Taylor Swift will have protection befitting a head of state if her wedding to Travis Kelce goes off as reported — in New York City’s Madison Square Garden — with beefed-up private security and a phalanx of police on hand, experts say.
The reigning princess of pop and her future NFL Hall-of-Fame fiancé could spend between $3 million and $5 million just to safeguard their two-day, celebrity-studded celebrations, former Secret Service agent Bill Gage told The Independent.
The couple reportedly plans to host 100 guests in the Garden on Thursday, and 1,000 on Friday, and the cost would cover weeks of advance work, as well as pairing up Swift’s personal security team with every MSG security worker and staffing a remote operations center to monitor potential threats, he said.
“This is like the equivalent of a presidential visit,” said Gage, who led the Secret Service tactical advance team for two State of the Union speeches by President Barack Obama.
A Swift spokesperson didn’t immediately return an inquiry from The Independent.
Swift, who’s been the target of several stalkers, reportedly spends $8 million annually on private security, up $2 million since last year’s assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
The increase pays for two additional security experts to ensure she’s “100 percent safe and comfortable all the time,” The U.S. Sun reported in November, citing an unnamed source.
Swift and Kelce are also concerned about protecting the privacy of their wedding ceremony, according to Star Magazine, which also cited an unidentified source.
“It’s a shame security has become such a big deal,” the source said. “But it is what it is, and Travis and Taylor are grateful they can cover the expense.”
Swift has a personal fortune estimated at $2 billion, while Kelce — the NFL’s eighth highest-paid player — is worth an estimated $47.3 million, according to Forbes.
In addition to private security, as many as 200 NYPD officers will likely be deployed around MSG, known as “The World’s Most famous Arena,” where a horde of fans is all but certain to gather, said Gage, now director of executive protection for the SafeHaven Security Group in Rogers, Arkansas.
Former NYPD Capt. Mark Novak told The Independent that a typical event at the Garden required the deployment of 40 officers, but that even if Friday’s crowd is relatively small, it would require two shifts of up to 70 officers each.
“I would suspect that the NYPD might pull from one or two boroughs for something like this,” said Novak, now president and chief operating officer of the Global Security Group in New York City. The city itself comprises five counties, colloquially known as “boroughs” — Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island — and each borough has at least one, and in some cases two, “patrol boroughs” that oversee multiple police precincts each, with a total of about 33,000 cops.
But if 10,000 diehard Swfties show up, 200 cops would be needed to keep the scene under control, he said.
Novak noted that “probably everybody’s going to be on overtime,” after having already worked extra hours staffing the recent NBA Finals and the parade celebrating the Knicks’ historic championship and facing more during the looming crush of “America 250” Independence Day weekend events.
“I don’t think they could have picked a worse time to do this,” he said of the wedding date.
Novak, however, estimated a lower total cost for the couple’s private security, pegging it at $1 million to $2 million.
On Tuesday, The Independent witnessed entrances to the Garden being cordoned off along Seventh Avenue and blackout drapes hung along windows to the lobby looking out onto the plaza around the facility Tuesday. An MSG security guard said it and the vicinity around the Garden would all be closed until Monday, July 6.
Meanwhile, the Big Apple’s Fourth of July celebrations include eight New Year’s Eve-style ball drops in Times Square to mark midnight in every American time zone from 10 a.m. Friday (Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands) to 7 a.m. Saturday (American Samoa).
July 4 will also feature a Hudson River flotilla of more than 40 tall ships and a speech by Vice President JD Vance aboard the Navy’s amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge.
That night, the 50th annual Macy’s July 4 fireworks show, with 85,000 shells fired as high as 1,000 feet from six barges in the Hudson and East rivers, as well as the Brooklyn Bridge, will take place with public viewing areas set up all around he festivities.
And Sunday will see a World Cup “Round of 16” soccer match at NYNJ Stadium, better known as MetLife Stadium, in nearby East Rutherford, New Jersey, with watch parties in Times Square and other locations and Penn Station, adjacent to MSG, a major hub for transit to and from that game.
Former New York City Comptroller John Liu, now a Democratic state senator from Queens, estimated the Swift/Kelce nuptials would cost the city “tens of millions” of dollars in police protection and cleanup costs.
That spending will be offset, however, by both the boost to the city’s economy and the “long-term benefit of being the place to have these marquee events,” said Liu, who punctuated his point by citing the titles of two Swift songs.
“And even if the short-term costs are significant, I think New Yorkers will shake it off,” he said. “And you know what? If Taylor and Travis decide to have their big day in New York City, we will all wish them the best day.”
