Touring
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Mumford & Sons is gearing up to release the band’s first album in seven years — and now, the group is also planning to bring Rushmere on the road. On Thursday (Feb. 6), the group comprised of Marcus Mumford, Ben Lovett and Ted Dwane announced a small run of tour dates supporting their upcoming LP. […]
Seven-time Grammy winner and Academy Award-winning artist Jon Batiste has signed with UTA for representation in all areas, the agency announced Thursday (Feb. 5) Batiste is also a composer and performer who has built a career spanning multiple genres and disciplines.
This Sunday (Feb. 9), Batiste is set to perform the national anthem at the 2025 Super Bowl in his hometown of New Orleans.
Batiste’s latest studio album Beethoven Blues, released in November via Verve Records/Interscope, blends Beethoven’s compositions with Batiste’s own approach to the piano. The album debuted at No. 1 on Billboard’s Classical Albums chart and held the top spot for five weeks. It also reached the top of the Classical Crossover Albums chart where it sat at the peak for 10 weeks.
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Batiste has earned seven top 10s on the Jazz Albums chart, including a No. 1 with 2014’s Social Music and 2018’s Hollywood Africans, which peaked at No. 2 and spent over six months on the chart. He’s also had three top 10s on the Adult Alternative Airplay chart, with 2021’s “I Need You” reaching No. 2. His song catalog (for tracks on which he is the lead performer) has registered 284.5 million official on-demand U.S. streams, according to Luminate.
Batiste received 11 Grammy nominations in 2022, eight for his album We Are and three for his music to the Pixar movie Soul. He is one of only five artists in Grammy history to receive 11 or more nominations in one year. His nominations were spread across six genre fields in addition to the General Field.
Batiste was the subject of Matthew Heineman’s 2023 documentary American Symphony, released on Netflix in partnership with production company Higher Ground. Batiste and Grammy winner Dan Wilson penned the emotional song “It Never Went Away” for the film, which earned an Oscar nomination for best original song in 2024. American Symphony also won best music film at this year’s Grammys, while a track featured in the film, “It Never Went Away,” won best song written for visual media.
A Juilliard graduate, Batiste served as the bandleader and musical director of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert from 2015 to 2022. His early Grammy recognition included a nomination for best American roots performance in 2018 for his rendition of “Saint James Infirmary Blues” and two nominations in 2020 for Chronology of a Dream: Live at the Village Vanguard and Meditations (with Cory Wong). In 2021, he won the Academy Award for best original score for Disney/Pixar’s Soul alongside Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. In 2024, he also composed the score for Jason Reitman’s film Saturday Night live on-set during filming.
Batiste additionally runs his own company with an executive team led by Jonathan Azu, Dan Shulman, Ryan Lynn and ID PR.
BLACKPINK is coming to your area! The K-pop superstars teased that they are hitting the road for a world tour in a video that dropped Wednesday (Feb. 5).
In a 21-second video on their social media channels and YouTube, the visual begins with a pitch black screen before an aerial view of a massive, open-air stadium begins to come into view, with the camera panning over thousands of fans cheering from different angles. The quartet of Jennie, Lisa, Jisoo and Rosé on a stage then comes into view, before the screen goes to black, a spotlight comes in, and the four women’s silhouette appears with the name of the group in — of course — pink popping up. The video ends with simple pink text on a black background: “2025 World Tour.”
Dates and venues have not yet been revealed.
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BLINKs shared their excitement in the comments section on YouTube and Instagram. “OMG, We were all waiting for our Queens, and now we’re gonna have a Great COMEBACKKKKK!” one wrote. Added another, “THE QUEENS ARE BACK !!!!”
The members of BLACKPINK have taken a break from group activities for the past year or so to focus on their solo projects. Jennie made her acting debut in HBO’s The Idol in 2023, and has released songs with other musical collaborators and solo since; Rosé dropped solo album rosie in December 2024, which featured her hit Bruno Mars collab “APT.”; Lisa’s debut solo album, Alter Ego, is arriving later this month and is appearing in the upcoming third season of White Lotus; while Jisoo’s mini album AMORTAGE will drop on Valentine’s Day.
In Jennie’s January Billboard cover story, she opened up about the quartet staying close by connecting in a group chat while working separately on their own projects. “Even though we know we can’t see each other so much, it doesn’t really feel any different than all the other years because we know we’re here for each other,” she said at the time.. “They’re literally a phone call away. And at this point, we respect each other’s space so much. So if there’s anything to be happy for, to celebrate, we’re all in it together.”
