Touring
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Tate McRae has two major pieces of news that’ll satiate even the greediest of her fans. In addition to announcing her third studio album, So Close to What, the 21-year-old pop star revealed Thursday (Nov. 14) that she’s going on tour in 2025 — all just hours before her new single “2 Hands” drops. Posting […]
When Toronto-based entertainment and hospitality magnate Charles Khabouth heard that Taylor Swift would be bringing her record-breaking Eras Tour to the city he’s called home for more than 50 years, he knew immediately what to do.
“I opened a bottle of Dom Perignon to celebrate,” Khabouth, the founder/CEO of INK Entertainment, which operates a series of hotels, bars and restaurants and produces live events in the city, says, laughing. “I’ve been around 43 years in this business; I’ve never seen this hype in my life around anything. We do, I don’t know, 200, 300 live shows ourselves every year. We’ve had everybody in the city from the Stones to Madonna to Prince. This got much bigger support from everybody than ever possible.”
The city of Toronto is about to play host to one of the most significant events — culturally and economically — of the past two years, as Swift and her legion of fans descend upon the city for six nights across two weekends (Nov. 14-16, 21-23), the penultimate stop on a tour that has spanned two years and five continents and changed the fortunes of several cities along the way. And Toronto — known as a savvy, cosmopolitan city in its own right, though one that has at times had to fight to be considered in the same category as cultural capitals such as New York, Los Angeles or Chicago — has risen to the occasion.
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On Nov. 4, the city of Toronto and Rogers Communications renamed Blue Jay Way — the street in front of the Rogers Centre that is usually home to its hometown Major League Baseball team and extends from Nathan Phillips Square to the venue — as Taylor Swift Way, complete with 22 ceremonial street signs that will be auctioned in support of the Daily Bread Food Bank after the run is over. (Rogers is also matching donations to the Daily Bread Food Bank up to $113,000 — a nod to Swift’s favorite number, 13.)
And that’s just the opening enchantment that the city would eventually roll out. Since then, the city has announced a poetry-inspired pre-concert initiative overseen by Toronto Poet Laureate Lillian Allen, while other announcements have included the Toronto’s Version: Taylgate ’24 event, which is expected to draw some 60,000 people; an Eras! Eras! Eras! performance by the singing group Choir! Choir! Choir!; and a 13-site scavenger hunt tied to different songs from Swift’s catalog spread across the city, among many other things. There are Eras-themed city tours, dance parties, drag and trivia nights and pop-up shops around the city, plus giveaways from a slew of businesses. Destination Toronto — the tourism bureau for Canada’s biggest city — expects some $282 million in economic impact from Swift’s two-week mini-residency, including $152 million in direct spending, 93% of which is expected to come from tourists flocking to Toronto — an astronomical uplift for the city’s local businesses.
“We’ve seen the entire city getting caught up in the action — from a Taylgate party at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre to Taylor-themed hotel rooms and special menus at restaurants around the city,” says Kathy Motton, Destination Toronto’s senior manager of communications. “Major events like Taylor Swift bring visitor spending into Toronto, and that spending circulates long after visitors return home impacting a broad set of businesses. The obvious positive benefit is for hotels, restaurants and other tourism-related businesses, but that benefit also extends to businesses that are indirectly impacted by visitor spending.”
And many of those establishments have met the moment by overhauling their own properties to cater to the estimated 500,000 tourists flooding into the area.
“We’ve got so much happening on property,” says Liza McWilliams, director of marketing at the 1 Hotel Toronto, which transformed its Flora lobby lounge into the Folklore Lounge for the next two weeks, complete with a moss-covered piano, tapestries hanging on the wall with lyrics from Swift’s Folklore album and daily acoustic performances open to guests and the public. They also partnered with the Little Words Project, the original word-based friendship bracelet company, which is doing a pop-up shop in the 1 Hotel’s lobby for the first time in Canada. “I think it’s just really fun to be that much more creative and to dream up some really amazing things that kind of stay with the guests for a longer time,” McWilliams says. “Other than the [Toronto International] Film Festival, I would say we’ve never really been this specific when it comes to an actual city event.”
