 "Taylor Swift is currently on her Eras Tour. She is will perform next in London's Wembley. File image/ AFP")
Taking ‘Shake it off’ quite too literally, Taylor Swift’s recent concerts in Edinburgh didn’t just break attendance records—they literally shook the ground.
Thousands of cheering, dancing ‘Swifties’ attending Eras Tour concerts over the weekend made the earth move causing seismic activity that was detected by earthquake monitors at a distance of 6 km, British Geological Survey revealed.
Here’s an closer look at the pop star’s “ground-shaking” performance
The ‘Swift-quake’
Monitoring stations around the Scottish capital registered seismic activity during each of Taylor Swift’s three performances on Friday, Saturday and Sunday at Edinburgh’s Murrayfield Stadium.
According to a statement from the British Geological Survey (BGS), each evening followed a similar seismographic pattern, with some of Swift’s songs like “…Ready For It?," “Cruel Summer,” and “Champagne Problems” generating the most significant seismic activity, with most “enthusiastic dancing” on the evening of Friday, 7 June.
Lindsay Hempenstall, a fan who attended the three-hour gig on Friday told Sky News,“Honestly, it was the most magical and wonderful night.”
“A stadium full of complete love and joy, singing at the top of our lungs and sharing it all with more than 70,000 other people and my nine-year-old daughter,” she added.
As per Scottish Rugby who own the stadium, almost 73,000 fans were present on the first night, meaning it was the biggest stadium concert in Scottish history. At that point, “Swifties” were transmitting enough power through their dancing and stomping to charge 6,000 car batteries, that’s around 80 kilowatts, according to BGS. Even iconic singers such as Beyonce, Harry Styles and Bruce Springsteen couldn’t compete with the movement generated by singer’s fans.
Impact Shorts
More Shorts“Based on the maximum amplitude of motion (the distance the ground moves), the Friday night event was the most energetic by a small margin, recording 23.4 nanometres (nm) of movement, versus 22.8 nm and 23.3 nm on the Saturday and Sunday respectively,’ it added.
“It was fantastically loud!” she said. “It was amazing to hear everyone sing along. 73,000 people singing for three and a half hours - everyone was so happy,” Bethan Bryan, a fan who attended the concert told Sky News.
As per the British news outlet, Swift described her Friday gig as “wildest way to welcome a lass to your city”.
Swift’s previous tour dates in Seattle and Los Angeles registered similar events, with her Seattle gig generating activity equivalent to a 2.3 magnitude earthquake.
The Swift fin-fluence
The authorities knew all too well Taylor’s reputation in boosting the local economy.
According to a CNBC report, Edinburgh set up an official online Taylor Swift Fan Hub and advertised a curated “Taylored Taste Trail” involving more than 40 local businesses offering Swift-themed cocktails, pastries, deals, and activities to capitalise on the influx of international visitors.
“These sell-out shows brought huge and wide-ranging benefits to the city — reflected both in terms of the estimated up to £77m ($98 million) it contributed to the local economy, but also as a further boost to our global reputation as a great place to live, work and visit,” Edinburgh City Council Leader Cammy Day wrote in a post on the city’s official government website.
Peter Brooks, a behavioral scientist who was recently featured in a “Swiftonomics” report published by British bank Barclays, said in The Hollyood Reporter, “Whoever came up with the phrase ‘money can’t buy happiness’ clearly wasn’t a Swiftie. There’s growing evidence that spending on experiences boosts happiness and well-being more so than purchasing physical items, especially if that experience is shared with friends and loved ones,” Brooks said.
Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, spanning 22 countries and 152 dates over 21 months, has already shattered records as the highest-grossing concert tour of all time, surpassing $1 billion in revenue in its first eight months.
With input from agencies