Seismologists in Edinburgh found it Taylor Swift fans at her recent Murrayfield Stadium concerts caused spikes in their earthquake reading gear – but not as much as Harry Styles fans managed to generate last year.
Monitoring stations run by the British Geological Survey (BGS) recorded movement during the three-night run of Swift’s Eras tour, with one station detecting the activity six kilometers away.
They recorded a maximum of 23.4 nanometers (nm) of motion – admittedly significantly less than an actual earthquake – during the July 7 concert, with a particular impact coming when the 73,000 fans danced to Ready For It? and Cruel summer.
At each Eras show, Swift fans try to outdo rival stadiums on the tour for volume and intensity with a standing ovation at the end of Champagne Problems, and the Edinburgh crowd duly generated another spike at this point in the show. “It is clear that Scotland’s reputation for providing some of the most enthusiastic audiences remains intact,” said BGS’s Callum Harrison, although BGS admitted the effects would only be felt about 500 meters from the stadium.
The Swifties’ efforts mean they wowed fans on Beyoncé’s Renaissance Tour, generating a peak of 2pm in May 2023. Later that month, the famously fervent fandom of Bruce Springsteen managed even less, at 13.8pm.
But all have a way to go to beat the mania generated by Harry Styles the same month, which produced a reading of 30.9pm – the highest reading since BGS records for Murrayfield concerts began.
Last year, Swift set a record for seismological movement at a July concert in Seattle’s Lumen Field, beating the previous surge by American football fans celebrating a touchdown by Marshawn Lynch in a 2011 game between the Seattle Seahawks and New Orleans Saints.
The UK leg of the Eras Tour has now moved on to a three-night run in Liverpool, starting on Thursday, followed by a single show in Cardiff and three nights at London’s Wembley Stadium. Swift then returns for five more Wembley shows in August.
to newsletter promotion
Alexis Petridis of The Guardian gave the earth-shattering July 7 performance a five star reviewcalling it “incredibly impressive… She is a truly engaging artist on a grand scale”.
