MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Taylor Swift has resumed her record-breaking Eras Tour after a brief hiatus prompted by a terror plot in Vienna. She's performing in London next. To hear more about preparations by security forces and reactions from fans in the British capital, we're joined now by London-based journalist Willem Marx. Good morning, Willem.
WILLEM MARX: Good morning, Michel.
MARTIN: So could you just remind us the story behind why those Taylor Swift shows were canceled?
MARX: Well, ahead of several performances in the Austrian capital in Vienna, police had arrested three teenagers who they alleged were planning to cause carnage at one of the concerts. Security services said one young man with roots in the small country of North Macedonia in southeast Europe confessed to them while in custody that he'd sworn allegiance to ISIS, the Islamic State, and had intended to carry out a suicide attack that would have led to what they termed a bloodbath involving chemicals and machetes. And after winning a job at a company that provided services to the stadium in Vienna, that main suspect had actually allegedly planned to target fans who gathered outside before the gig.
Sixty-five thousand tickets had been sold for each of the three nights that Taylor Swift would perform. And when those details emerged, the musician's management company, perhaps not unexpectedly, directed event organizers to cancel, which they did, promising to refund tickets in full. And almost as kind of a side note, it seems that incident's now prompted the country's president - so the president of Austria - to push for tighter surveillance laws to help police foil similar plots in the future.
MARTIN: So now what about in Britain? How are the security services preparing for the concerts that began last night in London?
MARX: Well, as all that was happening in Vienna, British police were pretty quick to say there was nothing to indicate those events in Austria would have any impact on the five nights of sellout performances at the national soccer stadium known as Wembley. They put out reminders ahead of the event that started last night about security precautions, but stadium management itself had said that measures would be no different to the concerts Swift held there back in June. Those were attended - you might remember - by Keir Starmer, now the prime minister, as well as members of the royal family.
Experts, though, say that after that awful attack at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester way back in 2017, the kind of baseline security measures that these kinds of events in Britain are already pretty stringent. And just a few weeks after the murder of three young girls at a Taylor Swift dance club in the northwest of England and then the far-right riots that followed, it's been a very difficult few weeks for British Swift fans.
MARTIN: Well, what about those fans? What's their reaction been now that the pop star is back on stage?
MARX: Well, some of the most extraordinary stories actually emerged of ticket holders for these London concerts selling and, in some cases, donating tickets to fans who'd been unable to attend in Vienna because of the cancellations. And last night, thousands of them streamed into Wembley Stadium. There was a pretty heavy police presence. Swift was joined onstage by British singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran for a couple of tracks they worked together on in the past. In the end, there were, I think, a total of 92,000 fans enjoying the evening's performance. It's the first in a series that will end on Tuesday, and that'll mark the conclusion of the European leg of this Eras Tour. It began in Arizona. It'll end this December in Vancouver, Canada. Records show that just last year, it grossed around $1 billion, and it's expected to do the same for 2024.
MARTIN: All right. Willem, I have to put you on the spot here. Did you make it to or are you going to make it to one of those shows?
MARX: I'm afraid not. I have an 8-year-old son, not a daughter, and he's not quite such a Swift fan.
MARTIN: Not ready for it. No friendship...
MARX: Not yet. Not yet.
MARTIN: ...Bracelets yet? OK. All right. Well, start saving now. So...
(LAUGHTER)
MARTIN: ...Willem Marx, thanks so much for joining us.
MARX: Thanks for having me on.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I CAN DO IT WITH A BROKEN HEART")
TAYLOR SWIFT: (Singing) 'Cause I'm a real tough kid. I can handle my [expletive]. They said, babe, you got to fake it till you make it, and I did. Lights, camera, [expletive] smile. In stilettos for miles. He said he'd love... Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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