Santa Clara is Taylormade to be Swiftie Capital of the U.S.
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. “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. 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.”