Touring
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21 Savage is set to perform in the U.K. for the first time after recently resolving immigration issues. The U.K.-born, Atlanta-raised rapper (real name She’yaa Bin Abraham-Joseph) will perform at London’s O2 Arena on Nov. 30. This marks 21 Savage’s first and biggest headline show to date. Presale starts Wednesday, Oct. 11 at 9 a.m., while general […]
The COVID-19 pandemic hit as “West of Tulsa” singer-songwriter Wyatt Flores was just beginning to launch his career. With opening for bigger artists in large venues not an option because of the shutdown, he began playing a slate of smaller clubs and venues that were allowing performances.
But as the nation has rebounded, nearly a dozen festivals highlighting Americana, Red Dirt, alt-country, and bluegrass artists have sprung up, providing new financial and touring avenues for artists including Flores. In 2023 alone, inaugural festivals include the three-day Redmond, Oregon’s Fairwell Festival (headlined by Zach Bryan, Turnpike Troubadours, and Willie Nelson & Family), Bethel, N.Y.’s two-day Catbird Festival (Tyler Childers and the Lumineers), which brought in 25,000 attendees, Gordy’s Hwy 30 Texas Edition in Fort Worth, Texas (Bryan, Koe Wetzel), Marietta’s Georgia Country Music Fest (Cody Jinks, Wetzel, Turnpike Troubadours), Georgetown, Texas’ Two-Step Inn (Bryan, Childers), Rush South Festival in Columbus, Georgia on Oct. 14-15 (Dawes, The Texas Gentlemen, Paul Cauthen) and Nov. 3-4’s Dreamy Draw Music Festival in Scottsdale, Arizona (Trampled By Turtles, Margo Price, Stephen Wilson, Jr., American Aquarium).
“It’s made things a lot easier on routing, because we’ll just base other shows around festivals,” says Flores, whose team surrounded his appearances at Fairwell Festival and the California music festival Rebels & Renegades with a slate of West Coast club dates. “With Fairwell Fest, I didn’t think that many people listened to my music on the West Coast, [but] we estimated 10,000-12,000 people were watching us on that stage. The new fans we gained being in front of the people there to see Turnpike [Troubadours] or Zach Bryan, it was great.”
Other newly launched festivals over the past few years have included Kentucky’s Railbird Festival, Oklahoma’s Born & Raised Festival and Monterey, California’s Rebels & Renegades festival, as well as Goldenvoice’s Palomino Festival in Pasadena, California (though the Palomino Festival did not return in 2023).
Like many already-existing festivals in the space— such as Bristol (Tenn.) Rhythm & Roots, Nashville’s Americana Music Festival & Conference and Franklin, Tennessee’s Pilgrimage Music & Cultural Festival, Master Musicians Festival and MerleFest — the lineups for these events draw heavily on artists who operate outside of mainstream country, and who traditionally have not received much terrestrial country radio support.
“We’ve definitely seen an uptick in genre-specific festivals,” says Sophie Lobl, a global festival talent buyer for C3 and Live Nation, who curated the inaugural Fairwell Festival, which welcomed 60,000 music fans over three days. “Americana has been pretty popular for a while, but in the past [8-to-12] months has definitely become a really hot topic. For us, especially for Fairwell in that market specifically, it’s definitely the biggest ticket seller so far there.”
Shannon Casey, senior vp, fairs & festivals for booking agency Wasserman Music Nashville, says the pandemic famine helped lead to the current feast. “During the pandemic, there were so many artists who have had to dig into platforms, like Instagram, TikTok and then Spotify playlists, to stay in touch with audiences,” says Casey. “I think that has allowed fanbases to really discover new artists who have an underserved lane of artistry. I think a lot of this was stuff starting to brew right before COVID and now you have all these environments that are supporting it.” Wasserman Music’s Americana and alt-country roster includes Childers, Allison Russell, Brandi Carlile, Kacey Musgraves, Price, Trampled by Turtles and Colter Wall.
“It’s not like we haven’t had Outlaw country before, and it’s not like Americana is something new,” Casey continues. “I think it’s a time and place where there is so much music discovery. We are seeing that separation from the mainstream, which has always been there. There is just an explosion of all of these genres — Red Dirt, Americana, alt-country, folk, bluegrass — in a time and place that people are absorbing it.”
