Taylor Swift’s London Ticket Prices Surge After Vienna Concert Canceled

The price of Taylor Swift concert tickets in the UK have exploded by 2,000% since a planned Islamist attack led her to cancel several shows in Austria. The 34-year-old American singer scrapped her performances at the Ernst-Heppel Stadium in Vienna after police there uncovered a plot to commit a terror attack during one of her concerts. 

Franz Ruf, director-general for public safety in the Ministry of the Interior of Austria, told reporters that a 19-year-old was arrested and bomb-making materials found in his home. Two teenagers were detained on suspicion of planning a terror attack, police said, but did not release their names. 

Swift is scheduled to perform for five consecutive nights in the British capital, and tickets are now on sale on various online platforms for as much as $7,000. 

London’s Metropolitan Police have announced extra security measures for the events, including bag checks and metal detectors. A spokesperson said the Metropolitan Police would work “closely with venue security teams and other partners to ensure there are appropriate security and policing plans in place.” 

The concerts will take place just weeks after a knifeman crashed into a Taylor Swift dance class in northwest England and stabbed several children, killing three. The murders prompted widespread demonstrations across the UK against growing violence often associated with immigrants holding anti-British and anti-Western beliefs. 

In Austria, the arrested teenagers had pledged allegiance to ISIS, and Britain has already experienced ISIS-inspired attacks on concertgoers. In 2017, brothers Salman and Hashem Abedi detonated a bomb at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester and killed 22 people, including children. Two years earlier, in Paris, 130 people died, and hundreds more were injured during a jihadi attack on the city, including the Bataclan concert hall. 

The attacks are among several endured by European nations over the past two decades, with France and the UK targeted numerous times. The modern era of jihad attacks took hold in Britain with the London underground bombings of 2005. Since then, there have been multiple attacks with bombs, knives, and vehicles. Similarly, in France, hundreds have died at the hands of jihadists, prompting widespread protests and promises from politicians to bring change. 

In Germany, twelve people died at a 2016 Berlin Christmas market when asylum seeker Anis Amri drove a truck into shoppers. During the previous holiday period, hundreds of immigrants committed a mass sexual assault on German women during New Year’s Eve celebrations in Cologne – an incident that police initially denied had taken place. Protests against the widespread sexual assault and rape of German women by immigrants followed, but attendees were dismissed as “far right” by officials. 

Nevertheless, anti-immigration sentiment is rapidly growing across Europe as the continent’s residents grow weary of open borders and are increasingly unconcerned about “far right” or “racist” labels. Notably, young people increasingly view immigration negatively. Statistics and surveys show that, as of 2023, 42% of Europeans aged 15 to 24 want an end to immigration – up from 38% four years earlier.