December 8, 2024, marks the day that Taylor Swift ends her record-shattering Eras Tour. It lasted 22 months, spanned over five continents, and earned more money than any tour that had ever come before it, grossing more than $1 billion in its first year alone.
At Outside, we wanted to pay homage to Swift’s Eras achievements through the lens of distance traveled, which, we realized, must also be superlative. And to be clear, we aren’t referencing the controversies surrounding her private jet. We wanted to know: How much ground did Swift—herself—cover over the course of her 149 performances?
To get an answer, we devised a nifty method to calculate how many steps she might have taken at each of her shows. We reviewed three different concerts from the tour, one from its beginning, middle, and end. Within each of the selected concerts, we watched ten randomly chosen one-minute intervals, and counted the number of steps taken each minute. This allowed us to calculate her average steps per show and to create a rough total of steps across all her performances.
An average Eras Tour concert runs for about…