The Zach Bryan Effect
Dan and Amy Sheehan worked to launch the Rebels & Renegades festival in 2022, which featured Trampled By Turtles, Godwin, Kat Hasty, and Nikki Lane and drew 5,000 attendees each day. This year’s Oct. 6-8 lineup expands the fest from two days to three days, and features Flores, The War and Treaty, Old Crow Medicine Show, Whiskey Myers, Shane Smith and the Saints, Morgan Wade, Jaime Wyatt and Flatland Cavalry.
“There’s been this blossoming, obviously, with Tyler [Childers], but I do think Zach Bryan has definitely pushed this space even higher,” Dan Sheehan says. “I think he’s one of the bigger factors in all of this. A rising tide lifts all boats, and I think that’s what’s happening right now. But we’re also seeing artists like Charley Crockett become more and more of a staple and [acts like] Paul Cauthen and Sierra Ferrell and Morgan Wade — they are all selling tickets at a rapid pace.”
Simultaneously with the surge in these festivals, more acoustic and/or roots-oriented artists are ascending to new career heights on Billboard’s charts, thanks to streaming gains. Bryan’s Aug. 25 self-titled album release (on Belting Bronco/Warner Records) spent two weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, while his collaboration with Musgraves, “I Remember Everything,” debuted atop the Billboard Hot 100. Meanwhile, Childers notched his first Hot 100 entry with “In Your Love,” which debuted at No. 43. Roots-oriented artists including Dylan Gossett, Charles Wesley Godwin and Sam Barber have also made inroads on the charts, while Turnpike Troubadours’ current album, A Cat in the Rain, debuted in the top 10 on Billboard’s Top Country Albums — the album marked the first from the group since 2017’s A Long Way From Your Heart.
“I think we got lucky with a lot of serendipitous timing,” Lobl says of the Fairwell Festival. “Obviously Turnpike and Willie [Nelson] for example, have crushed it for a very long time, and I think it was just perfect timing that Willie’s kind of doing this huge run. Turnpike had not had an album out in a while. I think that Zach is doing phenomenal things in that space and now crossing over into other spaces. It’s exciting to see that a lot of these artists are garnering a lot of new fans.”
Sheehan notes that many of these festivals offer tickets at more reasonable prices than events featuring bigger mainstream names and fill a gap in the mid-sized festivals space.
“If you have a 25,000-capacity venue, you can do a Morgan Wallen or a Zach Bryan,” he explains. “If you have a 10,000 cap as we do, there’s a certain level of artists you pursue. Developing some of these artists into the next headliners is also crucial.” Expenses, including insurance and van rental costs, have soared since Covid, but Sheehan stresses there is a price point they can’t go beyond: While the festivals want to break even, “You have to set your ticket price, but you can’t make it too expensive. It’s a delicate balance.”
Casey also credits Stagecoach, particularly its Palomino Stage, as helping seed the ground by highlighting a wide swath of musical styles since the California music festival debuted in 2007. While the Mane Stage is generally reserved for mainstream country superstars, among the artists who have played on the secondary stage are Bryan, Wall, Cauthen, Crockett, Price, and Rhiannon Giddens.
“If you look at the Palomino Stage at Stagecoach, you can see that [Goldenvoice vp of festival talent] Stacy Vee and her team had their fingerprints on the pulse of all of this,” Casey says. “I think that’s what has sort of slowly been translating and going into other markets, including markets where there traditionally hasn’t really even been a country festival.”
Looking Ahead
Sheehan, who is both a festival promoter and a venue owner, notes that as with live performances in general, oversaturation can be a concern.
“I think it comes back to what can the consumer actually afford. There are only so many events that one person can physically, let alone financially, go to,” Sheehan says. “On the West Coast, I don’t think we are oversaturated yet, but right now, touring lanes [overall] are very oversaturated, and venues and festivals alike feel it.”
For Flores, the surge in popularity of roots-oriented artists, marks a change in musical tastes since the pandemic.
“I definitely believe a lot of people went through some difficult times — emotionally, financially — and the stuff they were listening to wasn’t adding up to how they were actually feeling inside. I think their music tastes maybe changed, because they were trying to find something they could relate to… So many songs were about happiness and positivity, and I don’t think a lot of people were happy when COVID hit — a lot of people’s lives changed completely,” Flores says.
