London – Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour is scheduled to return to London on Thursday in the star’s first performances since authorities said they thwarted an attack on her shows in Vienna. Tens of thousands of concertgoers are expected to attend at Wembley Stadium.
London’s Metropolitan Police told CBS News on Tuesday that so far there had not been any threats that would prevent the concerts from going ahead in the British capital.
“London plays hosts to a significant number of very high profile events each year with millions of visitors having a safe and enjoyable experience. The Met works closely with venue security teams and other partners to ensure there are appropriate security and policing plans in place,” a Metropolitan Police spokesperson told CBS News in a written statement on Tuesday. “There is nothing to indicate that the matters being investigated by the Austrian authorities will have an impact on upcoming events here in London. As always, we will continue to keep any new information under careful review.”
Wembley Stadium warned fans who don’t have tickets to the five shows that they won’t be able to gather around the stadium during the performances.
“Anyone hanging around outside the stadium will be moved on by security,” the stadium posted on its website.
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Nick Aldworth, a former U.K. counterterrorism national coordinator, said law enforcement would “be trying to see if there is any residual or transnational threat that will be greater than their current threat assessment for these concerts and the entertainment sector more broadly” after the Vienna shows were canceled.
Aldworth said that it would most likely be the venue operators, rather than the police, who would decide to postpone or cancel a concert if there was a threat, but that doing so “would be seen as an extreme response and one that is probably unnecessary providing that they can assure themselves that there is security at the events capable of preventing acts of terrorism.”
“The unknown in this equation is how vulnerable people are outside of the premises and whether other stakeholders including the police have the capacity and willingness to deal with that,” Aldworth said.
Aldworth was the head of counterterrorism protective security in London in 2017, when the bombing at an Ariana Grande concert at Manchester Arena killed 23 people including the attacker.
After that attack, there was an inquiry to establish how it happened and what went wrong in preventing it.
“There are several parallels between Wembley and Manchester Arena especially in terms of environmental layout and responsibilities sitting across different organizations who must work together to keep people safe,” Aldworth told CBS News. “After the inquiry, all parties should have laser sharp precision in understanding how to work with each other.”
