Taylor Swift’s London shows still scheduled as more terror plot details emergeTaylor Swift’s London shows still scheduled as more terror plot details emerge
Andreas Rentz/TAS24/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management
Despite the cancelation of her three Vienna concerts following a foiled terror attack, Taylor Swift is at this time still planning to perform her scheduled concerts in London, Variety reports.
Sources told Variety that the tour promoter, Wembley Stadium and Taylor’s team are working together to review security measures ahead of the shows, which are scheduled to begin August 15.
A 19-year-old Austrian citizen was arrested Wednesday morning and a second suspect was arrested in the afternoon. The information about the threat originated with U.S. intelligence and was passed to the Austrians and Europol, multiple law enforcement and intelligence sources told ABC News. U.S. intelligence found a pledge to ISIS-K by at least one of the suspects in early July on the messaging app Telegram, the sources said.
Investigators are not convinced that the alleged plot would have worked and they do not know if a functioning bomb was produced. However, Viennese investigators did find explosive precursor chemicals which showed a degree of motivation and planning, the sources said.
Karl Nehammer, the Federal Chancellor of Austria, posted a message on social platform X reading, “The cancelation of the Taylor Swift concerts by the organizers is a bitter disappointment for all fans in Austria. The situation surrounding the apparently planned terrorist attack in Vienna was very serious.”
He continued, “We live in a time in which violent means are being used to attack our western way of life … [t]his is precisely why we will not give up our values such as freedom and democracy, but will defend them even more vehemently.”
On Wednesday, Stubhub issued a statement saying that fans who purchased their tickets via the platform will receive “a 120% voucher toward another purchase,” or a 100% cash refund, whichever they prefer.
In the wake of the arrests, a 2019 essay Taylor penned for ELLE has resurfaced. In it, she wrote that terror at one of her shows was her “biggest fear,” following the Manchester Arena bombing and the Vegas concert shootings of 2017. She wrote that she was “terrified” to go on tour, adding, “I didn’t know how we were going to keep 3 million fans safe over seven months. There was a tremendous amount of planning, expense, and effort put into keeping my fans safe.”
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