And as people re-emerged, they wanted to hear the artists who they discovered during their hard times. “It’s really good music,” Sheehan says, “which is why [people] are building festivals around them.”
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Tickets to the Foo Fighters’ 2024 Everything or Nothing at All stadium tour went on sale on Friday (Oct. 6).
Read on for pricing info and more details on how to get affordable tickets online.
When Does the Foo Fighters Tour Start?
The Foo Fighters Everything or Nothing at All tour kicks off July 17, 2024, at Citi Field in New York. The band will perform two nights in New York before traveling to Boston; Hershey, Penn.; and Cincinnati. Other shows include Los Angeles, Portland and Seattle.
How to Get Tickets
Tickets went on sale at 10 a.m. ET and they’re selling fast. According to a post on band’s Instagram account on Friday, passes for shows in Boston, Hershey, Cincinnati and Minneapolis have already sold out.
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A limited number of tickets are still available for the Citi Field shows. If you act fast, you should be able to find a nice selection of tickets priced at around $200 and up. From what we’ve seen, ticket prices currently range from around $200-$400, and as low as $36 for nosebleeds seats. Tickets are available on Ticketmaster as well as Vivid Seats, StubHub and Seat Geek.
Foo Fighters Tickets
If you don’t feel like waiting until next year to catch the Foo Fighters on stage, the band will also be performing at this year’s Austin City Limits Festival, which will be held Oct. 6-7.
The Everything or Nothing At All tour marks a second round of shows for the Foo Fighters since the death of band member Taylor Hawkins in 2022.
After kicking off their first round of shows last year, frontman Dave Grohl penned an emotional message thanking fans for their support. “Now that we’ve returned from our first run of shows, I felt compelled to reach out and thank you all for being there for us,” he wrote at the time. “Every night, when I see you singing, it makes me sing harder. When I see you screaming, it makes me scream louder. When I see your tears, it brings me to tears. And when I see your joy, it brings me joy. But, I see you… and it feels good to see you, churning up these emotions together. Because we’ve always done this together.”

With four No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 and 15 top 10s over her 23-year career, P!nk is undeniably a pop superstar. But at Thursday night’s (Oct. 5) Summer Carnival tour stop at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif., she made a pretty strong case that she’s a rock star too. P!nk has been […]
According to Drake‘s new song, his frequent collaborator and current tourmate, 21 Savage, has resolved his immigration issues — and a source tells Billboard the rapper is now planning an international tour.
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On Thursday (Oct. 5), Drake released a new freestyle called “8 AM in Charlotte,” and in it reveals — among other things — that 21 Savage has finally received his green card, after nearly being deported in 2019 due to an expired visa. On it, Drake raps: “Savage got a green card straight out of the consulate. Where I go, you go, brother, we Yugoslavian.”
The news comes at an opportune time for the Atlanta rapper as he’ll be helping Drake close out the final dates of his It’s All A Blur North American tour. The tour hits Toronto — Drake’s hometown and also, notably, not in the United States — for shows Friday and Saturday, before wrapping in Columbus, Ohio, on Oct. 9. At the tour’s previous Canadian tour dates, 21 Savage did not perform. J. Cole and Travis Scott filled in for him at the Montreal and Vancouver concerts, respectively.
21 Savage, who was born in the United Kingdom and legally arrived stateside at age 7, was arrested and detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in February 2019 after they said he was “unlawfully present” in the United States on a 2005 visa that expired one year after his arrival. In an interview last year with Math Hoffa for the My Expert Opinion podcast, 21 Savage explained how Jay-Z and Meek Mill helped get him out of custody.
“I called Meek while I was in jail and told Meek, ‘Bro, I just got locked up.’ He called Jay-Z, and Jay-Z put a lawyer on my case,” said 21 Savage. “He played a role in getting me out. He ain’t just doing that sh– for anybody just cuz your rap. You gotta be from a certain cloth… I don’t feel like he’s just doing that for anybody. I ain’t Roc Nation or none of that sh–.”