“This is like preparing for Toronto’s Super Bowl,” says Aaron Harrison, general manager of the Bisha Hotel, a short walk from the Rogers Centre. The Bisha also redesigned its entire lobby space (it went Reputation era), while the common spaces on each of its seven hotel floors are also getting era-themed makeovers, one suite has been entirely rebranded The Taylor (which had been running around $4,000 per night if you could snag it), and the hotel will be offering friendship bracelets, a glitter station and themed food and drinks for guests, among other things, in its Lover Lounge. “We wanted Bisha Hotel to feel like the ultimate fan headquarters,” Harrison adds.
In downtown Toronto, it’s almost more difficult to find a bar or restaurant that hasn’t leaned into Taylor-mania than one that has. (Talk about champagne problems.) The night before the shows kicked off, on Nov. 13, the iconic space needle was flashing rainbow colors in honor of Swift, and bartenders and restaurant staff were all talking about the influx of people in town for the shows. Streets are closed off, the city has dedicated websites aimed at helping both tourists and locals alike navigate the area, and Rogers spent $8 million to upgrade the 5G wireless service at the Rogers Centre ahead of the concerts.
Of the more than half-dozen people who spoke with Billboard for this story, almost all equated the preparations for the Eras Tour to those that go into the build up to TIFF — one of the world’s most prestigious film festivals, held in the city each September — but all said the Eras Tour hype went beyond even that. Some hospitality officials and locals are looking at it as a test run for the FIFA World Cup, which will stage six matches in the city in the summer of 2026, and as helping to prove that Toronto can accommodate, and with aplomb, the types of huge events that are often staged in the great cities of the world, ones that invite people to fly in from all over the globe.
There is one thing, however, that nobody is particularly looking forward to: “It’s going to be hell on earth in a sense of the traffic and the amount of people,” Khabouth says, laughing again. (He’s planning to ride his scooter through downtown “with a smile on my face” on the days of each show to avoid driving.) “But it’s a happy moment for all of us in Toronto, to have that energy, that vibe. It’s a concert that’s very positive, you’re gonna see a lot of happy faces, people excited. It’s a very good opportunity for Toronto to stand out and say, ‘Hey, we can play with the big boys.’”
LONDON — The British government is calling on the live music industry to introduce a voluntary levy on stadium and arena tickets sold in the United Kingdom “as soon as possible” to “safeguard the future of the grassroots music sector.”
“We believe this would be the quickest and most effective mechanism for a small portion of revenues from the biggest shows to be invested in a sustainable grassroots sector,” said the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) in a report published Thursday (Nov. 14).
Earlier this year, a cross-party committee of MPs said a new levy on arena and stadium tickets was urgently needed to stem the tide of small grassroots music venue closures in the United Kingdom.
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According to the Music Venue Trust (MVT), the number of grassroots music venues (defined as limited capacity venues regularly staging live music) in the U.K. declined from 960 to 835 in 2023, a fall of 13%, representing a loss of as many as 30,000 shows and 4,000 jobs.
Responding to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee’s report on the grassroots live music sector, published in May, the government said Thursday that it was “deeply concerned” with the rate of venue closures and that “a small industry-led levy within the price of a ticket” would benefit the U.K.’s live music system “as a whole.”
The government said it wanted the voluntary levy to come into effect “as soon as possible” so that it could be applied to arena and stadium music shows taking place in 2025. How the funds raised will be used to support small and low-capacity music venues should be clearly explained to ticket buyers, said the government.
“We urge the live music industry, and in particular the biggest commercial players who will have the biggest impact on the success of an industry-led levy, to act and to do so swiftly,” said DCMS.
Exactly what form such a levy on arena and stadium shows will take is still to be determined. While there is broad support throughout the U.K. live music industry for a voluntary levy, some promoters would prefer that it is applied on a case-by-case basis and stakeholders are divided on whether the levy should be included within the ticket’s price or as an additional fee on top of the face value of the ticket.
The size of venue the levy would be applied to and its cost/rate is also yet to be decided, although the Music Venue Trust has previously called for a £1 levy ($1.26) to be applied to arena and stadium shows above 5,500 capacity, excluding festivals. Discussions are currently taking place between live executives around what charitable body should collect, manage and distribute proceeds from the fund.
In a statement, Jon Collins, chief executive of live music industry umbrella organization LIVE, said driving forward “an industry-led solution to the challenges currently being experienced by venues, artists, festivals and promoters remains our number one priority.”
The idea of a voluntary arena tickets levy to support the grassroots music sector is one that has already received support from several high-profile U.K. artists and organizations.
In September, Coldplay announced that it would be donating 10% of the band’s proceeds from their 2025 dates at London’s Wembley Stadium and Hull’s Craven Park stadium to the Music Venue Trust.
