Ariana Grande will perform “with greater purpose” at the concert in tribute to the victims of the Manchester bombing, her manager has said after overnight attacks in London.
Scott “Scooter” Braun, who runs the management company SB Project, said he and Grande “feel a sense of responsibility to honour those lost, injured and affected. We plan to honour them with courage, bravery and defiance in the face of fear. Today’s One Love Manchester benefit concert will not only continue, but will do so with greater purpose.”
About 55,000 people are expected to attend concert at Emirates Old Trafford cricket ground on Sunday.
Greater Manchester police confirmed the concert would go ahead with even tighter security following the overnight attacks at London Bridge and Borough Market in which at least seven people were killed and 48 injured.
A global TV audience of hundreds of millions from more than 50 countries is expected for the event, which will be screened on BBC1 from 6.55pm on Sunday.
The concert, which will also feature 10 other artists, including Coldplay, Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber, Katy Perry and Take That, has been arranged at lightning speed, less than two weeks after the attack that killed 22 people at Grande’s Manchester Arena.
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Pop stars, football clubs and police all dropped their plans so that the event could go ahead. It will be filmed by the BBC and aired live on major networks from Brazil to the United States and China to Australia.
Their efforts mean that 55,000 people, including more than 10,000 who were at the original gig, will gather at the Emirates Old Trafford cricket ground to watch Grande perform for the first time since the attacks.
“It’s been like putting on Live Aid in a week,” one of the organisers told the Observer. “I’ve never known an event of this magnitude to be pulled together in such a short amount of time.”
The idea for the benefit concert came from Grande, who told her manager, Braun, three days after the attack that she wanted to do something to support the victims.
Braun got in touch with Melvin Benn, the managing director of Festival Republic, which runs Latitude and the Leeds and Reading music festivals.
“The idea to host this event came from Ariana,” Benn told Billboard magazine. “She was very traumatised after the attack but it was very important to her to support the victims and show a level of defiance that stands up to this bloodlust and tells the terrorists that they are not going to stop us.”
Over the weekend Braun set about building an attention-grabbing line-up, starting with Coldplay, who were due to start their European tour next week.