Austin City Limits music fest offers refunds after Vegas shooting

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - The Austin City Limits Music Festival will offer refunds to people who no longer want to attend for security concerns after the mass shooting at a Las Vegas concert, organizers said on Tuesday. Safety measures at large outdoor venues have come under scrutiny after a retiree armed with assault rifles strafed an outdoor country music festival in Las Vegas on Sunday from a hotel room, killing at least 59 people in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. Sandee Fenton, a spokeswoman for the annual Austin City Limits event which starts on Friday, did not offer further details on the refunds. Local media said only a few people had sought to return tickets over fears for their safety. The music festival, which runs through two successive weekends, attracts about 75,000 people a day to a park near the centre of Austin. Headliners for this year's festival include Jay-Z, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Chance the Rapper and Spoon. Police in the Texas capital and concert officials said they had bolstered security but would not offer details of the measures. Austin Police Chief Brian Manley said on Monday the event always has a large police presence given its size and this year will include federal and state resources assisting with security. Authorities are watching for copycat attacks and paying close attention to areas where someone could potentially try to attack from above, Manley told reporters. “At this time there are absolutely no threats that have been made against ACL,” the chief said. “But we live in a world now where you cannot protect against every single threat,” he added. (Reporting by Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas and Colleen Jenkins in Winston-Salem, North Carolina; Editing by Andrew Hay)