Stormzy pulls out of Austria's Snowbombing festival, cites "racial profiling"

Stormzy alleges security targeted and “aggressively handled” his manager and friends.

Stormzy has pulled out of a headline slot at Austria’s Snowbombing festival, accusing the event’s security of racially profiling his manager.

The UK star was just hours away from performing at the festival yesterday (April 11) when Stormzy said that security had targeted his manager and friends looking for a weapon, despite “no one [in their party] fitting the description”.

“My manager and all my friends who were at the festival were racially profiled, targeted and aggressively handled because they had ‘reason to believe someone was carrying a weapon,’” Stormzy wrote in a statement on his Instagram Stories.

“The security targeted them (despite no one fitting the description), were physically aggressive when handling them and there’s been no effort from the festival to actually deal and adress the problem.”

In its own statement, Snowbombing said:

“Last night (Wednesday 10th) Snowbombing’s security were alerted to the possibility that an individual at the festival was allegedly carrying a weapon. In accordance with protocol, a small number of attendees, including Stormzy’s manager were escorted to the nearest exit, searched and no weapon was found.

“Stormzy’s management were unhappy with the manner by which this took place and as a result Stormzy will no longer be performing tonight. This evening’s Forest Party will now not go ahead as planned. We are deeply saddened that any individual would feel uncomfortable at Snowbombing.

“Snowbombing would like to wholeheartedly apologise to Stormzy’s team. We are doing everything we can to understand the full situation and are treating this with the utmost seriousness to ensure this does not happen again.”

In his statement, Stormzy apologized to fans left disappointed by his decision to cancel, but said that he had to do so in order to “make a point against racism and racial profiling”.

“My sincerest apologies to anyone who travelled all that way to watch me perform. I’m genuinely upset that you’ve wasted your time and money and that burns me more than you’d know,” he said.

“The last ever thing I wanna do is let down anyone who’s taken time out to support me. So please hear me out, I too would be fuming if I travelled and spent money to go and watch an artist and they pull out last minute.

“However, if these are the drastic steps that I need to take to make a point against racism and racial profiling, then trust me I’m taking it.”