Taylor Swift Breaks Shanghai Record Selling Out The Mercedes-Benz Arena In One Minute

NASHVILLE, Tenn., April 4, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Taylor Swift sold out Shanghai's Mercedes-Benz Arena in one minute, making it the fastest ticket on-sale in Chinese history. Seven-time GRAMMY®  winner Taylor Swift announced last month that in response to strong fan demand she would take her critically-acclaimed The RED Tour to Asia this summer. Fan demand true, the seven Asian dates sold out in record speeds and broke history books with the fastest ticket on-sale in Chinese history. The RED Tour is promoted by AEG Live Asia.

Taylor Swift's The RED Tour has earned universally high praise from top critics:

Rolling Stone -- "A massively excellent show. Seeing Taylor Swift live in 2013 is seeing a maestro at the top of her or anyone's game. No other pop auteur can touch her right now for emotional excess or musical reach. Red [is] the slickest, smartest and just plain best mega-pop statement of our time. Seeing Taylor onstage now is seeing....total commitment, total fan fervor, total connection between audience and performer. A true arena-rock goddess at an amazing peak."

The New York Times  -- "A king-size spectacle, [whose] juxtapositions have power, one theatrical scene after the next. Taylor Swift off-script is very much like Taylor Swift on-script: not just the brains of the operation, but the brawn, too, the unflappable force that ensures stuck landings. Ms. Swift's voice is stronger than it's ever been, and also sturdier….she sang vividly from behind a piano, show[ing] credible dark emotion."

The Times (London) -- "Impressive. Taylor Swift offers a dream package, and she does it brilliantly….a perfect balance between professionalism and intimacy. The biggest thing in music."

The Guardian (London) – "Swift knows how to put on a show. Spectacular."

The Daily Telegraph (Sydney, AU) -- "Taylor Swift dazzles. Her musicality is undeniable."

Last year, the North American portion of Taylor's The RED Tour played to more than 1.36 million fans over 66 shows (including 13 stadium stops) in 47 cities in 29 states and 3 provinces spanning 6 months. Also in 2013, Taylor took her RED Tour Down Under -- performing sold out stadium shows in Australia (as well as arena dates in New Zealand), becoming the first solo female artist in twenty years to undertake a national stadium concert tour of Australia. The tour has already visited Europe for six sold-out shows in 2014.

Taylor Swift, who writes all of her own songs, is a seven-time GRAMMY winner, and is the youngest winner in history of the music industry's highest honor, the GRAMMY Award for Album of the Year. She is the #1 digital music artist of all time, the only female artist in music history (and just the fourth artist ever) to twice have an album hit the 1 million first-week sales figure, and is the first artist since the Beatles (and the only female artist in history) to log six or more weeks at #1 with three consecutive studio albums. Taylor has an album on Rolling Stone's prestigious The 50 Greatest Albums of All Time (by women) list, Time magazine has named her one of the 100 Most Influential people in the world, and she is Billboard's youngest-ever Woman of the Year. Taylor, who is signed to Big Machine Records, has career record sales in excess of 26 million albums and 75 million song downloads worldwide, and has had singles top both the country and pop radio charts around the globe. 

Taylor's album RED, released just over a year ago on Big Machine Records, has sold more than 6 million copies worldwide to date, including more than 1.2 million copies in the U.S. in its first week, scoring the highest first-week sales debut of any album in over a decade. Taylor is the only female artist in music history (and just the fourth artist ever) to twice have an album (2012's RED and 2010's Speak Now) hit the 1 million first-week sales figure. With RED, Taylor became the first artist since the Beatles (and the only female artist in history) to log six or more weeks at #1 with three consecutive studio albums.

The Sold Out Asian dates of Taylor Swift's THE RED TOUR:  

SOURCE Big Machine Records