Taylor Swift Fans Figured Out a Simple Way to Get Cheap Tickets, and Now I'm Actually Kind of Considering It

My daughter is a Taylor Swift fan. And if you want to develop strong bonds with your kids, sometimes the smartest thing to do is to develop an interest in the things that they're already interested in. 

But, what if I told you that there's a strategy that tens of thousands of U.S. fans have used already -- where you might be able to get a lot more than just a Taylor Swift concert for the same amount of money, or even less.

As an example, Swift began the latest leg of her tour in Paris on this week. Just beforehand, I started checking resale prices on the French version of Ticketmaster for tickets at Paris La Defense Arena. 

With a $1,000 or less roundtrip flight, plus a couple of nights in a hotel in Paris, plus the ticket itself -- it's very likely that you could see Swift in Paris for much less than the cost of seeing her in the United States.

Since the overall goal in my case would be to do fun things with my daughter (even more than specifically seeing Taylor Swift, although I think that would be fun), it would probably be even better than seeing the show at home.

Tens of thousands of Americans or more have already quite literally bought into this idea. Media reports say fully 20 percent of the seats at Swift's Paris shows will be filled by Americans, for example.

Besides the fact that the European Union has strong anti-scalping laws, Americans also benefit from a very strong dollar right now. So it's a tempting idea. (I recognize of course that even considering spending a few thousand dollars on a vacation centered around a concert is probably not an option for most people.)

The trip was just too last-minute, with school and activities and family events scheduled. Also, I was having a hard time finding three seats together -- which I'd want to do in order to make it a trip for my wife, my daughter, and me together.

That said, Swift's European tour continues all summer, with her Paris shows followed by multiple shows in Sweden, Portugal, and Spain, then back to France and the UK, followed by Ireland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Poland and Austria.