Touring
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In decades past, the BBC Proms were considered an austere, sometimes stuffy showcase of classical music at London’s Royal Albert Hall. But in recent years, pop and rock acts have risen to the challenge to be a part of the programming, with Sam Smith taking on a performance backed by the BBC Orchestra earlier this summer.
Last night (Sep 11), Florence + The Machine played their 2009 debut Lungs in full for their first – and only – live performance in 2024, backed by conductor Jules Buckley and his orchestra. The Proms were first held in 1895, and have been organised by the BBC since 1927. The events take place over an 8-week stretch in the summer each year.
The show – dubbed “Symphony of Lungs” – saw many classic tracks be performed live for the first time in decades. “Bird Song” had not been played by the band for 15 years, while fan favorites “Drumming Song” and “My Boy Builds Coffins” were brought back into the setlist after lengthy absence.
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Speaking to the crowd, Florence Welch said that the album captured her “messy and chaotic” teenage years and spoke of the challenge revisiting the songs. “I really had a time re-learning these songs ‘cause these [vocal] ranges are crazy,” she said from the stage. “Because you’re young and you’re drunk and you only think you’ll ever sing them one time.”
Watch footage from the show below.
The event was one of the season’s most in-demand events with tickets selling out instantly upon announcement earlier this year. A limited batch of tickets released on the day of the event, with prices as low as £8 ($10), saw a queue form online that reached over 20,000 hopeful attendees.
Lead singer Florence Welch and the band worked extensively with conductor Jules Buckley to adapt the songs for his orchestra. Speaking to Vogue, the singer said it was an offer she couldn’t refuse. “When [the invitation] came in, they were like, ‘We know you’re off, but would you…?’ and I was like, ‘Yes!’”
Fan favorites including “Dog Days Are Over”, “Kiss With A Fist” and “Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)” were all performed, fusing elements of the string section and her own band expertly. Lungs was a instant-hit upon release, landing at No.1 on the U.K. Albums Chart and No.14 on the Billboard 200.
Florence + The Machine released their most recent album Dance Fever in 2022, which was another chart topper in the U.K. and reached No.14 on the Billboard 200. Earlier this year, Welch collaborated with Taylor Swift on The Tortured Poets Department cut “Florida!!!”, which peaked at No.8 on the Billboard Hot 100.
See the show’s full setlist below.
“Drumming Song”“My Boy Builds Coffins”“You Got the Love” (Candi Staton cover)“Bird Song Intro”“Bird Song”“Swimming”“I’m Not Calling You a Liar”“Kiss With a Fist”“Howl”“Girl With One Eye”“Hardest of Hearts”“Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)”“Blinding”“Hurricane Drunk”“Cosmic Love”“Between Two Lungs”“Dog Days Are Over”“Falling”
After 10 (and a half years), Billy Joel has completed his one-show-a-month residency at New York’s Madison Square Garden (MSG). According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, Billy Joel at The Garden earned $266.7 million and sold 1.9 million tickets over 104 shows.
Joel’s residency was a steady performer since its launch in 2014. He played one show at MSG every month except for June 2017 and December 2022. The other exception was a year-and-a-half hiatus due to COVID-19, from March 2020 through October 2021, plus January 2022 in the height of the first Omicron wave. All 104 shows sold out, averaging 18,604 tickets per night. Playing in the round, he out-sold the average MSG act, typically scaled to 13,000-15,000 seats.
While attendance remained consistent, ticket prices and grosses grew over the course of his decade at the arena. Joel’s 2014 shows averaged $2 million per show, steadily creeping up to $2.5 million by 2019. Upon returning from the pandemic, dynamic pricing and new platinum ticketing sent earnings soaring, from an average of $2.7 million in 2022 to $3.2 million in 2023, and up 49% to $4.7 million this year.
Joel’s final MSG show topped the entire run, bringing in more than $5 million from 18,576 tickets on July 25. That’s more than double the sub-$2 million revenue from the opening show on Jan. 27, 2014.
Ultimately, Billy Joel at The Garden is the third-highest grossing concert residency in Billboard Boxscore history, passing U2’s brief-but-powerful opening run at Las Vegas’ Sphere. The only artist with bigger totals is Celine Dion. The Canadian diva’s A New Day… residency ran from 2003 to 2007 at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace and grossed $385.1 million, while her follow-up, simply titled Celine, brought in $296.2 million from 2011 to 2019.