Other acts backing the initiative include rock band Enter Shikari, who donated £1 from every ticket sold on its February U.K. arena tour to the trust, and Sam Fender, who has pledged to do the same on his forthcoming U.K. dates. This year, Halifax-based venue The Piece Hall became the first U.K. venue to give ticket-buyers the option to donate to the charity.
A similar scheme to support grass roots music creation exists in France, where a statutory 3.5% levy on the gross value of all concert tickets sales goes into a central fund administered by the Centre National de la Musique (CNM), France’s public agency for the music industry.
“This is the beginning of a way forward,” Kwame Kwaten, director of artist management company Ferocious Talent, whose roster includes Blue Lab Beats, Hak Baker and Caitlyn Scarlett, tells Billboard.
“If [the levy] happens, it will at least begin the process of addressing something that has been left out to dry with humongous consequences, especially at the kind of levels that we have to operate at before an artist gets to the arena, stadium level, which is where 80-90% of [touring] artists are,” says Kwaten, who gave evidence to the CMS committee during the inquiry.
“We are standing at a massive crossroads,” he says, “and we have now got a chance to do something about it.”
In a statement, CMS Committee chair, Dame Caroline Dinenage, said she welcomed the government’s recognition that “swift action on a levy is needed from the bigger players who pack out arenas and stadiums,” but warned that “the lack of a firm deadline for movement risks allowing matters to drift.”
“Without healthy roots, the entire live music ecosystem suffers,” said Dinenage, who is calling for government ministers to set a clear deadline for the industry to act. If no significant progress is made within six months, she said the CMS committee will hold another hearing with representatives of the U.K. live music industry.
“Every week I hear from music managers trying to do the impossible and bridge catastrophic shortfalls in their artists touring budgets,” said Annabella Coldrick, chief executive of U.K. trade body the Music Managers Forum (MMF), in a statement. Coldrick says it is “imperative” that the music industry comes together to establish a ticket levy on “all large-scale live music shows” to support smaller scale touring artists. “The current situation is untenable,” she says.
The U.K. government’s support for an arena ticket levy is the latest in a long line of Parliament-led interventions into the music industry that have taken place in recent years, including a nine-month probe into the music streaming business and a subsequent review of the sector by the U.K. competition watchdog.
More recently, authorities have turned their attentions to the live industry. In September, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) launched an investigation into Ticketmaster over its much-criticized use of dynamic ticketing for Oasis‘ reunion tour, which prompted hundreds of complaints from fans and fierce condemnation from British politicians.
The British government has also said it would be looking into the practice of dynamic pricing for music concerts as part of its consultation into the secondary ticketing market, which is due to begin in the coming weeks.
Linkin Park fans are receiving what they’ve been hoping for: The band announced that it is adding 50-plus dates to its From Zero World Tour for the new year on Thursday (Nov. 14), one day before new album From Zero arrives via Warner Records.
“Getting back out on the road has been incredible,” Mike Shinoda said in a statement about the trek promoting the band’s new set. “The fans’ support is overwhelming, and we’re ready to take this energy even further around the world. From Zero is a new chapter for us, and we’re so excited to share it with everyone on a bigger scale.”
Linkin Park previously played several shows around the world after announcing new co-vocalist Emily Armstrong and drummer Colin Brittain, and dropping album singles “The Emptiness Machine” and “Heavy Is the Crown.”
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The next leg of the trek will feature special guests Queens of the Stone Age, JPEGMAFIA, AFI, Spiritbox, Grandson, Jean Dawson and Pvris on select dates as it makes its way to stadiums and arenas around the world, including North America, Europe, Asia and Latin America. It kicks off Jan. 31 at Mexico City’s Estadio GNP Seguros, and ends Nov. 15 in Porto Alegre, Brazil.
Prior to announcing the tour, banners reading “Counting From Zero” appeared near the venues and seemingly teased the 2025 world trek was coming. And in the band’s September Billboard cover story about its comeback, Shinoda teased that Linkin Park would be “touring heavily” in the coming year, while bassist Dave Farrell noted, “I’m sure we’re going to do some hard touring in 2025.”
General on sale for shows in North America begins Thursday, Nov. 21, at noon local time, while Europe and the U.K. will be available the following day at 10 a.m. local time. For those in the Linkin Park Underground fan club, presales will kick off on Nov. 18, with more information available on the band’s website.
