Concerts
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The Weeknd upscales his four-city tour of Australia and New Zealand following “unprecedented demand” for tickets.
Last month, the Canadian R&B star announced four shows in total, visiting each of Australia’s big three east coast cities — Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane — and including a single date in Auckland, NZ.
On Monday (Sept. 4), that itinerary ballooned to 10 shows across those four sites.
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Produced by Live Nation, the Weeknd’s After Hours Til Dawn Tour will now include three concerts at Sydney’s Accor Stadium (the first two are sellouts) and Melbourne’s Marvel Arena, with two for Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium. As previously reported, special guests on all dates are Mike Dean and Chxrry22.
On completion of the Australia run, he’ll head to New Zealand where he’ll now play two December dates at Auckland’s Eden Park.
Since the Aug. 22 tour announcement, appetite for the Weeknd’s music has doubled across streaming music platforms, sending a string of his recordings up the ARIA Charts. According to the charts compiler ARIA, The Highlights this week holds at No. 3; former leaders Starboy lifts 18-4, After Hours is up 27-17, Dawn FM climbs 65-25 and Beauty Behind The Madness bounces 93-38 (all via Universal).
Ticketing giants Ticketek and Ticketmaster have reported impressive traffic on their respective platforms. Ticketmaster queue for the Melbourne dates was at 122,000 when the first presale started, reps say. When the first allocation was exhausted, more than 100,000 Melbourne fans remained in the queue.On the other side of the ditch, Ticketmaster NZ reports the highest number of unique users and page views for any announce this year, including 165,000 users, 647,000 page views. Also, presale demand from both Vodafone Australia and One NZ customers was unprecedented in their history.Though impressive, the Weeknd’s 10-date stadium jaunt across both markets is dwarfed by Ed Sheeran’s Divide tour of 2018, during which he played 18 stadium concerts across Australia and New Zealand, selling more than a one million tickets, a new record, and beating AC/DC’s old mark for stadium dates on a single tour (14).
The Weeknd’s ‘After Hours Til Dawn Tour 2023’ Australia and New Zealand:Nov. 20 — Suncorp Stadium, BrisbaneNov. 21 — Suncorp Stadium, BrisbaneNov. 24 — Accor Stadium, Sydney (*sold out)Nov. 25 — Accor Stadium, Sydney (*sold out)Nov. 27 — Accor Stadium, SydneyDec. 1 — Marvel Stadium, MelbourneDec. 2 — Marvel Stadium, MelbourneDec. 4 — Marvel Stadium, MelbourneDec. 7 – Eden Park, AucklandDec. 8 — Eden Park, Auckland
Music, fashion and artistry blended seamlessly into a mesmerizing, three-hour extravaganza at Beyoncé’s weekend at SoFi Stadium.
Missed the Eras Tour when it came through your city? Don’t worry, you still have a chance to catch it — but this time, on the big screen. Taylor Swift announced on Aug. 31 that she’d be bringing her massively popular global trek to AMC theaters all across North America, following the conclusion of its […]
Fans were already lined up to enter Rogers Arena in Vancouver on Monday night (Aug. 28) for the first of two shows from Drake when they were informed that the gig had been postponed. “Due to unforeseen circumstances with the newly-installed videoboard at Rogers Arena, tonight’s Drake performance will now take place on Wednesday, August […]
Florence Welch, the lead vocalist of Florence + The Machine, has shared that she has undergone life-saving, emergency surgery. The news comes after the band canceled its festival appearances that were scheduled for this weekend. Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news “I’m so sorry that I had to […]
How long will consumers keep spending $200 on concert tickets, $15 on a cocktail at the venue (and God knows what for parking) and $11 on a music subscription? Judging from recent comments by some executives, people may be dealing with inflation, but they will still pay to be entertained.
“After another quarter of record-breaking [gross order value], it is clear consumers continue to prioritize live events experiences,” said Vivid Seats CEO Stan Chia on the company’s Aug. 8 earnings call.
Investors, though, seem worried about the potential effects of millions of American student loan borrowers resuming payments this fall after years of pandemic-era forbearance. In over three years, the forbearance on student loan debt totaled about $185 billion that was spent elsewhere or saved, according to an estimate by Goldman Sachs. Asked by an analyst about the possibility that loan payments will put a crimp in concert spending, Live Nation president/CFO Joe Berchtold said the company doesn’t expect a problem. Live Nation’s analysis is that the positive impact of fans returning to live events after the pandemic “is about 10 times the impact of any potential headwind coming from the student loan payments needing to get made,” Berchtold said during the company’s July 27 earnings call.
Chia echoed Bechtold’s optimism. Vivid Seats sees “resiliency” in consumer demand and strong trends for live music, he said. To that point, Vivid Seats increased its guidance for 2023 for the second time this year and now expects marketplace gross order value (GOV) of $3.4 billion to $3.6 billion and revenues from $630 million to $650 million.