Though Joel’s career pre-dates the mid-1980s launch of Boxscore reporting, there is record of his presence at MSG before his sprawling residency. He played 12 shows between January and April of 2006, earning $19.2 million from 226,000 tickets. More than 18,800 fans rang in Y2K with him, on a $4.5 million gross on Dec. 31, 1999. He moved more than 100,000 tickets during a six-show run in December 1998, and before that in October 1993.
Though Joel stayed loyal to MSG while in New York, he played various isolated stadium shows around the world, plus co-headline dates with Stevie Nicks and Sting.
In all, Joel has grossed $1.2 billion and sold 15.3 million tickets across 841 reported shows, dating back to 1986.
After opening shows for Kenny Chesney this summer, Sony Music Nashville/Columbia Records artist Megan Moroney has revealed that 2025 will see her spearheading her upcoming Am I Okay? Tour, which will launch March 20 in Montreal.
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The 25-show tour, which will run throughout the spring and summer, will go through August. The tour will visit cities including Boston, Houston, Toronto and Washington, D.C., as well as two shows in her homebase of Nashville. Notably, the tour will highlight Moroney’s debut performance at New York City’s historic Radio City Music Hall on March 26.
In an Instagram post announcing the tour, Moroney told fans, “I’m so excited to announce the AM I OKAY? TOUR!!! 💙 i get to play some of my bucket list venues & it’s going to be a very ✨blue✨ very magical year on the road. i’m already counting down the days until i get to see your faces & all of your ‘homemade tshirts & homemade signs’ :,) i know i’ve said it a lot but thank you for making all of my dreams come true – just over the mooooooon that i get to do this.”
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The setlist for the tour is certain to include tracks from Moroney’s latest album, Am I Okay?, which includes songs such as “No Caller ID,” “Man on the Moon,” “Indifferent” and “Heaven by Noon.” Leading up to the Am I Okay Tour?, Moroney is currently on her 15-show Georgia Girl Tour in the U.K. and Europe.
Additionally, Moroney earned multiple nominations at the 58th annual CMA Awards, including female vocalist of the year, new artist of the year and music video of the year (for her video for “I’m Not Pretty”). The 58th annual CMA Awards are slated for Nov. 20 at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena and will air on ABC.
General tickets for Moroney’s Am I Okay? Tour go on sale Friday, Sept. 13, at 10 a.m. local time on her website.
See the full dates for Moroney’s Am I Okay? Tour below:
Country Music Hall of Famers Brooks & Dunn are set to bring their high-octane live show and stacked arsenal of hit songs to arenas in Texas, North Carolina, Illinois and more in 2025, as they have revealed the dozen-concert initial slate of shows for their Neon Moon Tour. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and […]
Venues across the nation can now show off their independent status. On Tuesday (Sept. 10), the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA) announced the launch of “Live Independent,” a first-of-its-kind certification program for independent venues, promoters and festivals nationwide.
The new initiative, supported by event discovery platform Bandsintown, is aimed at strengthening and unifying the live entertainment community by “offering a seal of certification that recognizes excellence and commitment to the independent ethos,” according to NIVA.
Certified venues will receive physical posters, stickers and decals of the Live Independent seal to display, along with virtual seals and assets for websites, marketing materials and social media. Partnerships with ticketing companies will also enable the Live Independent seal to be displayed on event tickets.
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The Live Independent program will include a dedicated website serving as a hub of information and emphasizing the importance of supporting certified Live Independent venues and events. Fans can use the site’s search feature to verify if their favorite venue is certified independent and find shows at certified stages.
“This certification is a testament to the power of independent stages as sanctuaries for human connection. In an era dominated by publicly-traded live entertainment conglomerates, these venues and festivals are the final strongholds of authenticity, where the heart of live performance beats strongest,” said NIVA executive director Stephen Parker in a statement. “When fans and artists choose independent stages, they’re investing in the soul of their community. Live Independent is our collective promise — to the artists, to the fans, and to the communities that cherish these spaces — that the spirit of independent venues will not only endure but will continue to flourish.”
As a partner for the program, Bandsintown is committed to educating fans about what Live Independent means and promoting independent venues through dedicated placements on the Bandsintown app and at Bandsintown.com. Every NIVA-member independent venue will have the Live Independent seal on its Bandsintown venue page while a map of Live Independent-certified venues will be featured on Bandsintown’s homepage to help fans locate and support these independent entities.
