Photo Credit: Paolo Villanueva / CC by 2.0
A man accused of plotting an attack on a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna has pleaded guilty, nearly two years after authorities intercepted the plot.
A man known as Beran A. has pleaded guilty to planning an attack on Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour concert in Vienna, which led to the cancellation of three Swift shows in August 2024. The 21-year-old Austrian citizen faced charges including terrorist offenses and membership in a terrorist organization.
Beran A. is facing trial alongside Arda K. and Hasan E.; the three planned to carry out simultaneous attacks in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates during Ramadan in 2024 in the name of the Islamic State group. Neither Arda K. nor Beran A. successfully carried out their attacks.
Notably, only Beran A. was charged in connection with the Taylor Swift plot. He allegedly planned to target concert attendees gathered outside Ernst Happel Stadium, as well as those inside the 65,000-capacity venue, with knives or homemade explosives. The plan was to “kill as many people as possible,” authorities reported in 2024.
Beran A. also allegedly networked with other members of the Islamic State group ahead of the planned attack, including discussing purchasing weapons and making bombs. He also sought to illegally purchase weapons in the days leading up to the performance. Authorities searched his apartment on August 7, 2024—the day before the concert was scheduled to take place—and found bomb-making materials.
“Having our Vienna shows cancelled was devastating,” Swift wrote on her social channels two weeks later. “The reason for the cancellations filled me with a new sense of fear and a tremendous amount of guilt because so many people had planned on coming to those shows.”
The trial is being held in Wiener Neustadt, an hour south of Vienna, with proceedings set to resume on May 12.
The Vienna plot, though thankfully thwarted, drew comparisons to an attack by a suicide bomber at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester in 2017, in which 22 people were killed. The bomb detonated at the end of the show as thousands of fans were leaving; the incident was the deadliest extremist attack in the UK in recent memory.