See below for the From Zero World Tour dates below:
Jan. 31, 2025 | Estadio GNP Seguros – Mexico City, Mexico
Feb. 3, 2025 | Estadio 3 de Marzo – Guadalajara, Mexico
Feb. 5, 2025 | Estadio Banorte – Monterrey, Mexico
Feb. 11, 2025 | Saitama Super Arena – Tokyo, Japan
Feb. 12, 2025 | Saitama Super Arena – Tokyo, Japan
Feb. 16, 2025 | Venue TBA – Jakarta, Indonesia
April 12, 2025 | Sick New World Festival – Las Vegas
April 26, 2025 | Moody Center – Austin, Texas
April 28, 2025 | BOK Center – Tulsa, Okla.
May 1, 2025 | Van Andel Arena – Grand Rapids, Mich.
May 3, 2025 | CFG Bank Arena – Baltimore
May 6, 2025 | Lenovo Center – Raleigh, N.C,
May 8, 2025 | Bon Secours Wellness Arena – Greenville, S.C.
May 10, 2025 | Sonic Temple – Columbus, Ohio.
May 17, 2025 | Welcome to Rockville – Daytona, Fla.
June 12, 2025 | Novarock Festival -Nickelsdorf, Austria
June 14, 2025 | Rock for People Festival – Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic
June 16, 2025 | Heinz-Von-Heiden Arena – Hannover, Germany
June 18, 2025 | Olympiastadion – Berlin, Germany
June 20, 2025 | Bernexpo – Bern, Switzerland
June 24, 2025 | I-DAYS Festival – Milan, Italy
June 26, 2025 | Gelredome – Arnhem, Netherlands
June 28, 2025 | Wembley Stadium – London
July 1, 2025 | Merkur Spiel Arena – Dusseldorf, Germany
July 3, 2025 | Rock Werchter Festival – Werchter, Belgium
July 5, 2025 | Open’er Festival – Gdynia, Poland
July 8, 2025 | Deutsche Bank Park – Frankfurt, Germany
July 11, 2025 | Stade de France – Paris
July 29, 2025 | Barclays Center – Brooklyn, New York
Aug. 1, 2025 | TD Garden – Boston
Aug. 3, 2025 | Prudential Center – Newark, N.J.
Aug. 6, 2025 | Bell Centre – Montreal, Quebec
Aug. 8, 2025 | Scotiabank Arena – Toronto, Ontario
Aug. 11, 2025 | United Center – Chicago
Aug. 14, 2025 | Little Caesars Arena – Detroit, Mich.
Aug. 16, 2025 | Wells Fargo Center – Philadelphia, Pa.
Aug. 19, 2025 | PPG Paints Arena – Pittsburgh, Pa.
Aug. 21, 2025 | Bridgestone Arena – Nashville
Aug. 23, 2025 | Enterprise Center – St. Louis, Mo.
Aug. 25, 2025 | Fiserv Forum – Milwaukee, Wis.
Aug. 27, 2025 | Target Center – Minneapolis
Aug. 29, 2025 | CHI Health Center – Omaha, Neb.
Aug. 31, 2025 | T-Mobile Center – Kansas City, Mo.
Sept. 3, 2025 | Ball Arena – Denver, Colo.
Sept. 6, 2025 | Footprint Center – Phoenix
Sept. 13, 2025 | Dodger Stadium – Los Angeles
Sept. 15, 2025 | SAP Center – San Jose, Calif.
Sept. 17, 2025 | Golden 1 Center – Sacramento, Calif.
Sept. 19, 2025 | Moda Center – Portland, Ore.
Sept. 21, 2025 | Rogers Arena – Vancouver, B.C.
Sept. 24, 2025 | Climate Pledge Arena – Seattle
Oct. 26, 2025 | Venue TBA – Bogota, Colombia
Oct. 29, 2025 | Venue TBA – Lima, Peru
Nov. 1, 2025 | Venue TBA – Buenos Aires, Argentina
Nov. 5, 2025 | Venue TBA – Santiago, Chile
Nov. 8, 2025 | Venue TBA – Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Nov. 10, 2025 | Venue TBA – São Paulo, Brazil
Nov. 13, 2025 | Venue TBA – Brasilia, Brazil
Nov. 15, 2025 | Venue TBA – Porto Alegre, Brazil
By the time Elvis Presley’s Comeback Special was taped in 1968, The King was not just on the ropes but nearly down for the count. A lengthy period in the wilderness starring in commercially successful but critically derided musicals throughout the 1960s had left his reputation in tatters as a new wave of musicians rose to prominence. There was hope, however, that a stellar performance at the special — for which a new song, “If I Can Dream,” was written — could help him win back the hearts of the American people.
