by Sarah Mills
LONDON (AP) — Fans attending Taylor Swift’s concert in London on Thursday said the solidarity among fellow Swifties was helping to ease any safety concerns they had after her concert in Vienna was cancelled last week. The American singer-songwriter is back in London for five dates before her record-breaking Eras Tour returns to North America. Her three shows in Vienna were cancelled after authorities foiled a planned attack, leaving about 195,00 fans struggling with grief, anger and disbelief.
Some of them rushed to buy tickets for the London dates, which are available on resale sites for around £690.
Iggy Wilde, 28, said she had never thought of selling her ticket after the security scare in Vienna.
“I think it’s concerning. Obviously, it’s concerning,” he said. “The main thing I’ve felt is that Swifties have come together and there’s a real sense of solidarity amongst us that I think doesn’t scare me.”
Fans arriving at Wembley wore sequins and cowboy hats, and had friendship bracelets on their forearms, ready to swap with other Swifties.
Security staff checked their tickets before they queued up to enter the stadium.
Although British police said there was no sign the events in Vienna would have any impact on the Wembley show, tight security was still observed at the stadium.
The practice of gathering outside Swift shows without a ticket, ‘tie-gating’, as thousands did in Munich last month, will not be permitted as authorities try to minimise the risk of gatherings outside the venue, which are difficult to control.
Fans will enter through a metal detector and are only allowed to bring in one small bag. Glass and metal containers, laptops and umbrellas are all banned. Swift has not commented publicly on the Vienna incident, but in the past, she has said her biggest fear was the risk to her fans following the Manchester Arena bombing after an Ariana Grande concert in northern England and the Las Vegas concert shooting in 2017.
Fans are traveling from all over the world to see the most spectacular Eras Tour in history.
Pamela Weaver, a 43-year-old industrial engineer, was traveling from Guatemala to London, via Miami, with her husband and two daughters to see Swift.
“I’m not sure I would do that for anybody else,” she said before boarding her second flight.
“Some of our friends have traveled to Argentina, Brazil and different countries just to attend the concerts, because there are no concerts in Guatemala.”
He bought tickets to London from a friend after he couldn’t find them cheaper anywhere else. He said resale tickets to Miami in October were about $2,000 each.
The tickets were a Christmas gift for his daughters. “When I gave my daughter these tickets, she cried. She was so excited… she knows every single song, knows the lyrics to every single song,” he said.
This article is generated from an automated news agency feed without any modifications to the text.