And in her own November Billboard cover story, Lisa confirmed BLACKPINK’s upcoming reunion for 2025, revealing that she feels the same ways as BLINKs about resuming group activities: “I can’t wait.”
Watch BLACKPINK’s 2025 tour teaser above.
The sprawling 32-acre Gateway Studios & Production Services rehearsal and production studio complex has announced plans for a May 2025 opening. Studio executives for the Chesterfield, Mo., facility — located about 20 minutes west of St. Louis — are now accepting reservations for the state-of-the-art facility, designed to build and rehearse major modern touring arena and stadium shows.
“This facility is designed to set a new standard for production and rehearsal spaces, both in size and innovation,” said Trey Kerr, CEO of Gateway Studios & Production Services, in a statement. “Our goal has always been to create a world-class environment where artists and their teams can prepare to bring their visions to life. Centrally located in the heart of the country, we offer unmatched access and flexibility for artists that strive to deliver unforgettable performances.”
The Gateway complex is comprised of three major rehearsal spaces: Studio 80, a 52,500 square foot rehearsal space; Studio 75, a smaller 15,000 square foot rehearsal space; and Studio 65, a 12,000 square foot space. It also includes an additional 15,700 square feet of open space.
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The spaces are designed to meet the “rigorous demands of live music tours, motion picture and television production, and corporate events,” a press release announcing the opening reads. It describes Gateway Studios as “the largest and most advanced tour rehearsal destination in the United States.”
To accommodate the needs of most modern touring shows, Gateway studio spaces were built for large, heavy shows. Studio 80 includes an 80-foot ceiling grid with a 2 million pound (or approximately 1,000 ton) weight capacity. All three studios include large receiving and staging areas with dedicated loading docks, drive-in ramps and dressing rooms with ensuite private bathrooms, offices and a catering lounge. Gateway is also equipped with redundant high-speed fiber-optic internet access from two independent service providers and a 5.5-megawatt independent backup generator system.
“We’ve designed this new facility with a clear purpose: to provide an exceptional space where creativity and technical innovation can thrive,” said Kerr. “Our aim is to offer artists a dynamic environment that seamlessly supports their production needs, from rehearsal to execution. In addition, we offer comprehensive production services to ensure every aspect of the creative process is expertly handled. Situated in a central location, we offer both unparalleled convenience and the flexibility required for artists to push the boundaries of their craft and deliver extraordinary performances.”
You can learn more at gsps.com/studios.
When Morgan Wallen announced his upcoming I’m The Problem Tour, Miranda Lambert was listed among the openers. Lambert, the most-awarded artist in ACM Awards history, is set to open 11 shows on the trek — and some fans are disappointed to see Lambert in an opening slot on the tour.
On Tuesday (Feb. 4), Lambert shared a Instagram video reel of herself reading some of the “mean tweets” — or rather, comments — that came with the tour announcement. “I appreciate that y’all aren’t afraid to hold back,” she wrote in video’s caption
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Some of the less-than-thrilled statements included, “Hmmm, team Miranda forever, but this comes as a shock,” “I was the biggest Miranda fan,” and “This ain’t it, sis.” Another comment read, “I’m so disappointed in both of you. May God forgive you both,” drawing a laugh from Lambert, who said jokingly, “We’re really doing bad on this tour, Morgan.”
Other commenters expressed surprise that Lambert — who has been an established headliner in her own right for many years — is opening a show for Wallen. “You are not a side dish–you are a main course,” read one.
Another commenter showed disappointment that Lambert isn’t playing the two Texas shows on the tour, Wallen’s pair of concerts set for Houston on June 20-21. “WTF, I don’t see Texas on here,” the commenter wrote, to which Lambert responded with a nod, saying, “I know, that sucks. I’m not on the Texas shows.”
“So there we go. Thanks guys for the support. Appreciate that,” Lambert said, taking the comments in stride.
Wallen’s I’m the Problem Tour launches June 20 and runs through Sept. 13. Other openers set to appear throughout the tour include Koe Wetzel, Corey Kent, Ella Langley, Gavin Adcock, Brooks & Dunn, Thomas Rhett and Anne Wilson.
