Taylor Swift’s recent series of concerts in Edinburgh saw thousands of fans create seismic activity with their dancing and cheering. Monitoring stations detected the commotion from 6km away, with the biggest activity taking place during three songs: ‘Cruel Summer,’ ‘Ready For It?’ and ‘champagne problems.’ The 73,000-strong Friday night crowd was the most boisterous of the three gigs. Such shows form part of Swift’s 152-date stadium tour, due to end in December and set to make more than $2bn, making it the most lucrative concert tour in music history.
Over the weekend, Swift played to a combined audience of 200,000 at Murrayfield, with fans travelling from across the globe to see the three-hour, career-spanning show. Dancing during the encore of ‘Ready For It?’ caused the highest seismic activity, with the Swifties producing around 80kW of power, similar to about 6,000 car batteries. Though shaking was felt by those within the venue, the seismic activity was unlikely to be felt by anyone outside it.
Such events are becoming a feature of Swift’s tours. Her gigs in Seattle and Las Vegas also caused seismic movements, with her Seattle concert registering activity equivalent to a 2.3 magnitude earthquake. One of the world’s biggest Taylor Swift fans, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, could not attend the Edinburgh shows due to the ongoing border situation between the US and Canada. However, he sent a message of support to the star via Twitter, stating he was “Jealous of everyone in the UK who gets to see you!”
The British Geological Survey’s Callum Harrison commented: “It’s amazing that we’ve been able to measure the reaction of thousands of concert goers remotely through our data… Clearly, Scotland’s reputation for providing some of the most enthusiastic audiences remains well intact!” Swift’s UK tour dates, which kicked off in Edinburgh, will finish with an eight-night run at Wembley Stadium in London
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