“Bandsintown’s ethos is independent at the core, serving artists since day one of their journey,” added Bandsintown co-founder/managing partner Fabrice Sergent. “Independent venues shed light on those artists early in their career and we’re proud to work alongside NIVA to help them find the audience they deserve.”
To become certified, venues, festivals and promoters must demonstrate a mission centered around delivering music, comedy and performance to audiences; maintain fair pay practices for all artists, performers and creators; be independent from multinational conglomerate or publicly traded company ownership or exclusive operation; show support for a transparent, competitive marketplace and a diverse, inclusive community; and be a NIVA member. NIVA members will not pay additional fees to join the program.
More information on the Live Independent certification program, including details on how to apply and the specific benefits of certification, can be found here.
Meow Wolf, the arts and entertainment company known for its fantastical immersive installations, will open its newest location in Houston’s Fifth Ward neighborhood on Oct. 31.
News of the Halloween opening comes alongside the reveal of the theme for the venue: Radio Tave, an explorable radio station that will transmit visitors to, a press release says, “unexpected frequencies.” A play off of “radio wave,” the installation is set in a radio station in an alternative dimension and thus has a special focus on sound. Radio Tave will be made up of dozens of rooms designed by more than 100 artists, more than half of whom are based in Texas.
“Music and sound play an even bigger role in this exhibition than before,” Meow Wolf’s senior creative producer Susie Cowan tells Billboard. “We’ve got some incredible interactives that transform how people experience sound — things you can play with and explore that are just as fun to listen to as they are to look at. It’s a true audiovisual feast — it’s vibrant, one-of-a-kind and totally captivating.”
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Cowan adds that the space plans to “host musical performances and special events, just like what you’ve seen in our Denver and Santa Fe exhibitions” with programming announcements forthcoming. (The upcoming music calendars at the Denver and Santa Fe spaces include bands and DJs including The Polyphonic Spree and Tycho.)
Meow Wolf Houston
Tarick Foteh | Courtesy of Meow Wolf
Meow Wolf Houston marks the fifth Meow Wolf location in the U.S. and the second in Texas; its Dallas/Fort Worth installation opened in July 2023. The original Meow Wolf in Santa Fe, N.M., opened in 2016, with subsequent expansions to Denver, Las Vegas and Los Angeles, where an installation inside a movie theater is set to open in 2026. Each installation has a theme, with visitors working to unravel the storyline and mystery built into the design of each venue.
These concepts each typically take two to four years to create, with artists, storytellers, engineers and more contributing to each one. “For Radio Tave specifically,” Cowan says, “we wanted to create something that expanded the worlds we’ve built in Dallas with The Real Unreal and Santa Fe with House of Eternal Return. Starting with the idea of a community radio station, we used sound — music, audio, voice and sonic energy — as the central theme, driving the story and shaping the participant’s experience.”
Tickets for Radio Tave open to the general public on Oct. 1, with season pass holders and email subscribers able to get earlier pre-sale tickets later this month.
Meow Wolf Houston
Tarick Foteh/Courtesy of Meow Wolf
The space will also feature Cowboix Hevvven, a honky-tonk inspired working bar and restaurant with a jukebox offering 30 licensed songs by Texas artists. The Texas influence runs deep in the project, with many Texans working on the project and the team fabricating a fictional small East Texas town as the setting for the radio station.
“On top of that,’ says Cowan, “we’ve got 35 collaborating artists from Texas who have contributed to their own unique spaces, drawing inspiration from their roots, plus an additional 10 Houston artists who are part of our Art Team Task Force.” The space will also feature a plethora of Houston-specific Easter eggs for guests to discover.
“Houston is such a cultural hub, and we were immediately drawn to its vibrant complexity and rich artistic scene,” adds Cowan. “The city’s deep love for art really aligns with what Meow Wolf is all about — there’s creativity everywhere you look. We’re always inspired by the places we go, but working with Texas artists has been something special.”
Scalpers hoping to earn a big payout flipping Chappell Roan tickets likely just watched their profits vanish after the singer announced she was shutting down resellers charging outrageous markups for her Oct. 1 show in Franklin, Tenn.
The news was greeted with praise by fans who have watched the “Good Luck, Babe!” singer’s star rise to new heights this summer — as well as by questions from ticket buyers wondering how the singer was able to call a mulligan on tickets she’d already sold to ensure actual fans get to attend her show instead.
