Fans camp out in a single day earlier thanTaylor Swift takes to Edinburgh stage

Taylor Swift superfans have been camping outside in Edinburgh for days, even though they have tickets, just so they can get close to the stage.

The American megastar will perform to sold-out crowds at Murrayfield Stadium tonight as well as on June 8 and 9.

A line of fans, who call themselves Swifties, desperate to get as close to their idol as possible have been queuing outside the venue in miserable Scottish weather.

Maya McLearie and Maisy Thomson, both 18, are planning to camp outside the venue for 24 hours despite rain being forecast.

Maisy, from Kirkcaldy, told Edinburgh News: ‘We have a small tent but we’re not sure if we’re allowed to put it up. I don’t even know if I’ve got the ability to put it up!’

Ellie Poulter, 19, travelled from Oxfordshire to Edinburgh on a ten-hour coach to see the singer perform on Saturday.

She told Edinburgh News: ‘I’m waiting 48 hours to get to the front of the crowd. I had a ten -hour coach journey to get here and I slept most of the way so I’m feeling fresh now.

‘I’ve got a hotel but I want to be at the front. So I just dropped my bags there and we’ll have somewhere to sleep after the concert on Saturday.’

Around 220,000 fans have spent hours in line to buy official merchandise which is being sold out of vans near the stadium.

Superfan Casey Paterson, 14, can’t wait to ‘breathe the same air’ as Swift.

The teen, from Fife, has been sleeping at night with a VIP ticket beside her bed since August.

Her mother, Catherine Paterson said: ‘My daughter is obsessed with Taylor Swift

‘I’m looking forward to seeing my daughter’s dream come true by finally seeing her idol perform live – a memory I’m sure we’ll treasure forever.’

Staunch fans have flown in across the world from the Philippines, Australia and the States, with one fan coming from Texas with his wife to see the star before he goes blind.

It was a struggle to find accommodation in Edinburgh as hotels were quickly booked up despite tripling their rates during the megastar’s three-night residency.

Incredibly, some locals came to the rescue – with one man listing his property on Airbnb for £585 per night.

And after a mysterious private jet was spotted arriving in the city, fans went into overdrive speculating that she arrived a day early for the show.

The arrival of Swift to Edinburgh ahead of her sell-out Eras Tour was heralded by a bagpipe rendition of her hit Love Story.

The Tortured Poets Department singer will kickstart the next leg of her tour at the city’s esteemed Scottish Gas Murrayfield Stadium tomorrow.

The 34-year-old American singer also has an ancestral link to the country and can trace her roots back to Scottish King William the Lion, who ruled from 1165 to 1214.

Swift told The Record: ‘Every time I perform in Scotland it honestly feels like I am coming home.’

Tickets are still available on resale websites for the megastar’s gig, but they have been spotted going for the eye-watering sum of nearly £5,000 as fans desperately try to go last minute.

A wide range of merch is available for the singer’s fans to get their hands upon, including friendship bracelets – selling for a mindblowing £30 each. 

The merchandise went on sale at 10am this morning at Murrayfield, with Eras tour hoodies going for £70 as concert-goers who forked out hundreds on ticket splash even more of their cash.

Other items include £15 for posters and water bottles for those with a tighter budget. 

Although the imminent arrival of Swift’s concert tour to the UK is sending her legions of Swifties into a state of frenzied excitement, it’s also very good news for the country’s coffers as well.

Her Eras tour is set to boost the British economy by almost £1 billion.

The tour, which takes fans on a journey through the different musical stages of her career, has been a juggernaut and is predicted to provide a £997 million boost to the UK economy, according to a report.

Almost 1.2 million fans will spend an average of £848 on tickets, travel, accommodation, outfits and other costs to see the pop superstar at one of the 15 UK tour dates – more than 12 times the average cost of a night out, according to the Barclays Swiftonomics report.

Eras tour tickets sparked a 15.8% year-on-year increase in UK spending on entertainment when they were released last July.

The average amount spent on an Eras tour ticket is £206, although 14% of fans, including those who bought VIP ticket packages with premium seating and exclusive merchandise, spent more than £400.

It has already grossed more than a billion dollars, the biggest haul for any act ever and has bagged a Guinness World Record.

One fan told MailOnline Swift is rumoured to be staying at the popular Balmoral Hotel and has apparently booked out two entire floors after offering an entire wedding party £10,000 to move, they claimed.

To give her a ‘Scottish welcome’, The Reel Time Band, an 11-piece band made up of eight highland bagpipers and three drummers, performed her song Love Story on the steps outside the venue, while wearing ‘era-fied’ kilts.

The singer disclosed that she has Scottish ancestry at a gig in 2015, so the stadium sponsorship signage was also changed from Scottish Gas to Scottish Lass to highlight her link.

Roddy Deans, pipe major of The Reel Time Band, said: ‘Taylor’s tunes translate surprisingly well to traditional Scottish instruments.

‘We’re all huge music fans, so we’re delighted to help welcome Taylor to Scotland in the best way we know how.

‘It’s been a lot of fun recreating Love Story on the bagpipes and putting this ensemble together.’

It took the band 32 hours of rehearsal to practise their take on Swift’s song, and they have played for people across the world, including the royal family.

Drone photos taken today showed workers setting up for the three-hour concert – where the American superstar will perform over 40 songs.

A trio of Swift fans have even flown across the Atlantic to see the Anti-Hero singer for the third time on her current Eras tour.

