Pop sensation Taylor Swift brought her “Era’s Tour” concert to Edinburgh, Scotland, where her fans danced so hard they set off an earthquake monitor. The three nights of shows generated roughly $1.27 billion for the United Kingdom’s economy.

From four miles away, the British Geological Survey measured seismic activity: “The activity was mainly generated by fans dancing in time to the music and reached its peak at 160 beats per minute (bpm) during ‘…Ready For It?’, where the crowd was transmitting approximately 80 kW of power,” they wrote in a report, adding, “equivalent to around 10-16 car batteries.”

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Friday night saw the most ground-breaking activity, but each night saw a similar pattern with “‘…Ready For It?’ ‘Cruel Summer’ and ‘champagne problems’ resulting in the most significant seismic activity each night.” The agency admitted that the reverberations were “unlikely to have been felt by anyone other that those in the immediate vicinity.”

Attendance at Edinburgh’s Murrayfield Stadium broke records and the tour boosted the British economy by an estimated £1 billion ($1.27 billion) according to Barclays, a UK bank.

“It’s been shockingly amazing in Edinburgh because every night I got to go on stage and they pulled me aside and said, ‘You know this crowd broke the all-time stadium attendance record for all of Scotland for all of time’,” Swift told the crowd on Sunday.

“Thank you, Edinburgh! That’s absolutely the wildest way to welcome a lass to your city.”


Shane Devine is a writer covering politics and business for VT and a regular guest on The Unusual Suspects. Follow Shane’s work here.

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