For young girls, a Taylor Swift concert has everything they want — a night of fun, dancing and enjoying their favourite pop star alongside thousands of their peers.
But after an alleged terror plot led to multiple concerts in Vienna being cancelled, experts have said some of those same factors are what make a stadium concert an appealing terror target.
Concert organisers called them off on Wednesday local time after officials announced they had arrested two suspected extremists.
Swift was scheduled to play to an audience of at least 65,000 people per night at the Austrian capital's Ernst Happel Stadium on Thursday, Friday and Saturday in the latest leg of her Eras tour.
The main suspect, a 19-year-old, was arrested in Ternitz, south of Vienna, and had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, according to authorities.
He was believed to have become radicalised over the internet.
The Austrian Interior Ministry's public security director, Franz Ruf, said authorities had noted he had a "particular focus on the Taylor Swift concerts in Vienna".
Australian National University counterterrorism researcher Dr Michael Zekulin told the ABC it was a matter of opportunity.
"Basically [these are] individuals who are looking to create as much loss, injuries, deaths, unfortunately but especially publicity, attention, they want large crowds," he said.
"The second aspect of it is that in larger crowds, arguably because it doesn't necessarily work in practice, but in theory you're one of how many thousand walking around.
"So perhaps it's a little easier to get lost in the crowd.
'And the logistics of securing [a venue] like that, they believe … they will have a little more luck."
Dr Zekulin said a concert venue represented a "soft target".
"[That's] as opposed to a hardened target, such as government buildings and police stations and things like that, where you're obviously running into much more security, much more scrutiny," he said.
Loading...
Professor Debra Smith, an expert in violent political extremism with Victoria University's Institute for Sustainable Industries and Liveable Cities, said "ultimately" anywhere that attracted mass gatherings could be susceptible.
"[That's] largely because terrorism is just a political tactic designed to spread fear and coerce people into changing their behaviour and their policies," she said.
"So it uses violence to send a message that's meant to say no one is safe … it's not just violence for violence's sake even though it appears that way."
Loading Instagram content
She noted she was not aware of any specific messaging calling for attacks on young women or children specifically, but there was messaging "to attack easy [and] civilian targets before military ones".
"If you think about it, mass gatherings like concerts, that attract young people, are particularly horrific," she said.
"Young people are symbolic of freedom and fun and our futures.
"An attack on a young person or an event that is meant to attract young people has a particular sense of horror about it that is likely to attract global publicity. It amplifies the message."
Do violent attackers focus on concerts attended by young girls?
Following a suicide bomb attack at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester in 2017 that killed 22 people and injured 59, questions about whether young girls were a target at these concerts featured heavily in media coverage.
However, Dr Zekulin said there was "no evidence" attackers were targeting young women and girls specifically attending concerts.
"It's kind of difficult to gauge these questions because the perpetrator is dead, you can't ask him," he said.
'But I don't think [the young crowd] is necessarily going to be a consideration.
"It's the opportunity to conduct a large attack. There's a lot of eyes on this, there's a lot of people there and that's about it."
Dr Kristy Campion is a senior lecturer in Terrorism Studies at Charles Sturt University.
She said the two main factors driving any terrorist or extremist were "operational and ideological".
"When it comes to ideological factors for reactionary ideologies, so Islamic State [or] the far right … these organisations hold ideologies which reject a lot of the forces of modernity," she said.
"Particularly with the likes of the Islamic state, what we typically see is talking about Western decadence … A violent rejection to these forces is a way they believe they can show their loyalty to Allah, within their unique interpretation of Islam.
"The strategic reason or the operational reasons are quite simple.
"It's basically target density. It's a target-rich environment … whenever you have the gathering of large crowds.
"These concerts and these venues [are] quite a challenge to entirely secure.
"Organisations and individuals might have made the strategic [decision] that they're more likely to achieve a mass casualty outcome based on target density, but also based on target demographic, where someone is less likely to interrupt their plan."
There were 146 terrorist attacks on concerts and festivals between 1970 and 2019, killing at least 802 people across 37 countries, according to a 2023 peer-reviewed report.
The study, published in Prehospital and Disaster Medicine, labelled concerts "vulnerable soft targets".
"Concerts and festivals cause an influx of people at a specific time into a specific space, resulting in three target groups," the report said.
"[These three are] attendees and emergency first responders, being soft targets, and governmental/security personnel.
'A concert is not worth your life'
Amy McMahon was 14 years old when she attended Ariana Grande's Manchester concert in 2017.
It was the first time she'd been to a concert with friends instead of her mum.
"That night changed the way I see them [concerts] forever," she said.
That was until she attended Taylor Swift's Era's tour in Edinburgh earlier this year, which she says helped her to make peace with trauma from the bombings seven years on.
"The Eras tour truly helped heal something in me that was so broken after Manchester," the now-21-year-old said.
"I felt like I'd finally experience the true meaning of girlhood."
The Manchester local said seeing that place she had finally deemed her "safe place" had been threatened with a similar situation was devastating, but authorities had made the right call — the call she wished had come seven years ago.
"Take it from someone who has been through this and had their life ruined from a concert attack — a concert is not worth your life.
"It's since come out that there were a lot of missed opportunities to catch the attacker before he was able to carry out the attack," she said.
An official inquiry reported last year that Britain's domestic intelligence agency, MI5, didn't act swiftly enough on key information and missed a significant opportunity to prevent the bombing.
"The people who were going to the [Vienna] shows don't realise how incredibly lucky they are to have been spared an experience like mine and thousands [of] others," Ms McMahon said.
"I'll never forget the noise and the silence that came immediately after it."
Ms McMahon has since been diagnosed with PTSD and undergone years of therapy.
"I still struggle with survivor's guilt and managing to hold down a job," she said.
"Some days I can't face going outside or will have been awake all night because I'm scared to go to sleep with the nightmares that are so vivid it feels like I'm back there."