The answer isn’t totally clear — Roan’s reps did not respond to Billboard‘s requests for comment — but there’s enough information already available about the Franklin show to tell part of the story. It’s also worth noting that Roan isn’t the first artist to deal with scalpers trying to mark up fan-friendly $30 lawn tickets to as high as $900; in years past, major artists like Ed Sheeran and Eric Church, among others, have utilized the same strategy. And while not a perfect system, it’s still an impactful way to ensure that more fans have access to affordable tickets.
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In many ways, for a breakthrough artist like Roan, there are worse problems to have. Over the last year, thanks to the success of her 2023 album The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, her work as a supporting act on Olivia Rodrigo‘s Guts World Tour and her breakout performances this summer at Lollapalooza and Coachella, Roan, as some say in music business parlance, is the blowing the f— up. Now, as with any big star, scalpers are taking advantage.
In one less extensive example of this, tickets for Roan’s Oct. 2 show at Walmart Amphitheatre near Rogers, Ark., were originally priced between $30 and $80 when they went on sale in June. Now, they’re selling for $300 to $1,200 on StubHub and other secondary sites — though in that case, only a couple dozen tickets, out of 11,000 total capacity, appear to be listed on StubHub.
But in Franklin, there were dozens, maybe hundreds, more resale tickets on sale for the show at the 7,500-capacity FirstBank Amphitheater. Located just 20 miles south of Nashville, Franklin is a much bigger music market than Rogers, and the price gouging for tickets apparently prompted someone from her team to work with reps from Ticketmaster to find out who is scalping those tickets and take them away from those responsible.
Catching scalpers on Ticketmaster, especially after a sale has been made, isn’t particularly complicated. While there are laws governing ticket ownership and rights, in most cases ticketing companies treat tickets like revocable licenses, meaning they have the right to disable tickets that a fan purchased and refund them their money if they are caught violating Ticketmaster’s terms of service.
For example, many scalpers will try to buy up as many tickets as possible using multiple credit cards. That’s a violation of Ticketmaster’s “limit per order” policy, which limits the number of tickets that can be purchased per order based on the event and demand for tickets.
Ticketmaster prohibits users from using multiple IP addresses or email addresses when buying tickets, so if someone successfully completed a purchase of a Chappell Roan ticket but was later found to have used multiple email addresses or a VPN to hide their IP addresses, that could be grounds for their tickets to be canceled and refunded. It wouldn’t take long for a couple of Ticketmaster executives to comb through the transactions for a 15,000-capacity show and find purchases tied to bots with no IP addresses, or large purchases from newly-created accounts linked to free email services.
Once those transactions are identified, most are investigated and the purchases canceled. In Roan’s case, the canceled tickets were pooled and sold via lottery to fans who had to register in advance for a shot at buying them. Though it’s unclear how many tickets were canceled and reissued to fans, it’s unlikely that more than a few hundred tickets were involved.
While this practice is popular with fans and punishes amateur scalpers, there is an argument to be made that, in some cases, it enriches professional scalpers who are better at avoiding detection by reducing the number of tickets available on resale sites and in turn driving up the price for those tickets that aren’t taken down.
But the effort isn’t specifically aimed at eliminating all ticket scalping. Instead, it’s about randomly disrupting the predatory practices of scalpers targeting vulnerable shows by rising artists like Roan who don’t want to charge fans hundreds of dollars to see their concerts. And by focusing on high-margin shows where scalpers are set to make big paydays, artists like Roan really can impact the pocketbooks of professional ticket resellers and help keep more of their tickets affordable for fans.
Heart‘s first tour in five years is back on! Following the postponement of sisters Ann and Nancy Wilson’s North American shows this summer due to the former’s recent cancer scare, the rock band has announced plans to resume their Royal Flush Tour with a slew of new dates scheduled for 2025. Sharing an animated video […]
Fans in North America are going to have to wait a little bit longer to say goodbye to Childish Gambino. On Monday (Sept. 9), Donald Glover announced that he’s pushing back the remainder of his North American farewell tour dates in order to prioritize his wellbeing. “hey everyone,” he tweeted. “unfortunately i have to postpone […]
In late September, Oasis announced an unlikely reunion after a 15-year hiatus. Brothers Noel and Liam Gallagher shared an announcement that they would play a string of stadium dates in the U.K. and Ireland in 2025 at London’s Wembley Stadium, Manchester’s Heaton Park and beyond.