What’s more, Live Nation expects people won’t be shy about opening their wallets. Full-year concerts margin will increase in 2023 thanks to an “increase [in] the per-fan profitability” from on-site spending — things such as food and drink — and “containing to focus on the costs,” said Berchtold. Price-conscious consumers “are continuing to spend strongly,” he said, and Live Nation is seeing an increase in both the number of fans per show and per-head spending.
Eventbrite, which increased the mid-point of its 2023 revenue guidance from $323.5 million to $325 million, is finding people are still eager to do things in the real world after COVID-19 lockdowns moved much of their lives online. In an Aug. 3 earnings call, CEO Julia Hartz said the company’s improved outlook comes from “strong demand signals across the board, particularly for categories like music, film and media, food and drink, nightlife, performing and visual arts.” What’s more, Eventbrite is seeing “people really want to get out and connect with one another,” she added: “Singles and dating events are 50% up year over year. Independent singer-songwriter-hosted events were up 60%.”
German promoter CTS Eventim expects moderate growth in internet ticket volume and live entertainment revenue this year. And while CTS believes its future is clouded by unquantifiable effects of geopolitical security uncertainty, persistently high inflation and a potential economic stagnation or recession, the company said in its mid-year earnings report that “earnings figures should improve substantially compared with 2022.”
Consumer spending on music subscriptions also appears to be strong going into 2024. Spotify, which raised the price of its individual plan by $1 per month in the United States in July, expects to have 224 million subscribers by the end of September, after adding 15 million in the first half of the year. Its third quarter revenue guidance of 3.3 billion euros ($3.56 billion) would mark a nearly 9% gain from the prior-year period, although analysts surveyed by StreetAccount expected guidance of 3.4 billion euros ($3.67 billion). And its gross margin guidance of 26% would be a marked improvement from 25.2% and 24.1% in the first and second quarters, respectively.
While consumer spending continues unabated, brands’ spending on advertising — an important revenue stream for labels and publishers — is a different story. A soft advertising market has hurt everything from radio revenues to online advertising (though Live Nation’s advertising and sponsorship revenue has rebounded nicely from the pandemic and has seen no slowdown, according to Berchtold). iHeartMedia expects third-quarter revenue, excluding the impact of political advertising, to decline in the low-single digits, as July revenue was down about 5% year over year.
But radio advertising could rebound in the second half of the year, according to B Riley Securities analyst Daniel Day, and Cumulus Media’s better-than-expected second quarter earnings results were a positive sign. While iHeartMedia investors weren’t enthusiastic about the company’s second quarter earnings — its share price fell 17% the day earnings were announced and dropped another 6% through Thursday — the company remains optimistic. “While there was some softness in our larger advertisers, in Q2 our smaller advertisers remained resilient,” said iHeartMedia CEO Bob Pittman during the Aug. 8 earnings call. “And we saw a gradual improvement from our larger advertisers as well, which leads us to believe that we’ll continue to see improvements in the business through the remainder of the year.”
You wanna go for a ride back to the ’90s? AQUA is here to deliver. The Danish dance-pop group announced its Barbie World Tour on Friday (Aug. 25) with dates across the United States in an appropriately pink photo. The trek kicks off in Seattle at the historic Paramount Theatre on Nov. 12, and wraps […]
When comedian Bert Kreischer started outlining the concept for his party-driven Fully Loaded Comedy Festival tour, the famed party animal decided to sit down with his thoughts and sketch out a tour agenda like no other — one that would both bring his vision for the ultimate comedy tour to fruition and potentially serve as the outline for his legacy.
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“Each summer, I want to surround myself with my favorite humans, which are always going to be comics,” he said. “I want to hang out with my friends and family, tour and have fun. I want to float on rivers, boat on lakes, end up in oceans, go hiking, shoot guns, get high on mushrooms and do whatever we can to have a blast.”
Kreischer’s dream is now a reality, wrapping up last month after a 17-date tour across North America — including the Orion Amphitheater in Huntsville, Alabama, and ending at the Gorge Amphitheater in Washington. When the numbers are all reported to Billboard Boxscore, the tour is likely to come in at a more than $10 million gross, making it one of the top earning comedy tours of the year.
Headlined by Kreischer, who has seen his profile skyrocket in the last two years thanks to his films like 2023’s The Machine, comedy specials like Hey Big Boy and Razzle Dazzle and popular comedy podcasts including “2 Bears, 1 Cave” with fellow comedian Tom Segura, this year’s stacked lineup for Fully Loaded included Mark Normand, Shane Gillis, Tiffany Haddish, Stavros Halkias, Fortune Feimster, Dave Attell, Lewis Black, Jim Norton, Andrew Santino, Big Jay Oakerson, Jay Pharoah, Dan Soder, Chad Daniels, Ralph Barbosa, Rosebud Baker and Tammy Pescatelli.
