A rock festival in Germany has been closed down for the day after police received information on a suspected terror threat. Thousands of people were evacuated from the Rock am Ring, at the Nürburgring in the north-west of the country on Friday.

Police said they were investigating after getting “concrete indications” that meant they could not “exclude a possible terrorist threat”. Festival organisers said they had been asked by police to shut down the festival “due to a terrorist threat”.

The incident comes less than a fortnight after a terrorist killed 22 people at a concert in Manchester.

It was not immediately clear how many fans were in attendance, but about 90,000 were expected by the end of the weekend at the annual three-day event.

The German band Rammstein were Friday night’s headliners, but had not started playing. The festival’s organisers said they hoped to be able to go ahead on Saturday.

“As safety is paramount, and it is necessary to exclude a threat to festival visitors in any case as far as possible, it was decided to suspend the festival for this day,” police said.



Police said they had changed their security plans in the light of the Manchester attack and had increased their forces to 1,200 officers.

“After a threat could not be ruled out, all necessary measures were taken immediately. This led to the event being interrupted today for security reasons.”

Rock am Ring’s organisers said: “We ask all the festival visitors to leave the site in a calm and controlled manner towards the exits and camping grounds. We have to support the police investigations.”