The tour takes its namesake from Wallen’s current song and his upcoming fourth studio album. That project will follow his album One Thing at a Time, which stayed atop the Billboard 200 albums chart for 19 non-consecutive weeks and garnered six Country Airplay chart No. 1 singles.
Lambert released her most recent album, Postcards From Texas, in 2024 through a partnership with Republic Records and Big Loud. The album’s lead single, “Wranglers,” released in May 2024.
Watch Lambert’s video reaction below:
Rauw Alejandro is taking his 2025 Cosa Nuestra world tour to Europe, unveiling his visit across 11 cities including Paris, Amsterdam, Milan, Madrid and more. The European leg of the tour, produced by Live Nation, kicks off June 17 at The O2 in London, and will wrap on July 11 at the Palau Sant Jordi […]
For anyone looking to escape the onslaught of terrible news in 2025, drag superstar Trixie Mattel has an offer: Why not come dance with a drag queen for a while?
On Tuesday (Feb. 4), Mattel announced her upcoming North American tour for her live DJ show Solid Pink Disco: Blonde Edition. Set to start on April 5 in Toronto, the 16-date trek will take the Drag Race All Stars winner through Atlanta, Denver, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, Chicago and more cities, before closing out on June 3 in Washington, D.C.
Mattel’s new rendition of her live DJ sets will feature an array of other artists across different dates, including DJ Mateo Segade, Daya, Rebecca Black, Shea Couleé, Snow Wife, Vincint, Zolita and more special guests.
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“We need something to feel good about right now, and what better way than to put on your brightest pink and your blondest wig and dance surrounded by homosexuals?” Mattel tells Billboard in an exclusive statement shared with the news. “This Solid Pink Disco is going to be better and gayer than ever before.”
Mattel began performing DJ sets live after she discovered her passion for the artform during the pandemic. She revealed in a 2024 episode of her podcast The Bald and the Beautiful that she had decided to take a break from her career as a recording artist because she felt the “glass ceiling” of the music industry weighing on her.
“I recently have been taking a break from music because I feel the glass ceiling so fiercely,” she told Monét X Change in the episode. “We’re only ever taken seriously about one month a year. And it kind of takes the wind out of your sails. I want to make music, but if I don’t have this wig on, no one will pay attention. But because I have this wig on, no one will take it seriously.”
Tickets for Mattel’s Solid Pink Disco: Blonde Edition tour go on-sale starting Friday, Feb. 7 at 10 a.m. local time on the star’s touring website. Check out the full list of dates below:
Solid Pink Disco: Blonde Edition tour dates:
Saturday, April 5 – Toronto – History
Sunday, April 6 – Austin, Texas. – ACL Live at The Moody Theater
Thursday, April 17 – San Antonio – Boeing Center at Tech Port
Friday, April 18 – Brooklyn, N.Y. – Brooklyn Paramount
Saturday, April 19 – Atlanta – The Eastern
Thursday, May 1 – Denver – The Ogden Theatre
Friday, May 2 – Montreal – MTELUS
Saturday, May 3 – Pittsburgh – Stage AE
Thursday, May 8 – Los Angeles – Hollywood Palladium
Friday, May 9 – Oakland, Calif. – Fox Theater
Saturday, May 10 – Salt Lake City – Rockwell at The Complex
Thursday, May 15 – San Diego – Observatory North Park
Thursday, May 29 – Chicago – The Salt Shed
Friday, May 30 – Minneapolis – First Avenue
Saturday, May 31 – Nashville, Tenn. – The Pinnacle
Tuesday, June 3 – Washington, D.C. – Echostage
On Monday morning (Feb. 3), Beyoncé announced details for her Cowboy Carter Tour. Following shortly after 2023’s record-breaking Renaissance World Tour, she could add another $300 million to her career Boxscore total.
Like most weeks, it’s a good week to be Beyoncé. Last night, she won her record-extending 33rd, 34th and 35th Grammys, including album of the year for Cowboy Carter. But one night earlier, she teased a 2025 tour for her genre-busting album, and the morning after, she confirmed it with dates and venues.
Cowboy Carter Tour will take Beyoncé across the U.S. and over to Europe, just like the routing for the Renaissance World Tour. But while her 2023 trek took a relatively traditional route through 14 European cities and then another 25 in North America, her upcoming schedule is consolidated into a series of multi-night stops in major markets.
