Excitement eclipses security fears for Swifties in London

Fans arriving at Taylor Swift’s concert in London yesterday said that solidarity among fellow Swifties was helping to dispel any security concerns they had after her Vienna concerts were cancelled last week.
The US 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 a planned attack was foiled by authorities, leaving some 195,000 fans grappling with sorrow, anger and disbelief.
Three alleged Islamic State (IS) sympathisers have been arrested on charges of plotting the atrocity, which was thwarted with the help of US intelligence.
Some of them rushed to buy tickets for the London dates, which are available for about £690 ($886) on resale sites.
Iggy Wilde, 28, said she had never considered selling her ticket after the security scare in Vienna.
“I think there’s a concern. Obviously, it’s worrying,” she said. “The main thing that I’ve felt is that Swifties have come together and there’s a real sense of solidarity between us that I think makes me not afraid.”
“After Vienna, it’s good to hear that they’ve upped the security”, student Brodie MacArthur, 23, told AFP, as she arrived wearing a long white dress inspired by Swift’s latest album, The Tortured Poets Department.
“In the back of your head, there’s still worries. But there are a lot of people here to keep it safe,” she added.
Fans arriving in Wembley, dressed in sequins and cowboy hats, had their forearms covered in friendship bracelets ready to swap with other Swifties.
Security staff checked their tickets before they could start queuing to enter the stadium.
While British police have said there was nothing to indicate the events in Vienna would impact the shows at Wembley, tight security was visible at the stadium.
Tay-gating, the practice of gathering outside a Swift show without a ticket, as thousands did in Munich last month, will not be allowed, as authorities try to reduce harder-to-control risks outside the venue.
Some fans still managed to gather outside Wembley.
After two performances in Madrid at the end of July, Swift noted around 50,000 “people came out and listened to the show” from a nearby hillside on both nights, “participating in the show from afar”.
At Wembley, fans will enter through metal detectors and are only allowed to bring one small bag. Glass and metal containers, laptops and umbrellas are all banned.
Swift has not commented publicly on the incident in Vienna, but in the past, she said her biggest fear was the risk to her fans following the Manchester Arena bombing in northern England after an Ariana Grande concert, and the Las Vegas concert shooting in 2017.
“It doesn’t feel real, that it’s actually happening!” excited ticket-holder Katie Moulson, 24, told AFP as she arrived at Wembley mid-afternoon.
Fans have travelled around the world to see the Eras tour, the most lucrative in history.
Pamela Wever, 43, an industrial engineer, was flying from Guatemala via Miami to London with her husband and two daughters to see Swift.
“I’m not sure if I would do it for anybody else,” she said before boarding her second flight. “We have friends that have travelled to Argentina, to Brazil, to different countries just to go to the concert, because in Guatemala, there’s no concert.”
She bought the London tickets from a friend after failing to find affordable tickets anywhere else.
Resale tickets for Miami in October were around $2,000 each, she added.
The tickets were a Christmas present for her daughters.
“When I gave it to my little one, she cried. She was so excited...she knows every single song, like, all the lyrics of every single song,” she said.
Swift’s last appearances in the British capital were attended by some high-profile names.
They included Keir Starmer, who was then running to become prime minister, and Prince William – celebrating his birthday – along with his children, Prince George and Princess Charlotte.
The singer posted a photo posing with the royals and her boyfriend, American football player Travis Kelce, with the caption “Happy Bday M8! London shows are off to a splendid start”.
After wrapping up the European leg of her record-breaking tour – which began in Paris in May and saw the star perform across the continent – Swift will head back to North America.
Its final leg there starts on October 18 in Miami.