“Bert selects all of the talent for the show — its not being picked by a promoter or a talent buyer,” says manager manager Judi Marmel, a partner at Levity Talent. “In a world where nothing is agnostic, the festival is the purest form of an artist executing their vision.”
Fully Loaded was born out of the Hot Summer Nights Tour sold-out drive-in series Kreischer launched during the pandemic in 2020. Wanting to recreate his success for 2022, Kreischer — along with Marmel, UTA agent Heidi Feigin and UTA partner and Head of Comedy Touring Nick Nuciforo — came up with the idea to create a traveling comedy festival inspired by the original Lollapalooza touring festival. The festival also partnered with the charity Comedy Gives Back, an organization founded as a safety net for comics by providing them with financial crisis relief, mental health support and more.
“Our intention for creating Fully Loaded was to build a lifestyle brand that represents all of the aspects of life that Bert enjoys the most, that could then support multiple ventures and revenue streams for years to come,” says Marmel.
Kreischer says his wife LeeAnn convinced him to invest the first years earnings from the 2022 run back into the festival and worked with a team of friends to book excursions and activities for participating comedians.
“We wanted to make it the best experience a comic could ever have with extra tour buses and plenty of amenities to make it feel like a great gig,” Kreischer says — like a visit to Churchhill Downs or batting practice with the home team at the stadium they were playing.
For this year’s tour, Kreischer says his team booked activities for every day of the tour, which was split into four separate four-day runs — June 14-17 playing Forest Hills Stadium in New York, followed by CFG Bank Arena in Baltimore, PNC Field in Moosic, Penn. and Bank of New Hampshire Pavilion in Gilford; June 22-25 at Turtle Creek Stadium in Traverse City, Michigan, Parkview Field in Fort Wayne, Indiana Enterprise Center in St Louis, Pinnacle Bank Arena in Lincoln. The tour then took a two week break before returning for eight more July dates, including a July 6 show at Huntsville, Alabama’s new Orion Amphitheater, a July 8 show at AutoZone Park in Memphis, a July 12 show at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas and the show closer July 15 at the Gorge.
Throughout the tour, a content team of producers, editors, and marketing executives put together video clips and social media content from the tour, leading to a spike in interest and ticket sales as the tour chugged along. By the time the tour landed in Las Vegas, most comedians saw big spikes in their social numbers, and fans were booking tickets and flying in from out of town to see the show.
Kreischer says organizing the festival wasn’t always easy, having to sometimes make tough decisions like like deciding each night’s lineup, curated to fit the venue and market and momentum of the overall tour.
“There are certain acts that other comedians have a hard time following,” Kreisher says. “Acts like Chad Daniels, who was simply amazing. And I also had Tiffany Haddish on the lineup, who no one could f–king follow either. Most promoters wouldn’t give a s–t and say ‘just find someone to follow them,’ but as a comic, I had to say, “No that’s not how it works,” and I’m able to talk to a comedian like Dan Soder and ask him to open — and he’ll do it because he understands, and the request is coming from a comedian.”
Kreischer adds, “And then I will take the bullet and close the show behind someone like Chad or Tiffany. Everyone there knows me — I just take my shirt off and people go crazy.”
“At the heart of [things],” Kreischer says, “I love comics, and I love being on the road with comics. And my daughters who I bring on tour with me love it too. During the tour, one of them told me, ‘I love this — you wake up in a different city every morning, you have breakfast ready and everyone you eat with is hilarious. This is amazing.’”
Anitta, D-Nice and Sofia Carson have joined the star-studded lineup of the 2023 Global Citizen Festival slated to take place on the Great Lawn of New York’s Central Park on Sept. 23. The artists join a previously announced list of headliners that includes the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Ms. Lauryn Hill, Megan Thee Stallion, Conan Gray and Stray Kids.
Other performers, activists and actors slated to appear at the event include Bill Nye, Bridget Moynahan, Busy Philipps, Carmelo Anthony, Common, Connie Britton, Danai Gurira, Gayle King, Jordan Fisher, Lewis Pugh, Padma Lakshmi, Phoebe Gates, Rachel Brosnahan and Sophia Bush.
This year’s Global Citizen Festival campaign is focused on urging governments to take immediate action to address systemic issues around extreme poverty. “We’re thrilled to join forces with these passionate artists and advocates to call for urgent action to address the climate crisis, demand equity for women and girls and disrupt the cycles holding people in extreme poverty,” said Katie Hill, SVP, Head of Music, Entertainment and Artist Relations, Global Citizen in a statement. “This year’s campaign is driving a record number of actions from global citizens around the world, and we’re grateful to this year’s performers and presenters for leveraging their voices and joining us on the Great Lawn on September 23.”
