UPDATE 8/7 4:15 p.m. – Taylor Swift’s three concerts in Vienna have been canceled following an alleged terror plot.
“Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour Vienna shows canceled due to government officials confirmation of planned terrorist attack,” a statement from concert organizers Barracuda Music read via Instagram on Wednesday, August 7. “With confirmation from government officials of a planned terrorist attack at Ernst Happel Stadium, we have no choice but to cancel the three scheduled shows for everyone’s safety.”
All tickets sold for the events will be automatically refunded.
Original story continues below:
Austrian police arrested two suspects in connection to an alleged terror plot intended to take place during Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour concerts in Vienna.
Vienna’s State Police Director Franz Ruf and Police Chief Gerhard Purstl confirmed the arrests at a news conference on Wednesday, August 7. One of the men taken into custody was a 19-year-old with alleged ties to ISIS. Authorities claimed that the teenager and his cohort made specific plans through the internet to carry out an attack during Swift’s three-night residency in the Austrian capital.
Police raided the 19-year-old’s home on Wednesday, where they found various chemical substances. Authorities are currently working to determine if the materials could have been used to build a bomb.
Swift, 34, is scheduled to bring her record-breaking Eras Tour to Vienna’s Ernst Happel Stadium on Thursday, August 8. The pop star will also perform at the venue on Friday, August 9, and Saturday, August 10.
According to NBC News, officers said the threat was minimized and there are no plans to cancel the concerts. Attendees should, however, expect delays in entering and exiting the stadium.
Swift has not publicly addressed the situation. She kicked off her Eras Tour, a three-hour show highlighting all of her past and present albums, in March 2023. The European leg began in Paris in May and will run through the end of the month.
Swift’s Vienna concerts will be her second-to-last stop on the European leg, which closes out with five concerts at London’s Wembley Stadium next week. In the fall, the Grammy winner will return to North America with performances in New Orleans, Miami, Indianapolis, Toronto and Vancouver. The Eras Tour will officially wrap in December.
“[It’s been] the most exhausting, all-encompassing, but most joyful, most rewarding, most wonderful thing that has ever happened in my life,” she said during her 100th concert in Liverpool, England, in June. “I think that this tour has really become my entire life. It’s taken over everything.”
She added at the time, “I think I once had hobbies, but I don’t know what they were anymore. All I do when I’m not on stage is sit at home and try to think of clever acoustic song mash-ups and think about what you might want to hear.”
Each of Swift’s concerts feature an acoustic section, where she adds two different songs to the set list each night. Throughout the European leg, Swift has incorporated musical medleys on both the guitar and piano.
