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Swift had been scheduled to perform her “Times Tour” at the Ernst Happel Stadium in the Austrian capital on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
The shows were originally scheduled for Thursday, Friday and Saturday but organisers cancelled them on Thursday (AEST) after news of the arrests. 170,000 fans were expected to attend.
“For everyone’s safety, we have no choice but to cancel the three scheduled shows,” event organizer Barracuda Music said in a post on its Instagram channel on Wednesday evening (Vienna time). The post cited government officials who “confirmed” the planned attack at the stadium.
Barracuda Music said that “all tickets will be automatically refunded within the next 10 business days.” The same wording was posted on Swift’s official website under the Vienna performance date.
Franz Ruff, head of public security at the Austrian Interior Ministry, said authorities were aware of “preparatory actions” for a possible attack and that the “19-year-old perpetrator was focusing on Taylor Swift’s concert in Vienna.”
Roof said the chemicals had been properly handled and were being evaluated, but he did not provide further details.
Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer posted on the X website: “Thanks to the close cooperation between our police and the newly established National Security Agency and foreign departments, we discovered the threat early, cracked down on it, and avoided the tragedy.”
Just hours before the concert was canceled, authorities said they would step up security for Swift’s concert. Ruff said, among other things, special attention would be paid to screening at entry and that concertgoers should allow extra time.
Vienna Police Chief Gerhard Postel said at the same time that although the specific danger had been minimized, abstract risks still justified raising the security level.
Swift’s record-breaking Time Tour begins on March 17, 2023 in Glendale, Arizona, and is scheduled to end on December 8, 2024 in Vancouver.
Swift, 34, has not yet commented on the cancellation on her official Instagram account, which has 283 million followers.
The singer has taken Europe by storm, with fans flocking to dozens of sold-out shows from Dublin to Warsaw, leading some critics to predict a financial windfall.
After the Vienna show, Swift plans to perform five concerts at London’s Wembley Stadium starting on August 15.
In 2017, an attack At an Ariana Grande concert The Manchester, England, bombing killed 22 people. Suicide bomber Salman Abedi set a backpack bomb at the Manchester Arena as thousands of young fans were leaving after Grande’s concert. More than 100 people were injured. Abedi died in the blast.
An official inquiry last year said Britain’s domestic intelligence agency MI5 did not act quickly enough on key information and missed a vital opportunity to prevent the bombing, the worst extremist attack in Britain in recent years.
Associated Press
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