Taylor Swift’s juggernaut Eras Tour warps culture wherever it goes. We’ve seen everything from pure economic impact to a delightful fan cam arms race to record-setting concert film numbers. And now we know that all those fans are using absolutely vast amounts of data during the show as well: AT&T’s network alone moved 28.9 terabytes of data during the busiest day of Taylor’s three-day tour stop at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, according to data the carrier has shared exclusively with The Verge. The company estimates 1TB of data represents about 200,000 photos or 400 hours of video moving across its network; 28.9TB is a staggering amount of photo and video sharing.
That’s the most data AT&T’s network has moved at any stadium for any event this year — the average Cowboys game day at the stadium moves about 21 terabytes of data, according to the company. Swifties also moved record amounts of AT&T data at various other stadium tour stops: 23 terabytes of data at Nissan Stadium in Nashville, 12 terabytes of data at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, and 8.6 terabytes at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa.
The 4.8 terabytes of data generated during her extremely rainy show at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts was a record for that stadium as well. Her stop at US Bank Stadium in Minneapolis moved 6.6 terabytes of data on AT&T’s network during its highest-traffic day — the company says each night there used nearly 70 percent more volume than anything else over the past year.
That’s a lot of glitter videos! (I went to the Eras Tour in Chicago and my own personal glitter content is represented in the 7.2TB of data used at Soldier Field in the chart below, don’t come for me.)
The Swifties didn’t always set records, though: the 2023 Super Bowl at State Farm Stadium in Arizona moved 21TB of data, more than double the 9TB of data used by Swifties. Rodeo fans at NRG Stadium in Houston used 24TB of AT&T data, more than Taylor’s 20.2TB. The 2023 College Football Playoff and the 2022 Super Bowl at SoFi Stadium in LA moved 14TB and 13TB of data, respectively, beating out the 12.6TB generated by Swift fans.
Here’s the full chart of data AT&T provided us — we’ve reached out to Verizon and T-Mobile as well, and we’ll update if we hear back:
AT&T provided data for stadiums which have its “5G+” network, which the company tells us means mmWave support in this context; some but not all of those stadiums also have the company’s midband product, which is also branded “5G+” for some deeply confusing reason. Swift also played at a number of stadiums that don’t have AT&T 5G support, which didn’t move nearly as much data on the company’s network: GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium, Lincoln Financial Field, Ford Field, Acrisure Stadium, and Empower Field at Mile High. Oh, and Levi’s Stadium, which didn’t have AT&T 5G+ for the Eras Tour but does now.
These numbers are by far the single best example of a meaningful consumer experience during the otherwise underwhelming 5G era — LTE networks generally can’t support that many people using that much data, and the very nature of concert-going is changing around the amount of live video streaming that’s taking place at shows. It’s no banana surgery, though. Still waiting on banana surgery.
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