A movie theater staffer describes what it was like to work Taylor Swift's Eras Tour film premiere, which was so loud it blew out 2 amps

• The Eras Tour film opened last weekend in movie theaters around the world.
• Some theaters and workers were bracing for Swift madness, with record-breaking sales.
• Shane, a theater worker, said crowds were well-behaved but the movie was so loud it blew out two amps.

When Taylor Swift announced that her Eras Tour film would be opening a day early, "we were in this mad rush to get everything ready," Shane, a manager of a small-town movie theater in the Pacific Northwest, said.

"It was good that we did get people in the theater and I guess made sure everything worked all the way through. I don't know what we would've done if it was a 250-person sellout," he said. Insider verified his full name and employment, but withheld them over privacy concerns.

While the crowd wasn't too much to handle, the sound was: The movie was so loud that it's blown out two amplifiers.

"The first time we did a test play, one of our amplifiers blew up and killed a theater, which is wonderful," he said. On Sunday night, another one blew out. Neither have been able to be replaced yet.

"We were instructed to turn it up fairly loud. They said they wanted it to be a true concert experience," he said.

Swift's Eras Tour film is already record-smashing, bringing in between $95 and $97 million and marking the biggest-ever opening of a concert film — and is now in the running to potentially have the strongest-ever October debut. And while some Swifties were boisterous during the movie, taking to the aisles to scream, sing, and dance, that wasn't the case for everyone.

At Shane's theater, crowds were pretty standard for a weekend night, with some staff even sent home because it wasn't as busy as they feared it would be. The Swifties who came were "really hyped for it," Shane said, and definitely discussing their excitement, but seemed to really be there to absorb the concert experience.

"One of the showings had only two people in it, and we have to check the theater every 25, 30 minutes to make sure nobody's recording or standing on the seats or doing anything like that," he said. "And they were just sitting down and watching it."

The Swifties were also focused when it came to, what, exactly they were buying beyond tickets. While the theater had a "good amount" of sales of the branded popcorn buckets and cups released for the film, other concessions weren't selling as well as they normally do, Shane said. The Swifties just wanted their merch. But overall, it was a pretty good crowd — albeit a little disappointing that it was smaller than expected.

"Honestly, compared to all of the kids movies and horror movies that are out right now, the Taylor Swift fans are not bad at all. They don't really leave that big of a mess other than, I don't know, the occasional spilled drink or the occasional little spill of popcorn," Shane said.

In kids movies, he said, you "find tons of popcorn everywhere, tons of candy everywhere, four or five spilled drinks in a theater." After an Eras Tour screening, "you don't really find anything too awful."

Broadly, he wants Eras Tour theatergoers to know that even if they've purchased tickets online, they'll still need to be scanned. That's been a friction point for all movie goers, for whatever reason.

"Honestly, I hope this concert style film doesn't become super popular — because amps aren't cheap," he said.