Stoke City

Potterquakes 

Measuring the crowd response to Stoke home goals

In association with SkyBet, DentonSeismo Ltd is measuring crowd seismic responses in selected stadiums at Championship League home matches this season, when fans get to their feet a seismic pulse is generated, the bigger the response the bigger the pulse (measured in um/sec ground velocity units) 


What are we measuring? 

We're using Raspberry Shake seismometers to measure ground vibrations caused by crowd movement. All impact and vibration -- crowds celebrating a goal or dancing, traffic, quarrying, fracking, explosions, earthquakes, etc. -- cause vibrations in the ground which can be picked up by seismometers. 

What does this tell us? 

The measurements show which home goal got the biggest crowd reaction this season. Usually, the seismic signal, measured as a single line, consists of an initial spike when the goal is scored and home fans leap to their feet, followed by a gradual decay as the fans settle down and the game moves on. The bubble plots show the maximum intensity reached.

Unfortunately, because of variables like stadium structure, background noise from traffic etc., crowd sizes and underlying geology, it isn't possible to make meaningful comparisons between the measurements at different stadiums.

Related Projects

Share by: