Photo: Mikal Schlosser
Photo: Mikal Schlosser
Photo: Mikal Schlosser

Concert-goers’ exercise comparable with spinning

Mathematical modelling Statistics Health and diseases
The most active concert participants at Roskilde Festival burn about as many calories as they would doing two hours of spinning or running.

At the Bruno Mars concert on Thursday night at 10 p.m. at Roskilde Festival, the average calories burn per concert participant was 1060. The same night, the Danish band Nephew also energized the crowd and here the average calories burn was at 768.

The difference of approximately 300 calories could be interesting for the Festival, according to the two students David Enselv Nyrnberg and Anna Sidse Dinesen Deleuran who are studying 'Mathematical Modelling and Computation' and 'Biomedical Engineering', respectively at DTU.

They have brought 20 heart rate monitors which they fit on some of the concert-goers who are in the pit for the biggest concerts at the Orange Stage. The measurements are coupled with data from Endomondo that provide the students with knowledge about the gender, age, weight, height, and location of the participants.

“We can collect the estimates and get an overview of where the energy is most concentrated. We hope that the festival can use this information to improve safety, because they can see with greater accuracy where there is most congestion and where to distribute water,” says Anna Sidse Dinesen Deleuran.

“Yesterday, we talked to a girl who fainted during the Bruno Mars concert. She was in the middle of the pit where no water was distributed, even though it was so hot. Three of her friends immediately volunteered to participate, as they had seen how important it is knowing where the intensity is the highest.”

Big difference in the burn
The students take their measurements at some of the biggest concerts at the Orange Stage: Saveus, Eminem, Bruno Mars, Nephew, The Minds of 99, Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, Dua Lipa, and Gorillaz. The first measurements from Wednesday and Thursday reveal big differences in energy consumption at the concerts.

At the Saveus concert, the participants on average burned 509 ±138 calories, at Eminem 871 ±213, and, as mentioned, 1060 ±270 at Bruno Mars, and 768 ±225 at Nephew. But behind the averages there are large differences in how people attend concerts, says Anna Sidse Dinesen Deleuran:

“How much energy people use varies a great deal. Even though Saveus was not the concert with the highest energy consumption, it was still here that the highest average heart rate was recorded. A 28-year tall, very fit guy was at 139 beats per minute on average. And then there are some who are down to 80 beats per minute, which corresponds to taking an evening stroll.”

Burn compares to spinning or running
When the students work more with the data and can break down people on different parameters, they can create a map of the pit, so Roskilde Festival can see the hot spots where the highest level of activity can be expected. And where you have to pay extra attention to providing plenty of water. In this way, it is easier to prevent that people pass out from exhaustion and dehydration.

“Some people have an enormous energy consumption during the concerts. If we take the average from the Bruno Mars concert, it is about half of a woman’s recommended daily food intake and about one-third of what a man should eat. I used to do spinning three times a week for about six years, so I’m in fairly good shape. If I give it my all in a two-hour spinning class, I will burn approximately 1,000 calories. A concert resembles interval training, as the intensity rises and falls—just like when you plan a spinning or a running programme,” says Anna Sidse Dinesen Deleuran.

But let’s go back to the difference between Nephew and Bruno Mars. Although students are not finished analysing their data, they still have a few suggestions as to why there is a difference in the average calories burn at the two concerts differs of about 300 calories:

“Your ability to perform drops with age,” says Anna Sidse Dinesen Deleuran.

“I think we will see that people on average were a bit older at the Nephews concert. At the same time, it was late at night. And Bruno Mars was a high-intensity concert, so if the same people went to see Nephew, they had already burned a lot of energy, and perhaps had little time to eat between the concerts. So they would have spent most of their energy reserves. People may not feel they were less active at the Nephew concert, but they may have been physically unable to show more energy.”

Roskilde Festival - powered by DTU students

  • In 2010, Roskilde Festival and DTU entered into a formal collaboration about using the Festival as a future laboratory and create innovative engineering solutions to some of the Festival challenges. Learn more on Roskilde Festival - powered by DTU students.

  • The students will earn five ECTS points in the course of the project period. The collaboration has also ensured that DTU students behind the start-ups Volt, DropBucket , Kubio (Danish website), PeeFence, and GLØD have had a platform for testing their technology before they started their businesses.

  • DTU’s own coverage can be followed on dtu.dk, Facebook, and Instagram.

DTU’s journalists are present throughout the Festival. For more information about the projects and interviews with students, contact Tore Vind Jensen, +45 3026 7710, tovi@dtu.dk