Swift Fans Dance Up a Storm: Seismic Activity Recorded at Scottish Concerts
Bizarre/Strange
Thursday 13th, June 2024
Fans at Taylor Swift’s concerts in Scotland last weekend danced with such vigour that they set off earthquake monitors, according to the British Geological Survey (BGS).
Seismic activity was detected up to six kilometres away during Swift’s three performances at Edinburgh’s Murrayfield Stadium on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. The peaks in activity corresponded with some of her most popular songs, with the highest spikes occurring during “Ready For It?” each night.
Lindsay Hempenstall, who attended Friday’s concert, described the event as “the most magical and wonderful night”, adding, “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”.
Friday’s show is thought to have been the most attended concert in Scottish history, a fact that Swift acknowledged, calling it the “wildest way to welcome a lass to your city”.
The coordinated dancing and stomping of Swift’s fans generated enough energy to charge 6,000 car batteries, equating to approximately 80 kilowatts, according to BGS. This seismic activity reached a peak displacement of 23.4 nanometres on Friday night.
BGS seismologist Callum Harrison remarked, “Clearly Scotland’s reputation for providing some of the most enthusiastic audiences remains intact!”.
Even major artists like Beyoncé, Harry Styles, and Bruce Springsteen, who performed in Edinburgh in May 2023, could not match the seismic impact of Swift’s fans. Their concerts were registered on earthquake monitors but were almost 10 nanometres less impactful than Swift’s events.
Mr. Harrison noted, “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 seismic activity created by a different kind of phenomenon has been a thrill”.
While the concerts were recorded by BGS instruments, the vibrations were unlikely to have been felt beyond the immediate vicinity of the stadium, according to the organisation.
Seismic activity was detected up to six kilometres away during Swift’s three performances at Edinburgh’s Murrayfield Stadium on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. The peaks in activity corresponded with some of her most popular songs, with the highest spikes occurring during “Ready For It?” each night.
Lindsay Hempenstall, who attended Friday’s concert, described the event as “the most magical and wonderful night”, adding, “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”.
Friday’s show is thought to have been the most attended concert in Scottish history, a fact that Swift acknowledged, calling it the “wildest way to welcome a lass to your city”.
The coordinated dancing and stomping of Swift’s fans generated enough energy to charge 6,000 car batteries, equating to approximately 80 kilowatts, according to BGS. This seismic activity reached a peak displacement of 23.4 nanometres on Friday night.
BGS seismologist Callum Harrison remarked, “Clearly Scotland’s reputation for providing some of the most enthusiastic audiences remains intact!”.
Even major artists like Beyoncé, Harry Styles, and Bruce Springsteen, who performed in Edinburgh in May 2023, could not match the seismic impact of Swift’s fans. Their concerts were registered on earthquake monitors but were almost 10 nanometres less impactful than Swift’s events.
Mr. Harrison noted, “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 seismic activity created by a different kind of phenomenon has been a thrill”.
While the concerts were recorded by BGS instruments, the vibrations were unlikely to have been felt beyond the immediate vicinity of the stadium, according to the organisation.
