless fans, some of whom had traveled thousands of miles just to see the pop icon, with no place to stay, no return ticket home, and, in some cases, no money to purchase a new one.
Fortunately, they had each other — and an Argentine sense of solidarity.
According to data gathered by Lighthouse, formerly OTA Insight, approximately 55% of Buenos Aires’ hotels were booked last weekend thanks to Swift’s Eras Tour alone. When the Swifties learned of this, they took to X (formerly Twitter) and swiftly came up with a solution, connecting stranded concertgoers to residents with a bed or sofa to spare.
Florencia Maggio played a vital role in this effort. Before the Eras tour was announced, and long before its Argentine leg was confirmed, Maggio, 23, actually moved from Argentina to the United States in order to have a better chance of seeing Swift perform.
This was not the first time that Maggio had aided her fellow Swifties. As she told the Herald, she had already helped fans on X buy and resell tickets to Swift’s concerts, and was even afforded a few passes to give away for free. On the night of November 10, she received over 3,000 messages from fans asking for help and was able to accommodate almost all of them.
Maggio also created a broadcast channel where people from the provinces or abroad could exchange tickets for Sunday and Saturday’s shows with fans from Buenos Aires willing to make the swap. After launching the channel last week, she received approximately 900 requests and was able to answer upwards of 500.
One of the fans in contact with Maggio was Valentina, 20, who traveled to Buenos Aires from Córdoba with her 13-year-old sister. Support from the Swifties was overwhelming: Valentina received thousands of small donations in pesos, many coming with messages of love and others with some friendly advice like, “Swifties don’t vote for Milei.”
Thanks to the Swiftie community, the two were able to secure food, transport, and a place to stay.
Valentina credited the kindness and ingenuity of her fellow fans. “I think we were very efficient because we have a dream in common,” she told the Herald.
Valentina’s nightmare became a dream come true, but not all Swifties were so lucky. The pop star’s shows sold out in a matter of hours, and countless fans were unable to purchase tickets — this despite the fact that River Plate’s Monumental Stadium has a capacity of 85,000 people.
Luckily for them, Ariel Hugo, an internet-savvy 19-year-old from Mar del Plata, broadcast each of Swift’s Eras Tour concerts in Buenos Aires on Twitch.
“I wanted to do this for all those Swifties who didn’t get a ticket and those who live abroad,” Hugo told the Herald. ”They also deserved to see the show. For many, it was impossible to pay for a show like this, and I wanted them to be a part of the fun.”
Hugo risked having his account flagged for copyright infringement but went ahead with the livestream anyway. “Some people might have gotten angry, but I was performing a public service,” he said.
Although Hugo came up with the idea himself, he had the support of at least five members of the Swiftie community, each of whom fed him video from the concert. This included footage of Swift and her opening act, Sabrina Carpenter, from a variety of different angles.
Haters gonna hate hate hate, but Hugo also received a number of donations through the Argentine crowdfunding platform Cafecito and, separately, from Twitch subscribers. Still, he said the biggest reward was the support he received from his fellow Swifties, who thanked him for his efforts and offered words of encouragement at a time in his life when he needed them most.