Margaux Eripret, Katie King and Megan Benner come from Allentown in Pennsylvania, a distance of 3,315 miles from Edinburgh.

They first saw her last month in Philadelphia and then again on Monday in Lyon, France and tomorrow night will be among 73,000 fans who will cram into Murrayfield, the home of Scottish rugby.

The friends joined hundreds queuing outside the famous stadium to snap up merchandise.

Margaux Eripret, 23, said: ‘This will be our third time seeing Taylor on this tour. And the second this week!

‘We saw her first close to home in Philadelphia last month and then we decided to see her again in Lyon in France on Monday and tomorrow night in Edinburgh. We’ve made a trip out of it.

‘She’s amazing, although the set list is the same, she throws in a few different surprise songs at each venue.

‘I’ve seen her so many times, I first went to one of her concerts when I was eight and in the third grade at school.

‘I think she is an incredible artist and I’m so looking forward to being there tomorrow night. She brings something new every time.’

Katie King, 25, agreed and said: ‘Each venue there is a different vibe so even though this will be the third time we will have seen her it always feels quite fresh.

‘Lyon was fantastic – it’s where she broke the record for highest attendance by a female artist- but each crowd reacts differently depending on which country and which city.

‘There’s always that buzz and excitement which is amazing here in Edinburgh. It’s as much of a thrill as the first time we saw her in Philly.’

Megan Benner, 23, said: ‘That first time we were right up in the gods but in Lyon we were on the floor so had a much better viewpoint.

‘Tomorrow we are in the VIP area so it’s better still.

‘Edinburgh is a fantastic city so full of history and culture. You can see how many fans Taylor has here looking at this line for merchandise. I know she’ll raise the roof tomorrow.’

Olivia Peddle 27, meanwhile had the comparatively shorter trip from Leeds.

She has travelled up to Edinburgh with University of Birmingham with friends Kia Clark, 27 and Orla Mallen, also 27.

Olivia said: ‘ I’ve never seen Taylor Swift before so I’m really excited.

‘I’d had tickets to see her in Hyde Park in 2020 but it was cancelled due to Covid.

‘I’ve wanted to see her so much and now finally I am, and Edinburgh is such a fantastic city. I can’t think of a better place to see the biggest selling artist of the year.’

Even the capital’s trams have been covered in adverts for the star’s latest album and hotel rooms have become hard to find.

Some hoteliers are charging a staggering £1,600 a night amid the shortage of rooms in the city.

Twitter and Facebook have each received thousands of posts from accounts advertising tickets for but the superstar’s Edinburgh shows at far below the rates of official resale sites.

But Nationwide Building Society has warned Swifties looking for tickets to be aware of scams.

Research by the company revealed that the chance to see Taylor Swift is the most likely event to have been affected by fake tickets (20 per cent) closely followed by football fans seeking tickets for the Euros (18 per cent), the Wimbledon tennis championship (15 per cent) and the Olympics and Paralympics (15 per cent).

Last year alone, more than 8,700 people reported they had been a victim ticket fraud, with a total of £6.7 million lost. This works out to an average loss of £772 per victim.

Lloyds Bank estimates more than £1 million could already have been lost in the UK to fraudsters pretending to offer tickets to Swift’s concerts and says more than 600 Lloyds Banking Group customers have already come forward to report being scammed.

The average amount lost by each victim was £332, though in some cases the loss was more than £1,000, Lloyds said.

The tour has caused controversy with some Scots after it was revealed this week that charity bosses have raised fears that rough sleepers in the Scottish capital are being offered temporary accommodation up to 100 miles away to make way for fans flocking to the city. 

Amid the pressure for rooms, Shelter Scotland said a number of the people it supports have been sent by taxi to Aberdeen and Glasgow. One was offered a place in Newcastle upon Tyne.

The housing charity has said it is ‘a blatant injustice’ for homeless people to be ‘in direct competition’ with tourists.

There is no evidence of homeless people being removed from accommodation where they are already staying.

Rumours that the star has arrived early for the gig have been fuelled after BMW X5 security cars with bulletproof glass were spotted near a jet in Edinburgh – a car that the superstar has used to get around in before.

But there has been no sighting of Swift so far, and no confirmation if she was on the plane.

However several other theories have also been swirling around the internet with some fans believing she has arrived in Inverness on Wednesday, while others say she has arrived in Glasgow today.

But the theory most popular is that she was on the plane that arrived in Edinburgh Airport this afternoon.

In Madrid, fans reacted to a mysterious shadowy figure seen watching the star’s concert from above. 

Some fans joked on social media that it was Kanye West, who has carried on an explosive feud with Swift for more than a decade. 

Swift’s last gig was in Lyon, France, on Monday, with fans believing she could have journeyed home for a few days of respite before starting her gruelling UK leg of her tour.

She will be doing ten dates in the UK, then three in Dublin, over the course of 23 days.

But rival theories believe the Love Story singer has already arrived in Scotland after a luxury private jet of the same brand as hers arrived in Inverness in the Highlands on Wednesday.

Speculation has mounted after an anonymous person from the Highlands spotted a plane in the night sky and decided to check the popular app Flight Radar to see where it originated and found it was a Dassault Falcon FA7X.

That plane had travelled from Philadelphia, where the star was born and raised.

While other internet sleuths believe the fan may have arrived in Glasgow after another luxury private jet was seen landing in Glasgow on Thursday.

Entire fan accounts which are solely focused on tracking the star’s movements have been trying to keep track of her arrival in Scotland.