Despite his release, the arrest by ICE agents led to legal proceedings over his immigration status — a process that was further complicated in 2021 when Atlanta-area prosecutors unveiled criminal charges relating to drugs and a handgun allegedly during the 2019 arrest. In an interview with TMZ last year, 21 Savage’s lawyer said those criminal charges had been delaying any resolution of the immigration case.
A representative for the district attorney in DeKalb County, Ga., where the criminal charges were filed, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the status of that case. 21 Savage’s reps also did not respond to Billboard‘s requests for comment.
Additional reporting by Bill Donahue.
Singer-songwriter Oliver Anthony, known for his breakthrough Billboard Hot 100 chart-topping hit “Rich Men North of Richmond,” is playing one more show before the end of the year, and he’s making it a hometown celebration.
In an Oct. 4 social media post, Anthony noted that he will close out his run of concerts for 2023 with a show at Longwood University’s new Joan Perry Brock Center in Farmville, Va., on Oct. 28. Tickets for the show will go on sale Oct. 6 beginning at 10 a.m. ET, and tickets will be $25 each.
He also teased that since the show falls just days prior to Halloween, it may involve a few surprises.
“This one’s going to be close to Halloween, and we may or may not have gotten a gorilla suit. I’ll leave it at that,” he wrote on Instagram, adding a laughing emoji. “If you want to bring a costume, no one is going to stop you.”
The singer-songwriter also noted another reason for the reasonably early final show of the year: His wife is expecting a baby boy in November. “I had to squeeze in one more show before baby boy comes,” shared Anthony, who currently has two kids. “There’s no place like home.”
The concert news comes as Oliver Anthony recently aligned with United Talent Agency for booking representation. Among UTA’s clients are Jamey Johnson, Parmalee and Megan Moroney.
“I am pleased to announce that I hired two gentlemen in Nashville this week to help me with creating the 2024 tour,” he said on social media. “We’re going to be all over the U.S., and even doing some international travel. There’s no way I can pull that off by myself. Curt [Motley] and Jeffrey [Hasson] at UTA do all the legwork to make the performances happen safely and professionally.”
In August, the singer-songwriter’s “Rich Men North of Richmond” spent two weeks atop the Hot 100, while several of his other songs, such as “Ain’t Gotta Dollar” and “I’ve Got to Get Sober,” quickly populated the Hot Country Songs chart.
See his concert announcement below:
A “groundbreaking” scheme that gives concertgoers the chance to own a share of their favorite grassroots music venues has acquired its first property in the United Kingdom, delivering a much-needed boost to a struggling sector that’s still yet to fully recover from the pandemic.
The 100-capacity The Snug, located in the town of Atherton, just a few miles outside Manchester, is the first grassroots venue to be purchased as part of the “Own Our Venues” initiative by U.K. charity Music Venue Trust (MVT).
The scheme was launched last May and offers music fans the chance to become investors in small U.K. grassroots venues by purchasing community shares that are then used to buy out commercial landlords, effectively transferring ownership to the trust and local patrons.
To date, more than 1,250 investors have backed the pilot project, raising around £1.5 million ($1.8 million), with Ed Sheeran among its high-profile supporters. Funding has also come from Arts Council England and Arts & Culture Finance, who both contributed an additional £500,000 ($606,000) to the member-owned Music Venue Properties fund.
Share options begin at £200 ($250), although investors under the age of 25 can buy single shares at a discounted rate of £100 ($125). In return, investors receive 3% annual interest, generated through rent returns and more efficient running of the businesses, say organizers. To prevent big companies or corporations from becoming majority owners, shares are non-transferable and cannot be sold or traded with other investors.
Venue properties bought by the Music Venue Properties fund, such as The Snug, are leased back to the current operators at a reduced below-market rate, with venue managers also receiving financial support around maintenance, insurance and repairs.
The Snug’s managing director Rachael Flaszczak said the purchase of the seven-year-old venue “serves as a light of hope that the preservation of grassroots music venues can be done when people pull together to make things happen.”
Music Venue Trust CEO Mark Dayvd tells Billboard the acquisition represents “an amazing step forward” for a grassroots live industry that’s “currently in the middle of a crisis.”
According to the trust, 127 grassroots venues have closed or stopped putting on live music concerts in the United Kingdom in the past 12 months, representing around 16% of its members and depriving new acts of vital spaces to develop their craft in front of live audiences.
