When Santa Clara ceremonially changed its name to Swiftie Clara last summer in honor of Taylor Swift’s record-breaking “The Eras Tour” coming to town, it was supposed to be a fun gesture for two nights only. But the moniker seems to have stuck, as new data suggests the Silicon Valley city is the nation’s Swiftie Capital.
So how exactly did it nab such a distinction? The online gambling and research website Casino.org recently analyzed the 20 cities Swift visited on the 2023 U.S. leg of her tour, looking at tour attendance, Google searches, TikTok posts and the number of Swift-themed events around the concerts, among other metrics.
Santa Clara got the only perfect score.
The study found that roughly 10,700 TikTok videos were recorded during the pop sensation’s July 28 and 29 shows in Santa Clara. One of the most viral of these, with 4 million likes and 19 million views, shows Swift pointing to the crowd during the “Enchanted” musical interlude as fireworks from Great America shoot up in the background, leaving attendees wonderstruck.
@ervinoutfitters The fireworks were not even her show’s fireworks😭 talk about perfect timing #taylorswift #erastour #erastoursantaclara
“Do you know why they were doing that?” Swift said later in the show. “It’s because I’m the mayor.”
Actual Santa Clara Mayor Lisa Gillmor, who bestowed Swift with the title of honorary mayor ahead of her late July visit to the Mission City, said she was “super proud” her city is the Swiftie Capital.
“I know that there was a lot of hype leading up to the two concerts in Santa Clara, and I myself got caught up in that in helping rename the city and giving her the honorary mayor position for the two days she was here,” Gillmor said.
The mayor admits that while she wasn’t a Swiftie before, all the excitement around the singer’s visit has made her a convert. And nine months later, Gillmor said she still gets asked about all the fanfare around Swift’s visit.
“People are still very much aware that she was here,” she said. “I do think it has had a lasting effect.”
Casino.org estimated that approximately 137,000 fans attended the two “Eras Tour” shows at Levi’s Stadium, which is about 10,000 more people than the population of the city.
Santa Clara Councilmember Anthony Becker was one of the tens of thousands of fans who won “The Great War” — snagging one of 2023’s hottest concert tickets.
Becker has become a “Taylor Swift fan by default” through his husband, who he described as a big Swiftie. While he may not know Swift’s whole discography across her 11 albums — soon to be 12 when “The Tortured Poets Department” drops next week — he said his favorite songs are “The Man” and “Look What You Made Me Do.”
“Going to see what my husband is part of with this group of Swifties was pretty incredible,” Becker said. “To see how much energy Taylor Swift has is pretty incredible, and to now know that Santa Clara is the center of the Swiftie Empire, that’s pretty significant in itself. I’m very proud of that.”
Christine Lawson, the CEO of Discover Santa Clara, said she isn’t surprised that Santa Clara is getting recognized for having the most Swifties per capita. She called the anticipation around Swift’s arrival “palpable.”
“Though we’ve hosted remarkable artists and sold-out shows before, the ‘Eras Tour’ brought unparalleled exposure to our city,” Lawson said. “The immense media attention from the tour’s early stops sparked our creativity in devising a unique welcome for Taylor.”
