The geological and inflationary impact of Taylor Swift - with reference to the 14th century...

I’ve been following the Taylor Swift phenomenon for the last 18 months since the astonishing Eras tour kicked off in Arizona in March 2023. Since that time, Swift has played 152 shows across five continents, delighting fans around the world - and not just the 4.35 million people who had bought tickets by the end of 2023; in many cases, thousands turned up who did not have tickets to soak up the atmosphere and sing along outside the venue - something Swift astutely saluted in Munich were an estimated 50,000 people gathered to listen on a nearby hillside.

I’ve been interested in the geological and economic impacts of the tour.

In some locations, concerts triggered seismic responses - literal ones. In Edinburgh in June 2024, for example, seismographic patterns were picked out during Swift’s concert, setting off vibrations that were detected by British Geological Survey sensors as far as 6km away from Murayfield Stadium.

The ground shook because of fans dancing in time to the music; the effects were most dramatic when fast-paced music was played. So the The songs ‘…Ready For It?’ and ‘Cruel Summer’ produced pronounced spikes and made the earth move, while ‘champagne problems’ and ‘Shake if off’ produced similar, if smaller reactions.

Swift performed three times in Edinburgh, and the results were the same each night - although the Friday was marginally more seismically active than both the Saturday adn the Sunday night concerts.

It was not just Edinburgh either: the same thing happened when Swift performed in London; the same in LA, the same in Dublin and and it was the same when the superstar performed in Seattle in July 2023.

The Eras seismic activity was far stronger than similar events that have done something similar. The key was not the noise; but the stamping, dancing and swaying of tens of thousands of people.

Talk about feeling the earth move….

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I’ve also been following the financial impact of the Eras tour. Obviously, it has been an extraordinary success. Although final figures are not available, revenue had topped $1bn by the end of 2023. At that point, each show was generating just over $17m - almost double Beyoncé’s takings and almost three times an average Coldplay concert during their last world tour. If Swift kept up that rate of return, total revenues by the end of the tour should be over $2.5bn.

That’s quite something. But what did it mean to local economies?

Evidence suggests that it was a big shot in the arm. Core inflation in Sweden in the summer of 2024 was higher than expected - leading some analysts to attribute the spike to the Taylor Swift bandwagon rolling into town: pressure on hotel rooms by fans flying in for concerts pushed prices up (or encourage hotels to do so), while visitors by Swift fans boosted spending on restaurant meals.

One report estimated that fans would spend an average of £848 ($1100+) on tickets, accomodation, travel, food and clothing to wear - with 20% of ticketholders purportedly considering buying a new outfit just for the concert.

While some thought this on the heavy side, the fact that economists and central bankers from Michele Bullock, Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia to Christine Lagarde, head of the European Central Bank, were drawn in to commenting on possible inflationary pressures was itself revealing.

It reminded me of a tour by a similar superstar in the early 14th century - exactly 700 years ago.

Mansa Musa was the ‘mansa’ or ruler of the Malian empire, a vast state that dominated much of West Africa. Its wealth stemmed from control over the sub-Saharan trade routes, as well as from gold mines that were not only famed for their abundance but for the quality of the gold they produced.

Mansa Musa is depicted on the Catalan Atlas, a medieval world map dating to the later 14th century, holding a vast gold ball. It says of him: ‘This king is the richest and noblest of all these lands due to the abundance of gold that is extracted from his lands.’

In the mid-1320s, Musa undertook the hajj to Mecca, taking part in the pilgrimage that Muslims, like Musa, would be expected to do at least once during their lifetime.

He was not a light traveller. He brought 60,000 men with him, including 12,000 slaves, all dressed in expensive textiles and Persian silk. The ruler’s possessions were brought by a caravan of 80 camels, each carrying 300 pounds of gold - some fifteen tons, in other words.

‘He brought gifts and presents that amazed the eye with their beauty and splendour’, wrote one observer about Musa’s arrival in Cairo - for he was not just wealthy but generous. We learn from sources at the time that Mansa Musa ‘flooded Cairo with his benefactions’, supporting not only the poor and needy, but those who were already doing well. We are told that ‘he left no court emir nor holder of a royal office without the gift of a load of gold.’

Faced with this cash bonanza, merchants in Cairo upped their prices. ‘The inhabitants of Cairo made incalculable profits out of [Musa] and his retinue when it came to buying and selling and giving and taking,’ said one contemporary. The merchants of Cairo’, wrote al-Umari, ‘have told me the profits which they made from the Africans, saying that one of them might buy a shirt or cloak or robe or other garment for five dinars when it was not worth one.’

That was good if you were a Cairo merchant: an opportunity for price-gouging from a wealthy visitor who was thought to be richer than he was smart. But it was less good if you were a local, because it created inflationary pressures - just like Taylor Swift’s presence did seven hundred years later.

In Egypt in the 14th century, however, there was a sting in the tail. So much gold entered circulation so quickly that some (but not all historians) think that there was a correction in the relative price of gold to silver in the medieval Mediterranean that produced an economic shock of its own - for monetary economies are not just about supply and demand, but about exchange rates, purchasing parity and local, regional and long-distance trade. Ironically, a sudden boost can produce a depression that can replace the euphoria with gloom.

Mercifully, Taylor Swift did not stick around in one place long enough to produce more than a nudge of seismic and economic needles. But the fact that it did do both is striking. History, geology and inflation. I knew you were trouble, as the singer reminds us.