Tickets for the 2023 Global Citizen Festival are free and can be earned by taking action on the Global Citizen app or here. The festival be broadcast and streamed on ABC, ABC News Live, Apple Music and the Apple TV app, Prime Video and the Amazon Music channel on Twitch, Facebook, Hulu, iHeartRadio, Instagram, Mediacorp, SABC, TikTok, TimesLIVE, Veeps, X, YouTube, the Global Citizen app and globalcitizen.org.
Ms. Lauryn Hill is hitting the road, and this time she’s bringing along some very special guests — the Fugees. In honor of the 25-year anniversary of her landmark album Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, she will be embarking on her first world tour since 2020’s Ms. Lauryn Hill Live in Concert trek, she announced on Tuesday (Aug. 22).
The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill 25th Anniversary Tour kicks off at Mystic Lake in Minneapolis, Minn., on Sept. 8, and closes in Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle on Nov. 9.
“The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill is and was a love song to my parents, my family, my people, my musical and cultural forebears, my teachers, my loves, my Creator. I wrote love songs and protest songs — (still love songs) about the subjects and interests that inspired and moved me. I was confident that what inspired me would resonate with an audience that had been led to believe that songs of that kind could only live in the past,” she said in a statement reflecting on the impact of her album. “I loved music, I loved people, I truly felt grateful to God for my life, and genuinely blessed to have a platform where I could share wisdom and perspective through music. I felt a charge to challenge the idea that certain kinds of expression and/or certain kinds of people didn’t belong in certain places. I loved showing what could work or happen provided there was imagination, creativity and LOVE leading the way.”
Grammy-winning reggae star Koffee will open on her stops in Australia Oct. 3 and Oct. 5. Fugees — the Grammy-winning, genre-bending musical collective of which Hill is a part along with Wyclef Jean and Pras — will reunite for their first tour in years to co-headline all U.S. and Canadian dates. (Pras was convicted in April in his political conspiracy case, and could face up to 20 years in prison. The announcement did not address whether the rapper will join the tour.)
There are currently 17 total dates for the Miseducation of Lauryn Hill 25th Anniversary Tour.
The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, Hill’s debut solo album, arrived on Aug. 25, 1998. The album debuted atop the Billboard 200, making her the first solo female rapper to peak or debut at No. 1 on the ranking. The album spawned three singles that hit the top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100: “Doo Wop (That Thing)” (No. 1, two weeks), “Ex-Factor” (No. 21) and “Everything Is Everything” (No. 35). The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill won Hill five Grammys in one night, making her the first woman to do so; her album is also the first hip-hop record to receive the Grammy for album of the year. Now RIAA-certified Diamond, countless artists continue to cite The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill — which was added to the Library of Congress in 2015 — as a formative and highly influential body of work.
Over the past few months, Ms. Lauryn Hill has made a number of appearances at performances across the United States to celebrate the album’s anniversary. At Hip-Hop 50 Live at Yankee Stadium in The Bronx, N.Y., Hill surprised attendees as a guest during Nas’ set. She wore a hot pink blazer and staggeringly high stilettos as she tore through a medley of her biggest solo and Fugees hits. In June, Hill headlined the Roots Picnic festival, reuniting with the Fugees for the first time since 2021.
Here are all the dates for The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill 25th Anniversary Tour:
Sept. 8 – Minneapolis, MN @ Mystic Lake
Sept. 23 – New York, NY @ Global Citizen Festival
Oct. 1 – Gold Coast, AUS @ Promiseland Festival
Oct. 3 – Melbourne, AUS @ Rod Laver Arena (with Koffee)
Oct. 5 – Sydney, AUS @ Kudos Banks Arena (with Koffee)
Oct. 7 – Auckland, NZ @ Eden Festival
Oct. 17 – Newark, NJ @ Prudential Center (with Fugees)
Oct. 19 – Brooklyn, NY @ Barclays (with Fugees)
Oct. 21 – Washington, DC @ Capital One Arena (with Fugees)
Oct. 23 – Philadelphia, PA @ Wells Fargo Arena (with Fugees)
Oct. 26 – Toronto, ON – Scotia (with Fugees)
Oct. 28 – Chicago, IL @ United Center (with Fugees)
Oct. 30 – Fort Worth, TX @ Dickies Arena (with Fugees)
Nov. 2 – Denver, CO – Ball Arena (with Fugees)
Nov. 5 – Los Angeles, CA @ Kia Forum (with Fugees)
Nov. 7 Oakland, CA @ Oakland Arena (with Fugees)
Nov. 9 – Seattle, WA @ Climate Pledge Arena (with Fugees)