There’s no bad blood between Taylor Swift and the people driving the trucks carrying the equipment for her tour: Swift recently gifted every driver a $100,000 bonus.
Swift gave drivers the bonus ahead of finishing the U.S. leg of her The Eras Tour, which has been touring the country since March.
Two companies, Upstaging Inc. and Shomotion LLC, are in charge of transporting Swift’s equipment for the tour, including the stage, lights, guitars, microphones, speakers and more.
Mike Scherkenbach, the CEO of Shomotion, told USA TODAY that the drivers were called into a production meeting where they assumed the topic of conversation would be the tour schedule. The last shows of the U.S. leg of the tour are coming up, with Swift performing in Los Angeles over the next week before heading to Mexico at the end of the month.
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Instead, the drivers were surprised by Swift’s father, Scott Swift.
‘A life-changing sum’
“Scott gave a short speech and said how much he appreciated the service and what they’ve done for the tour for the last 24 weeks,” Scherkenbach said. “They’ve been out there nonstop, the men and women that drive for us have been away from their families for 24 weeks.”
Then, each driver was given a letter that the singer had handwritten and addressed to the individual thanking them for their service during the tour. The amount of the bonus was included at the bottom of the letter, but some drivers didn’t pay it much attention, Scherkenbach said.
“The funny part is, they just glanced at the letter quickly and didn’t look at the amount, so one driver read it as $1,000, another driver read it as $10,000. And then another driver said, ‘Oh, this has to be a joke. $100,000?’ which then made the other ones reopen their letters,” he said.
While Scherkenbach said he could not disclose the exact number of truck drivers or trucks that were included in the bonuses for safety reasons, the money is greatly appreciated by everyone involved.
“It’s a life-changing sum of money for somebody to be able to become a homeowner and for drivers that have children are starting at the age that they’re going off to college. It’s a game changer,” he said.
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He added that it’s a group effort to get a production like Swift’s tour up and running every weekend in spots across the country.
“It’s a small city that moves all different disciplines from lighting technicians and video technicians and guitar technicians, all these little disciplines that come together to create this massive production, down to the chefs and catering and pastry chefs and it’s no small feat what goes into putting out a production of this magnitude,” he said.
As the show moves toward the end of its run in the U.S., Scherkenbach said his team is looking forward to the future. The company will continue to move Swift’s equipment while she is performing in Mexico, with dates in Mexico City on Aug. 24, 25, 26 and 27.
“We never expected our staff to receive any bonus of this [magnitude]. We were just grateful to be part of what we think will be a record-breaking tour on all fronts,” Scherkenbach said. “We’ve only been to North America. It’s now heading into Mexico, and then South America and Europe, so this is just the start.”
Upstaging, Inc. and Swift’s representatives did not respond immediately to USA TODAY’s request for comment.
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