This moment in time is where Elvis Evolution, an upcoming experiential installation in London, will begin for its audience. Set to debut at the recently-opened Immerse LDN in May 2025, the show’s creators view this as the moment when Presley was at his most vulnerable and authentic, making it the perfect jumping-off point for an odyssey that will trace the arc of his musical journey — from his upbringing in rural Mississippi to Memphis’ iconic Sun Studios and Beale Street to the backlots of NBC Studios in Burbank, California, where the Comeback Special was shot.
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To bring Presley’s musical journey to life, Elvis Evolution will utilize archival material and cutting-edge technology, including generative artificial intelligence, holograms and projections, alongside live music performances from a house band and themed set designs. The show comes from Layered Reality, a production company that fuses digital technology with live theater, and Academy Award-winning special effects company The Mill. In 2023, the former secured the rights from the Presley estate and Authentic Brand Group to license the icon’s image and likeness.
The announcement of Elvis Evolution came amid renewed interest in Presley’s life and music. In 2022, Baz Luhrmann’s jukebox epic Elvis told the story of the singer and his rocky relationship with manager Colonel Tom Parker. And Sofia Coppola’s 2023 movie Priscilla examined his first and only marriage from the perspective of his wife.
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Contrary to those interpretations, Elvis Evolution’s director Jack Pirie — who shares a co-writing credit with playwright Jessica Siân — says the show will remain focused strictly on the music. “What I hope we can do with this show is to move away from the myth of what Elvis represented and the image of him in his later years in a white jumpsuit in Las Vegas,” he says. “We want to go back to who he was as a kid, and look at the music he was listening to and how that shaped him.”
Pirie says Elvis Evolution resulted from the success of other, similarly tech-heavy experiences to debut in the U.K. recently. In 2023, cutting-edge digital art venue Outernet in central London attracted more visitors (6.25 million) than the British Museum (5.83 million). The wildly popular Abba Voyage experience, which started in 2022 and features performing avatars of the Swedish pop group, just extended its run into May 2025.
Even Taylor Swift‘s Eras Tour concert film, which was released in cinemas to big grosses last year, was cited by Pirie as an example of music fans being willing to celebrate in “a non-traditional environment.”
“Elvis didn’t sit at home listening to music on his phone, he had to go out and seek and experience it,” says Andrew McGuinness, founder/CEO of Layered Reality, which previously produced an immersive version of Jeff Wayne’s War of The Worlds musical and The Gunpowder Plot starring Tom Felton. “The fact that live music runs through the DNA of the story makes it a great property to do it this way.”
Elvis Evolution initially caused controversy when it was revealed that the show would use generative artificial intelligence to help recreate Presley in hologram form. But McGuinness and Pirie tell Billboard that the technology is being used only to enhance authentic moments in Presley’s career. For example, they say the technology will help bring new perspectives and sightlines to the ‘68 Comeback Special, for which only limited camera angles exist. As with any powerful tool, says McGuinness, you need to be “bloody careful” with how AI is employed: “We’re not trying to confect something and we take the responsibility with the utmost importance,” he says.
Tickets went on sale for Elvis Evolution in October, and only a limited number remain available through the show’s opening weeks — specifically, May 10 to June 1. The 110-minute experience will have timed entry, with several performances set to take place each day. Tickets start at £75 ($97), while VIP packages are also available, including the “Burning Love” experience, which includes additional merchandise and VIP seating, and the “If I Can Dream” package, which features tickets to the show, commemorative merch and premium access to the show’s daily after-party.
The show’s venue, Immerse LDN, opened at the Royal Docks’ ExCel convention center in July 2024 and is currently hosting both the Formula 1 Exhibition and The Friends Experience: The One In London, both of which use multi-sensory technology and set design. The immersive venue, which will total 160,000 square feet once completed, is part of a £300 million ($387 million) investment in ExCel.
McGuinness and Pirie’s hope is that Elvis Evolution will be successful enough to be toured globally, and they’re particularly excited about the prospect of taking it to some of the U.S. locations that have strong roles in his story, from Las Vegas to Memphis and beyond.
