Taylor Swift’s London Shows Set Records for Mobile Data Use Among Fans

You’ll know it if you’ve been to one of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour shows — when you’re standing in the stadium gasping, singing, cheering, crying and clapping, you feel like you’re part of something special, historical… unprecedented even. No wonder then, that as the global superstar wrapped up the European leg of her tour, she was celebrating breaking records across the continent.

In London, Swift became the first solo artist to play eight shows at Wembley Stadium on the same tour. While I was at the show on Saturday night, just meters away from the stage, I had no idea she was breaking another record in my presence. Her Eras Tour show that night saw the most mobile data used at a standalone show at Wembley in history. 

As is so often the case with Swift, she was breaking a record she herself had set (back in June). And to put it into perspective, the 5.58TB that fans consumed would be enough to stream her entire music catalog 4,500 times, which would take more than 10 years. This makes Swift the most popular artist to have ever played at the UK’s national stadium, according to data usage. Seven of the top ten most popular events, again going by mobile data, to be held at Wembley are Eras Tour shows –  and that includes sporting events too.

Wembley is the largest sports venue in the UK, and the second largest in Europe. Its usual capacity is around 90,000 people, but with pitch standing around 92,000 people attended each Eras Tour show at the stadium. Still, there were many more thousands of people watching from home, thanks to some generous Swifties in attendance livestreaming from their phones, as well as posting pictures and updates in real time on social media.

If you’re wondering what most people were using their phones for during the show, mobile provider EE shared with CNET that Instagram was the most popular app, accounting for 16% of total data used, followed by Snapchat (11%), TikTok (8%) and Facebook (8%). (EE, one of the biggest UK mobile networks, sponsors Wembley and provides all the network infrastructure for the stadium.)

Two of my own favorite moments from the show – Swift’s rendition of Champagne Problems on piano and her performance of August, which sees her twirling through an array of sunset hues like a woodland nymph –  saw the biggest spikes in data use.

Prior to the Eras Tour, the artist that generated the most data use among fans at Wembley was Harry Styles in 2023. Data use during one of his concerts hit 4.49TB. But Swift’s last fives shows all beat that record, with the breakdown as follows:

• Aug. 15 – 5.16TB
• Aug. 16 – 5.18 TB
• Aug. 17 – 5.584 TB
• Aug. 19 – 4.6 TB
• Aug. 20 – 5.581 TB

In total, more than a million fans used more than 65TB across Swift’s UK shows. That just goes to show the insatiable appetite for content about and around the Eras Tour. Following the grand finale of the European leg this week, Swift will return to play more shows in the US this October, before finally wrapping up the tour in Canada in December. 

If you need your Taylor fix in the meantime, don’t forget you can watch The Eras Tour Movie on Disney Plus anytime you like.