INGLEWOOD, CA—When Taylor Swift takes the stage at the Eras Tour, the crowd creates a harmonic event that can be seismically measured, Cal Tech seismologists published in a recent scientific study.
It isn’t the music, though. It’s the dancing.
For one night in August, Dr. Gabrielle Tepp and her team of seismologists recorded vibrations both in and outside Inglewood’s SoFi Stadium. Their research shows that all seismic activity felt during the show resulted from the 70,000-person audience’s physical reaction to the tour.
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Tepp’s resulting paper, “Shake to the Beat: Exploring Seismic Signals And Stadium Response of Concerts and Music Fans,” has captured national attention. She talked with Patch about that night in Inglewood last summer and the seismically charged event felt over five miles from the stadium during the show.
“The crowd caused the stadium vibrations, which were then transmitted into the ground as harmonic seismic energy,” she said. “The recorded vibrations in the stadium were small compared to an earthquake that could damage buildings, but more like the effect of a large truck rumbling by.”
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According to Tepp, Swift’s music doesn’t vary much from album to concert, making it easy for the crowd to predict the tune.
When that many people move to a specific beat, stomping their feet and jumping, a harmonic tremor is produced, which is recorded in individual signatures. According to the study, each signature was a song, and a few from the vast set list stood out more than others.
“Shake it Off” received one of the largest readings of the night, as the crowd generated 0.851 magnitude of radiated energy.
“Keep in mind, this energy was released over a few minutes compared to a second for an earthquake of that size,” Tepp said.
Swift’s dance-pop song “Shake It Off” is over three minutes and 39 seconds long, according to her lyric video. “Based on the maximum strength of shaking during that number, the crowd created a tremor that was equivalent to a 2. magnitude earthquake,” according to the paper.
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What cannot be measured are the intangibles from the night.
When the countdown clock reaches zero and “Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince” begins, the crowd goes into a frenzy and does not recover for the almost four-hour show.
The night Tepp’s team worked the show, the crowd was also aware that live-action filming was taking place for “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour Movie,” which may have amped up the crowd even more.
As an Era’s Tour ticketholder, I can verify that the stadium seemed to vibrate as people jumped, danced, and sang along for the entire “Shake It Off” performance on night six in Inglewood.
Admittedly, Tepp did not record during “Champagne Problems,” a song that was followed by a nearly nine-minute standing ovation that night of the tour, which did include foot stomping as the crowd strove to break a standing ovation record with their cheers.
“We recorded signals from 43 of the 45 songs,” she said. “The ones missed were ‘Champagne Problems’ and ‘Tolerate it,’ though it looks like there might be a short, slight signal from one of those.”
Putting The Scientific Method Into Practice
To research their findings and prove their theory, Tepp and her coworkers created a few sonic experiments in the lab on a Sunday morning.
They set up a PA speaker and a motion sensor, and Tepp, a musician, plugged in her bass guitar to play a simple beat. “I jumped around in a small circle, like at a concert,” she said. That experiment confirmed that motion, not music, created the harmonic tremors.
According to the abstract, “all evidence considered, we interpret the signal source as primarily crowd motion in response to the music.”
“It is important to note that none of this was actually an earthquake,” Tepp said. “It should only be considered a harmonic seismic event.“
Tepp explained that in an earthquake, it’s as if a branch snaps and becomes permanently cracked. “What we registered during the Era’s Tour was more like energy radiated outward as ripples in the water. Like a hand splashing in water, once it stops, the water goes back to its original state.
During her research, she attempted to create her own harmonic tremor, playing bass guitar and jumping in a small circle to “Love Story.” She added, “Even though I was not great at staying in the same place, I was surprised at how clear the signal came out.”
What does it feel like to be in a room with 70,000 people singing, dancing, and moving in time?
Patch spoke with several SoCal residents who were at that concert the night of Tepp’s experiment.
“The stadium felt electric,” Jeanne Nasser, a SoFi night four ticketholder, told Patch over Facebook Q&A. “The singing and dancing felt like the hugest crowd of people being in sync.”
Stacy Thompson described her experience as “pure magic, being surrounded by Swifties.” “It elevated the entire concert,” she said.
Raz Pollex, a Seattle concert-goer, said, “The feeling was just electric. It’s so hard to explain, but it’s like we were all having this shared experience.”
If you ask a Swiftie, they may tell you, “It was rare, I was there.”
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