After submitting a 15-minute video and drawing Taylor Swift’s picture from an unmarked envelope on Nov. 23, Moose Jaw’s Ruth Wilder has won the SaskMilk ‘Ultimate Taylor Swift Giveaway' contest that will see her flying to Melbourne, Australia this coming February.
The Canadian Western Agribition’s contest was presented by SaskMilk with the aim of sending one deserving Taylor Swift fan to the upcoming concert after explaining why it would change their life.
The winning prize includes two floor seats for the Feb. 16, 2024, concert, along with two paid flights, five paid hotel nights, and $1,000 in spending cash.
“The idea of it was – there were six envelopes for each of the finalists. Inside of them were pictures of animals, and in the sixth one was a picture of Taylor Swift,” explained Wilder. “The whole time I’m opening the envelope – and I suck at opening envelopes – I was like, ‘Please don’t be a cow or something!’ I opened it and I saw Taylor.”
She said it took a minute to sink in, and then Wilder realized she had won the chance of a lifetime.
“I just didn’t know what to think… I’m jumping around really excited, and then I just crumpled to the ground and was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I won.’ It was just crazy.”
Not only will this be the first time Wilder has left the continent, but she will also attend her first Taylor Swift concert.
“And it’s the one to go to — that’s for sure. It’s all of them; it’s every Taylor Swift concert wrapped up in one so it’s going to be amazing,” she said.
Swift’s last tour was the Reputation Stadium Tour in 2018, and now, five years later, she is continuing the show with her latest The Eras Tour happening in 2023-2024.
“In those five years, she has released four new albums and she’s re-releasing her first six albums. She was like, ‘I can’t just do a tour for the most recent albums – I’ve got to do them all.’ It’s a three-hour show that spans her entire almost two decade-long career,” Wilder explained. “It’s a complete spectacle.”
For the contest, participants were asked to submit a slide show, video, essay, or picture and explain why they are Saskatchewan’s biggest Swiftie.
“I created this 15-minute-long video about how much I love Taylor Swift. I was terrified they weren’t going to watch it all, because 15 minutes is a lot to sit through and they got a lot of entries.”
From that pool were six hand-picked finalists who attended the Canadian Western Agribition’s Maple Leaf Finals rodeo on Nov. 23. Each finalist would then open an envelope during the half-time show.
Wilder said she’s Saskatchewan’s biggest Swiftie after Taylor Swift indirectly saved her life.
“One of the main points of my video was the fact that Taylor Swift, in every sense of the phrase, she completely saved my life,” she said. “About two years ago now I tried to end my own life, and in my recovery process, Taylor Swift and her music was truly one of the only things that got me through it.”
She has always found a strong connection to music, but going through her own personal struggle helped Wilder change her thinking and she came to appreciate Swift’s music in a whole new light.
“I relate to Taylor Swift in a way. I mean, she would talk about how when she was a kid, she didn’t have friends, and her mom was her only friend. She would often sit alone in her room, play her guitar… and write songs. That’s exactly what I was like as a kid. I really related to her childhood, I guess.”
If she could pick just one favourite among Swift’s songs, Wilder said it would have to be "A Place in This World" from the 2006 debut album, Taylor Swift.
“The song talks about how she’s just a girl trying to find a place in this world. As a first-year university student, that’s very relatable to me.”
Wilder is currently making plans for the trip and met with her travel agent on Nov. 29. “I will be taking my mom with me, even though she absolutely hates flying,” Wilder said, noting that she gave her spare ticket to her mother who was “a close second” when it came to being excited about the news.
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