The show’s success could also create opportunities for similar experiences around other music icons; while McGuinness notes that the commercial demands and scale of such events make only a small group of artists “suitable,” he says discussions have already begun between Layered Reality and other artists’ estates.
Though Presley’s outsized legend makes him one of the few artists, living or dead, to be well-suited for such an elaborate and expensive production, McGuinness adds that one of the goals of the project was to strip away the iconography and get to the root of the person he was.
“There’s a humanity that can get lost with any musician or celebrity, and before I started this project, I was prone to seeing Elvis just as an ‘icon,’” he says. “But within this experience, you get to see him as a man, too.”
It’s shaping up to be a banner week for Linkin Park. On Friday (Nov. 15), they will release their new LP From Zero – the band’s first record following the passing of lead vocalist Chester Bennington in 2017. Now, the iconic nu-metal band also appears to be teasing some huge headlining shows for 2025.
As a slew of social media posts from venues across North America, Europe and the U.K. revealed uesday (Nov. 12), a “Counting From Zero” banner has been placed somewhere around each arena or stadium. Though the signs don’t explicitly include the band’s name, they seemingly nod to the title of the forthcoming album.
Among those venues are London’s legendary Wembley Stadium, Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena and Deutsche Bank Park in Frankfurt, Germany. Each post appears to indicate that a tour announcement is expected to land Thursday (Nov. 14) at 12 p.m. GMT (7 a.m. ET).
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Billboard has reached out to Linkin Park’s reps.
In September, following a seven-year hiatus, the band released its comeback single, “The Emptiness Machine,” which peaked at No. 21 on the Billboard Hot 100, and entered the Official U.K. Singles Chart at No. 4. The new iteration of the band has seen the introduction of Colin Brittain on vocals and drums, while Emily Armstrong (singer with Dead Sara) has also taken on co-lead vocal duties.
These lineup changes follow Bennington’s death by suicide in July 2017. A tribute concert took place that October, before the band’s members went their separate ways for an extended break. Linkin Park co-founder Mike Shinoda released his solo album Post Traumatic in 2018, which was supported by a world tour.
During the band’s first public show since the loss of Bennington at the L.A. Forum on Sept. 11, Shinoda spoke about the emotional significance behind their reformation. “This is not about erasing the past,” he said. “It is about starting this new chapter into the future.”
The band is currently on their From Zero world tour, having recently played London’s O2 Arena twice, alongside dates in France, Germany, Colombia and South Korea. They are currently gearing up to perform two shows in São Paulo, Brazil, across their album’s release weekend.
Earlier this year, Linkin Park spoke to Billboard, sharing that the band kept its return under wraps in order to alleviate any anxiety they were feeling towards making new music. “Things just came into focus, naturally,” Shinoda explained. “Even with Emily and Colin, we didn’t say, ‘Hey, come in, we’re doing Linkin Park sessions.’ We just said, ‘We’re going to write songs.’”
“For three days at least, I don’t ever remember touching the ground,” Armstrong described of her experience of joining the band. “And then everything was different when I came back down – knowing my life was going to be different, in the best way. I came back to a dreamland.”
Earlier this year, Coldplay’s ongoing Music Of The Spheres tour was named as the largest-ever rock tour by Billboard Boxscore as it surpassed $1 billion in grosses. Now it’s about to expand even further as Coldplay have announced a show in Ahmedabad, India with that the band are calling their “biggest-ever” concert.
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The show will take place on Jan. 25, 2025 at the city’s Narendra Modi Stadium, which can host up to 132,000 attendees, and will feature a “mystery guest” to be announced soon. Tickets for the show will go on sale at 12 p.m. IST (India Standard Time) on Saturday (Nov. 16) here. The band previously announced three shows to take place at Mumbai’s D Y Patil Stadium in the same week.
Modi Stadium, which opened in 2020, typically hosts sporting events including cricket, as well as political events; it is named after the country’s Prime Minister, who has held the position since 2014.
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It will mark the latest show in Coldplay’s Music Of The Spheres tour which first began in 2022 and is set to run through 2025. The British group recently released their 10th studio album Moon Music, which simultaneously charted at No.1 on the Billboard 200 and the U.K’s Official Albums Chart, becoming the first British group to do so since 2016.
In recent weeks the band have been touring through Australia, and their 2024 dates will conclude on Saturday in Auckland, New Zealand. The dates will resume in Abu Dhabi on Jan. 9.
