Worldwide echo

Swiftie “disaster” turned into “triumph” for Vienna

The necessity of canceling the concert became a celebratory virtue: the pictures of the Swifties, who were happy again in the end, went around the world.

(Bild: Tuma Alexander/Starpix /A. Tuma)

The way the city and its inhabitants dealt with the disappointed fans of singer Taylor Swift at the weekend after the concert cancellation moved the whole world and put Vienna in the best light around the world.

After the Taylor Swift concert was canceled, Vienna's tourism experts spoke gloomily and blatantly of a "catastrophe" for the city, but now they are on cloud nine: The whole world has been impressed by how Vienna and its people have turned thousands of disappointed concert-goers into cheerfully celebrating Vienna fans.

"Charm offensive" instead of "crisis mode"
"A disaster turned into an image triumph", says Vienna Tourism Director Norbert Kettner, who can hardly believe his luck. The Swifties had "taken possession of the city and the city allowed itself to be taken possession of. The world witnessed this takeover, with the message that Vienna is also perceived as a modern, progressive and fun-loving cosmopolitan city by the young target group." Accordingly, communication "quickly switched from crisis mode to the 'charm offensive'.

Hundreds of thousands of social media postings of peaceful crowds celebrating in the city center, smiling police officers with friendship bracelets, singing afternoons in churches, thousands of Swifties taking advantage of free admission to museums and swimming pools and much more are still going viral, with touching messages of thanks such as "Vienna, I have never loved you more", "We have created magic out of something negative", "Vienna, I love you so much", "A love story is happening in Vienna right now" and thousands of other compliments.

90,000 media reports

Vienna Tourism counted 90,000 media reports around the world about how welcome the stranded Swifties felt in Vienna in the end.

Vienna Tourism's social media channels alone had 20,000 likes for their posts about the weekend. In addition, there was worldwide media coverage: "The Swifties have taken over Austria", reported CNN, "Die Zeit" ran the headline "Thank you, Swiftienna!", the "Frankfurter Allgemeine" ran a similar headline with "So tröstete Wien die Swifties" and the Italian "Panorama" wrote that Vienna had "provided an example of courage and resilience as the perfect place of refuge".

The weekend also echoed in Vienna: The cult club U4, which unexpectedly saw itself transformed into the "Swifty Palace" after losing a bet (and kept its word), mused on the social media platform X: "We have impressively experienced what good will, empathy, solidarity and working together can achieve." This is the "blueprint" for the answer to all religious and political extremism, "please let's use it!"