First formed in 1991 in their native Manchester, the brothers eventually split in 2009 following a backstage altercation in Paris. Both enjoyed successful solo outings since then, amassing a combined 10 No. 1 albums between them in the U.K. (six for Liam, four for Noel).
The announcement arrived hot on the heels of anniversary reissues of their first two records, 1994’s Definitely Maybe and 1995 follow-up (What’s The Story) Morning Glory?. It conjures up sheer excitement and plenty of questions; below, Billboard runs through the biggest talking points to keep a beady eye on.
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Ticket Sale Furor
Demand was high for the dates announced to take place next July and August. A statement from the band said that over 10 million fans from 158 countries were attempting to purchase tickets on the initial general sale date (Aug. 31). All dates are completely sold out.
However, there has been considerable blowback to the sale strategy and a particular ire towards Ticketmaster. After a long wait – queue numbers reached above 500,000 for a single date – some fans were dismayed by Ticketmaster’s use of the “in-demand” dynamic ticket pricing model for tickets. The face value of certain tickets rose from £135 to over £350, forcing fans to make quick, expensive decisions on how much they could afford to buy for tickets. There has been anger that the demand may have inflated the price of tickets.
The band have since responded claiming that they “at no time had any awareness that dynamic pricing was going to be used” in the sale process. They have since announced two new dates for Wembley Stadium on Sept. 27-28, 2025 and that the ticket sale process will be an “invitation only ballot” for fans who did not land tickets the first time around.
The story is unlikely to end there. The U.K. government has promised an investigation into the dynamic pricing model and the U.K.’s Competition and Market Authority is undertaking an “urgent review.” Ticketmaster has yet to make a statement regarding the on-sale process.
All Around The World
Fans outside of the U.K. are clamouring for their opportunity to see the band perform live and it appears they will get their wish. Upon initial announcement, the band said they had plans to take Oasis Live ‘25 to continents outside of Europe following the conclusion of their initial run. A billboard taken out by Amazon Music in New York City’s Times Square appears to be teasing a run of U.S. dates in the near future.
Battle of the Band
Oasis’ lineup has been changeable since their formation in 1991 with an array of members coming and going. We know for certain that Noel and Liam will be performing, but who will join them?
The band’s original rhythm guitarist Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs – who battled cancer in recent years – is set to be included, as well as his eventual replacement Gem Archer. The latter performed as a member of Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds in recent years.
Alan White, the band’s drummer between 1995 and 2004, has teased his involvement on his social media profiles. The group’s original drummer Tony McCarroll has claimed that he is unlikely to be involved. He told MailOnline that while he was “happy” about the news, neither brother had reached out and that “I’m not holding my breath.” Time will tell if Andy Bell, bassist between 1999 and their eventual breakup in 2009, will be involved. Bell has songwriting credits on each of Oasis’ last three albums.
“Today Is Going To Be the Day…”
But why are the pipes of peace playing now? A reunion has been discussed extensively by both brothers (and the press) throughout their solo careers, with Liam being the keener of the pair. In 2023, Noel said that his team “should call mine” and get the reunion done.
There are massive commercial opportunities for both the duo. They’re expected to clear £50 million each after tax for the initial run of shows, and they’ve partnered with Levi’s, Amazon and Urban Outfitters on a new merchandise run. Sales and streams of their back catalog, namely debut album Definitely Maybe, are rising rapidly.
It must have proved a timely opportunity to get Noel on board. He and Sara McDonald, whom he married in 2011, filed for divorce in Jan. 2023. He’s also discussed next year being the earliest opportunity for him to consider selling the publishing rights to his back catalog. The master rights to the band’s material (including hits like “Wonderwall” and “Don’t Look Back In Anger”) are set to revert back to him in 2025.
New Album?
The Gallaghers putting animosity aside and getting back in the studio may seem unlikely, but stranger things have happened. Fans have noted that Liam had been sharing cryptic clues regarding the band’s reunion for months on his X profile. In July, one fan asked what he was doing on that day with Liam replying “photo shoot,” now widely believed to be the comeback’s official photography shoot with brother Noel.
Back in April, another hopeful asked when the recording of a new Oasis album would begin. His response? “November.” Perhaps all the clues have been hiding in plain sight….