During a show at the Accor Stadium in Sydney over the weekend, the band briefly covered Travis Scott’s “Goosebumps” in their set, which frontman Chris Martin called “his favorite” song by the “Sicko Mode” rapper. Scott responded to the shout-out and cover saying that the band “totally got it”.
Elsewhere, Martin had a mishap in an earlier tour stop in Melbourne when he fell through a hole in the stage, though laughed off the matter.
Next year’s run of shows will include a string of summer dates in North America, and is currently set to conclude with a 10-night stand at London’s Wembley Stadium in August 2025.
Olivia Rodrigo’s Guts tour isn’t over yet! The superstar announced on Tuesday (Nov. 12) that she’ll be headlining her first-ever stadium shows in Brazil and Mexico next year. She’ll stop in Curitiba, Brazil, at Estadio Couto Pereira on March 26 before performing in Mexico City, Mexico, at Estadio GNP Seguros on April 2. St. Vincent will open the […]
A few weeks after performing the beloved 2006 album The Black Parade in its entirety at When We Were Young Festival, My Chemical Romance has announced a string of 2025 stadium shows where the band will also play the album in full. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and […]
Sphere didn’t announce any new acts during its earnings call on Tuesday (Nov. 12), but the Las Vegas venue has enough interest from artists that the venue is “struggling with how to squeeze everybody in through the fall,” said CEO James Dolan.
Having a long line of artists waiting to perform is a good problem to have. Residencies by U2, Phish, Dead & Co. and The Eagles have changed how artists perform live and turned the state-of-the-art Sphere into a must-see for music fans. But running a one-of-a-kind venue presents unique challenges and requires on-the-fly learning.
To keep the venue busy and generate more revenue, last quarter Sphere increased the number of “side by sides,” the company’s term for running multiple events in a single day—a showing of “Postcards from Earth” before a music concert, for example. “A lot of this has to do with logistics, about about setting up the arena for one and taking it down and then setting it up for the other,” said Dolan.
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Still, a full year of operational experience didn’t lead to more business last quarter. Total Sphere revenue was $127.1 million in the quarter ended Sept. 30, down from $151.2 million and $170.4 million in the prior two quarters, respectively. Revenue from events such as concerts was $40.9 million, down from $58.4 million in the previous quarter. The Eagles began a residency in September, and the same month Sphere hosted its first live sports event, UFC 306, which become Sphere’s highest grossing single event to date.
The Sphere Experience, which covers showings of Postcard from Earth and V-U2: An Immersive Concert Film, generated $71.5 million, down from $74.5 million and $100.5 million in the previous two quarters.
Exosphere advertising and suite license fees totaled $8.5 million, down from $15.9 million in the previous quarter. Dolan said Sphere was experiencing “structural” issues in securing advertising on the venue’s 580,000 square-foot exterior. “I wish the day we lit it up that we knew exactly how to run it, and exactly how to sell it, and exactly how to program it, etc.,” he admitted. “But that’s just not the case.”
The company is also learning how to program its original content such as “V-U2,” which captures U2’s residency at the venue. “How we market it, how we just, you know, how we we schedule it, etc, that I’m not sure of,” said Dolan. “But I do think that the product is valuable. And I also think that it’s going to be evergreen. You’re not going to be able to see Bono 20 years from now.”
Sphere’s operating loss of $125.1 million improved to $16.1 million after adjustments to remove nearly $80 million of depreciation, $13.2 million of share-based compensation and other non-operational items such as amortization, restructuring charges and merger-related costs. The venue’s selling, general and administrative expenses totaled $105 million while direct operating expenses were $62.5 million.
Sphere shares were down 8.7% to $40.22 in morning trading.
MSG Networks, Sphere Entertainment Co.’s other division, had revenue of $100.8 million, down 9% from the prior-year quarter. MSG Networks owns regional sports networks and the streaming platform MSG+. The impact of a 13% drop in subscribers was partially offset by an increase in affiliation rates.
In October, Sphere Entertainment announced plans to build the next Sphere venue in Abu Dhabi, the capitol city of the United Arab Emirates. Unlike the $2.3-billion Las Vegas venue, which was entirely funded by Sphere Entertainment Co., the Abu Dhabi venue will be entirely funded by the government’s Department of Culture and Tourism and operate under a franchise model. Dolan said Sphere Entertainment will receive a franchise initiation fee that grants Abu Dhabi the right to use the company’s intellectual property.