Taylor Swift’s Edinburgh fans danced so hard it registered as seismic activity

June 13, 2024

Taylor Swift was not the only one shake, shake, shaking at her recent Edinburgh concert, as data from geological experts has shown.

Fans of the megastar literally made the earth move as they watched her perform live in the Scottish capital last week, the British Geological Survey (BGS) has said

Earthquake readings were detected almost four miles from Murrayfield Stadium, where the singer spent three nights – Friday, Saturday and Sunday – as part of her her Eras Tour, the BGS revealed on its website.

Monitoring stations around the city registered the activity during all three performances. The statement from the BGS said: “Each of the three evenings followed a similar seismographic pattern, with ‘…Ready For It?’ ‘Cruel Summer’ and ‘Champagne Problems’ resulting in the most significant seismic activity each night.”

The most “enthusiastic dancing” was on the evening of Friday, June 7, according to analysis of the seismograph data, “although crowds on each night generated their own significant readings,” the BGS said.

It continued: “Whilst the events were detected by sensitive scientific instruments designed to identify even the most minute seismic activity many kilometres away, the vibrations generated by the concert were unlikely to have been felt by anyone other that those in the immediate vicinity.”

According to the BGS, the activity peaked at 160 beats per minute (bpm) during ‘…Ready For It?,’ when the crowd was transmitting about 80 kW of power – equivalent to around 10-16 car batteries, the organization said.

“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.

There were almost 73,000 fans present on the first night, according to Scottish Rugby, which owns the stadium. That meant it was the biggest stadium concert in Scottish history, as Swift eclipsed the popularity of Harry Styles’ performance to 65,000 fans last summer. Each subsequent night then broke the record for the previous night, according to Scottish Rugby.

The Eras Tour, which sees Swift perform in 22 countries across 152 dates, is set to become the highest grossing tour of all time.

Callum Harrison, a BGS seismologist, said on the organization’s website: “BGS is the national body responsible for recording earthquakes to inform the Government, public, industry and regulators, and allow for a greater understanding of earthquake risk and plan for future events.

“It’s amazing that we’ve been able to measure the reaction of thousands of concert goers remotely through our data. The opportunity to explore a seismic activity created by a different kind of phenomenon has been a thrill.”