Three concerts by pop star Taylor Swift in Vienna have been abruptly canceled following a police raid on youths suspected of planning a terrorist attack at one of the events.
Swift was supposed to play three concerts in Austria’s largest stadium starting on August 8, but on the evening of August 7 the concert organiser Barracuda Music announced on Instagram that the concerts had been canceled “due to government officials’ confirmation of a planned terrorist attack”.
The three concerts – part of Swift’s “The Eras” tour – had sold out immediately. Altogether, around 170.000 tickets were issued. Barracuda Music announced that the buyers would receive a full refund within two weeks.
The announcement came after Austrian police raided a house in Ternitz, an industrial town 70 km south of Vienna. They arrested a 19-year-old man who is suspected of planning an attack one of the concerts with an explosive device. The suspect, Beran A., is of Austrian nationality and North Macedonian origin according to media reports.
Franz Ruf, Director General for Public Safety at the Austrian Ministry of the Interior, said that the arrested man had self-radicalised over the internet and sworn allegiance to Islamic State (IS), a global terrorist organisation. According to media he uploaded an oath of allegiance to the current leader of IS to TikTok.
During the raid the police discovered a stash of chemicals and mechanical devices which may have served to construct an explosive device. Austrian media reports that the suspect stole the chemicals from his former employer, a metal manufacturing company.
On the afternoon of August 7 a second suspect, a 17-year-old, was arrested in Vienna. Latest reports indicate that at least one friend of the main suspect had managed to get hired as security staff for the concerts.
In a press conference on August 8 Austria’s Minister of the Interior Gerhard Karner said the situation “was serious and continued to be serious”. Franz Ruf said the main suspect had quit his job on July 25 saying he was up to something “big”. He had downloaded plans for a bomb from the internet and had been planning to blow himself up outside the stadium. The objects found at the house in Ternitz included hydrogen peroxide, fuses and igniters, machetes, and 21.000 Euros in counterfeit bills. The Austrian authorities were alerted by US intelligence agencies though no further information on the tip-off was given.
According to Franz Ruf, the police did not recommend that the organiser cancel the concerts and had offered to increase police presence at the concert venue. The decision to cancel the concerts was taken independently by the concert organisers.
Large concerts have been the target of terrorists in the past. In March 2024, a terror attack by an IS affiliate on a concert venue in Moscow led to the deaths of over 130 people. In October 2017, a gunman firing into the crowd attending a music festival from a hotel window killed 60 people in Las Vegas. In May 2017, an Islamist suicide bomber killed 22 people at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester. Following the Las Vegas and Manchester attacks, Taylor Swift said that terror attacks were “her biggest fear” and that she was terrified to go on tour at the time.
