Spending habits post pandemic have changed due to a multitude of reasons. We spent years being afraid of crowds, having our entire lives changed and being deathly afraid of this virus. Now that the hysteria has lessened, people are more willing to "make up" for the time lost during the pandemic. This is seen with the massive amounts of spending done by the Swifties in order to see their idol perform. What this tells me about discretionary spending is that after hard times, people may be a little more liberal in their spending in order to achieve happiness even in a short period of time.

The lipstick index is definitely at play with Taylor Swifts tour, but it seems to be at happening on a much bigger scale than a tube of luxury lipstick. I believe in a post pandemic world people will be more willing to spend extra on experiences, even over material goods just from how long we were deprived of living life. Even when the rules lockdown rules were lifted, many people still remained at home and strayed away from big crowds due to the sheer fear of Covid. I know I was absolutely one of them, as a frequent mall goer, I completely stopped going and have only been to the mall two or three times in the last few years. Experiences will end up costing more than one small good like a lipstick, but people lived in very tough times and want to experience more happiness than a material item brings. Those were not taken from us during the pandemic.

Fans are willing to spend so much money and travel to see their idol solely because of getting to live outside of normal reality for a small increment of time. Most Americans spend their days working long hours, and when we see our musical idols on TV or on videos, it creates an emotional response as well as a short escape of reality. Another product people would display similar behavior for is anything that you can sell an experience with. For instance, I recently drove almost two hours to go to an interactive art gallery with my daughter. I would not have gone if it was just a normal gallery, but the fact it was a new experience, as well as an escape from normal reality for an hour, I drove a long way to go do it. We live in such negativity with the news sources constantly reporting terrible news, sometimes it is necessary to buy experiences in order to get a break from daily life and have a short period of time to forget about life's stressors and struggles.

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