Man Sentenced to 15 Years for Plotting to Attack Taylor Swift's Vienna Concert
The man who plotted to attack Taylor Swift's Eras Tour shows in Vienna in 2024 has been sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Beran A. — identified only by first name and last initial under Austrian privacy law — was convicted this week in the state court in Wiener Neustadt on multiple terrorism-related offenses. An eight-person jury found him guilty of all but two lesser charges. He is 21 years old.
He admitted to the concert plot charges on the opening day of his trial last month and apologized in court. "I would just like to say that I am sorry," he said.
What He Was Planning
The CIA tipped off Austrian authorities on August 7, 2024 — one day before Swift was scheduled to perform at Vienna's Ernst Happel Stadium for the first of three nights. Each show had an expected audience of over 65,000 people. All three were canceled.
Prosecutors said Beran A. had been radicalized by ISIS, swore allegiance to the group, and networked with members ahead of the planned attack. In the days before the concert, he allegedly tried to illegally acquire weapons including a machine gun and a hand grenade. He also reportedly followed an ISIS instructional video to produce a small amount of the explosive triacetone triperoxide — TATP — a homemade explosive. His plan was to target people outside the stadium with the homemade bombs and knives. Bomb-making materials were found in his apartment when he was arrested.
CIA Deputy Director David Cohen called the plot advanced and credible. "They were plotting to kill a huge number — tens of thousands of people at this concert, including, I am sure, many Americans," he said at the time.
The Dubai Connection
The Vienna concert wasn't even his first attempt at violence. Prosecutors revealed during the trial that Beran A. had plotted with two school friends to carry out solo attacks in different Middle Eastern cities earlier in 2024. He traveled to Dubai to carry out a stabbing attack but panicked and didn't go through with it.
When he returned to Vienna he resolved to go further. He chose Taylor Swift's concert as his next target — one of the most attended events in the city that year.
What Swift Said
Swift addressed the cancellations publicly on Instagram, describing the emotional weight of what happened.
"Having our Vienna shows canceled was devastating," she wrote. "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 fans who had traveled to Vienna didn't all go home quietly. Many gathered in the streets, singing along to Swift songs and trading the friendship bracelets that have become a signature of the Eras Tour experience.
Beran A. will serve 15 years. The 65,000 people who would have been in that stadium on August 8 never knew how close it came.
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