First, the tour will begin with four shows at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif., less than a half-hour drive from downtown Los Angeles. Then, two nights in Chicago and four in New Jersey (New York market). Next, Beyoncé will fly to London for four shows and to Paris for two. Finally, she’ll return Stateside for double-headers in Houston, Washington, D.C., and Atlanta.
With an initial routing of 22 shows, the Cowboy Carter Tour will be Beyoncé’s briefest solo headline tour yet, but that doesn’t mean it won’t register mammoth grosses. Using the same average ticket prices and per-show attendance from each city’s stop on the Renaissance World Tour, the 2025 trek would sprint to a finish of $294.3 million and almost 1.2 million tickets. Just two years removed from her last tour, a 4% inflation bump would bring her upcoming stint to $306 million.
But just as the initial announcement for the Renaissance World Tour grew from 41 shows to a final count of 56, additional dates for Cowboy Carter Tour could push its final gross further beyond the $300 million mark. And like its predecessor, its actual impact will go far beyond standard ticket sales.
By playing 22 shows in just eight markets over two and a half months, Cowboy Carter Tour reframes Beyoncé’s touring schedule and capitalizes on some of the frenzied energy that followed the Renaissance World Tour. During that trek, it was well–documented that fans were traversing across city, state and country lines, turning Renaissance shows into festival-style destinations. From travel and lodging to wardrobe and entertainment, the tour boosted local economies beyond the purchase of a concert ticket.
Channeling the scale of a world tour to eight major cities on either side of the pond, Cowboy Carter Tour teases each stop as a destination event. It makes sense, then, that Live Nation partner Vibee is providing curated experience packages that pair concert tickets with hotel stays and other VIP add-ons. While the company’s homepage shows similar packages for artist residencies like Bad Bunny’s upcoming 21 shows in Puerto Rico and various artists at Sphere in Las Vegas, Cowboy Carter Tour is the only proper tour featured. Further signaling a new era of concerts that double as immersive experiences, it’s another way to efficiently meet growing demand in the post-pandemic touring landscape.
Beyoncé’s Boxscore history has continued to bloom into the new decade. The Renaissance World Tour finished with $579.8 million and 2.8 million tickets in 56 shows. That’s more than double the take of 2016’s The Formation World Tour and 2018’s On the Run II Tour with Jay-Z ($256.1 million and $253.5 million, respectively), both of which had improved upon The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour ($211.9 million in 2013-14) and the original On the Run Tour ($109.6 million in 2014).
By design, simply due to the limited number of scheduled tour dates, it’s unlikely that Beyoncé will continue to one-up herself with Cowboy Carter Tour, but it will push her career totals to new heights. Dating back to the 2004 Verizon Ladies First Tour with Alicia Keys and Missy Elliott, and her first solo outing with 2007’s The Beyoncé Experience, the pop-dance-R&B-country superstar has grossed $1.3 billion and sold 11.6 million tickets over 431 reported concerts. By year’s end, those totals should climb past $1.6 billion and 12.8 million tickets.
Cowboy Carter Tour follows Beyoncé’s album of the same name. In addition to its Grammy win for album of the year, it made her the first Black artist to win best country album. Upon its release last Spring, the set debuted atop the Billboard 200 with 407,000 equivalent album units earned, according to Luminate, marking Queen Bey’s biggest week, by units, since Lemonade eight years prior. Cowboy Carter includes “Texas Hold ‘Em,” which topped the Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks and Hot Country Songs for 10 frames.
A ticketing reform law meant to clean up the concert industry has been revived in the U.S. Senate after nearly becoming law at the end of last year.
Originally introduced by representative Gus M. Bilirakis (R-Florida), the Transparency in Charges for Key Events Ticketing Act (TICKET Act) would introduce a number of reforms to the ticket-buying process. That includes rules to increase pricing transparency, which would require sports teams and concert promoters to clearly and prominently display the full price of a concert ticket, with fees and taxes added, so that the price they first see is the price they pay at checkout.
The TICKET Act died with the end of the 2023-2024 congressional term but has been reintroduced in the U.S. Senate by senators Eric Schmitt (R-Missouri) and Ed Markey (D- Massachusetts). It heads to the Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday (Feb. 5) for a hearing.
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The TICKET Act would also mandate refunds for canceled events, ban speculative ticket sales and crack down on the unauthorized use of venues, teams and artists on resell sites designed to confuse fans. Born out of the bungled Taylor Swift ticket sale for her record-breaking Eras Tour — which was crashed by scalpers and billions of bots trying to buy up tickets to flip for profit — the TICKET Act passed the House Energy and Commerce Committee in December 2023 and passed the House in June of last year in a 344 to 24 vote. The bill was even included in the first iteration of the end-of-year Continuing Resolution spending bill signed by former president Joe Biden at the end of last year before eventually being pulled from it.
Whether or not the TICKET Act ends up on President Donald Trump’s desk, one of its key tenets — all-in pricing — was solidified in December by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) when it announced a rule change tackling “junk fees.” The so-called Junk Fees Rule — which also applies to hotel rooms and airline fees — requires total price disclosure including fees for any event tickets listed for sale on the internet.
“People deserve to know up-front what they’re being asked to pay — without worrying that they’ll later be saddled with mysterious fees that they haven’t budgeted for and can’t avoid,” former FTC Chair Lina M. Khan said on Dec. 17, hours after FTC commissioners announced the rule change.
The TICKET Act isn’t the only bill designed to create a more hospitable ticketing marketplace for consumers — though some have claimed that violators of existing laws aren’t being held to account. In September, the National Independent Talent Organization (NITO) sent Khan a letter urging her to begin enforcing the 2016 BOTS Act, which prohibits scalpers from using technology that circumvents “a security measure, access control system, or other technological measure used to enforce ticket purchasing limits for events with over 200 attendees.” The Sept. 9 letter claimed NITO members had attended a ticket resale conference and “observed a sold-out exhibition hall filled with vendors selling and marketing products designed to bypass security measures for ticket purchases, in direct violation of the BOTS Act.”
In July, songwriter and music industry analyst Chris Castle wrote that the BOTS Act has only been enforced one time since its 2017 passage. He went on to argue that the government needs to focus on enforcing its existing laws before moving on to a new regime of legislation that will ultimately go “under-enforced.”
The directory business hasn’t changed much in the last 50 years, but a group of young entrepreneurs are looking to shake things up with the help of artificial intelligence.
Promoters and booking agents have long relied on printed and bound phone and email directories for connecting with the tens of thousands of venues that make up the global touring network. Booking a 25-date tour might require contacting more than 100 venues and clubs for calendar availability, creating reliable demand for companies like Pollstar, VenuesNow and groups like the International Association of Venue Managers to print and publish an updated version of their database each year.
Updating these directories can be a huge undertaking, requiring hundreds of phone calls, emails and queries by the publisher’s staff. Entrepreneur Benji Stein, founder of Booking-Agent.IO, believes there is a better way and his new plan could revolutionize the way valuable information, such as professional contact details, is compiled and monetized by publishers.
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Booking-Agent.IO’s data comes from regularly scraping the websites of major venues, and then analyzing and rating that data using AI tools. Contacts for each venue are cross-checked in real time against a number of databases including LinkedIn, Hunter.IO and Apollo, he said, and “searches specifically for the talent buyer of that venue, providing users with an email score” to rate the likely accuracy of the lead.
“We started building this tool a number of years ago, before the prevalence of ChatGPT,” Stein said, noting “it’s basically a search engine for talent buyers and for venues,” adding that “it allows you to see venues on a regional basis with information like capacity, upcoming events and social media links.”
Stein said he expects most current Booking-Agent.IO users to fit into the DIY category and are either self-represented or working with artists without a full-time agent. When available, BookingAgent.io also includes contact information for other positions like production manager and marketing director.
Pricing is $49.99 per month for the basic membership, which comes with unlimited searches and 100 contacts per month. Booking-Agent.IO also offers enterprise subscription plans and only charges users for contacts that are accurate.
“If you book a show with the tool, it essentially pays for itself,” he said.
Challenging Pollstar’s dominance and market share seems unlikely in the long-term, but Stein says when it comes to data accuracy, he believes Booking-Agent.IO has a long-term advantage, noting that print directories eventually become outdated and need to be replaced. As users look to purchase a more recent edition of their booking directory, Stein hopes buyers will increasingly seek out an alternative and find Booking-Agent.io.
“We’re very fresh. It’s a new tool,” Stein says. “Up until now, there’s been nothing like it and we’ve gotten really positive feedback from the kind of music industry people that we’ve onboarded.