In the last 20 years, more than 500 grassroots music venues have shuttered in the United Kingdom, reports the trust, with notable closures including London’s The Marquee, Astoria, 12 Bar Club and Madame Jojos. Contributing factors include rising rents and costs, long-term lack of investment and the gentrification of surrounding areas leading to noise complaints and restrictive licensing conditions.
The pandemic and accompanying shutdown of the live music industry saw the United Kingdom’s grassroots music scene acquire £90 million ($110 million) of new debt, says Dayvd. Underpinning the fragility of the sector, 93% of small-capacity music spaces in the United Kingdom are run by tenants, with most having less than 18 months left on their tenancy agreements, according to MVT’s research.
To try and stop further closures, the trust has identified a further eight venues in U.K. towns and cities that it plans to purchase under what it calls a “world first” public ownership model and is in advanced talks with the landlords of two of those properties, says Dayvd. The trust’s long-term goal is to have a nationwide network of publicly owned properties whose status as music venues is protected for the long-term future.
“Many of the most pressing challenges faced by the sector are solvable by this issue of ownership,” says Dayvd, who wants to grow the number of fund investors to boost its buying power. He’s also keen to see the “Own Our Properties” scheme roll out to other countries where grassroots venue operators are under similar financial pressures.
“We have to accept that grassroots venues, wherever they are in the world, are doing the job of research and development — giving the stage to a young artist who’s written their first song or playing for the first time in front an audience,” says Dayvd. “It’s what pushes the industry forward, and we need to protect that pipeline.”
Drake‘s tour is all a blur, but his checks always clear. And because the Canada native is all about sharing the love, he’s been making sure to give back pieces of his wealth to the fans he’s been meeting on the road, in the form of expensive gifts. Throughout the It’s All a Blur trek, […]
Talent agency Wasserman has completed the acquisition of United Kingdom-based CSM Sport & Entertainment, expanding Wasserman’s service offerings and geographic footprint in the sports, music, entertainment and culture industries. CSM will continue to operate independently through the end of the year before fully integrating with Wasserman in 2024. The deal expands Wasserman’s reach and network […]
Benji and Joel Madden, the creative forces behind pop punk outfit Good Charlotte, successful music management outfit MDDN and streaming service Veeps are launching their most ambitious project yet.
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Today the famous music brothers are launching Veeps All Access, a new Live Nation-backed online video subscription service built atop the Veeps live-streaming infrastructure developed and launched by the Maddens in 2018 and acquired by Live Nation in January 2021. All Access is a shift for Veeps, which has operated as a pay-per-view business up until now, charging customers to access live and on-demand streams by artists like Southern rockers Tyler Bryant and the Shakedown or soul and R&B star Miguel, typically priced between $9.99 to $14.99.
All Access will grant fans access to all live shows streamed through Veeps as well on-demand content, special artist exclusives and original programing including the newly greenlit “Sidehustles” and “Artist Friendly,” Joel Madden’s music interview podcast-turned-video talk show, premiering tomorrow (Oct. 4) with Brandon Boyd of Incubus.
The price of All Access is $11.99 per month or $120 for annual pass, which is in line with other popular streaming services like Disney Plus which increases from $10.99 per month to $13.99 per month on Oct. 12, or Paramount Plus, which is now bundled with Showtime at $11.99 per month. Veeps also has struck early partnerships deals with Samsung, Ticketmaster, and Verizon and will be available on the Veeps app on iPhone, Android, Apple TV or Roku service.
Veeps All Access will kick off today with the premiere of The Postal Service and Death Cab for Cutie’s sold-out show from AZ Financial Theater, October and November will feature performances from a wide range of artists, including Run The Jewels, performing a special 4-night series live from the Hollywood Palladium October 11-14, pop acts Macklemore, Jessie Ware and Chappell Roan; hard rock, indie and alternative acts A R I Z O N A, Bad Omens, Bishop Briggs, Boys Like Girls, Misterwives, Nothing But Thieves, Senses Fail, Frank Turner and Waterparks; shows from rap and soul artists like OhGeesy, Flatbush Zombies, Kiana Ledé and Phabo and country artists such as Darius Rucker, Jason Aldean and Shane Smith & The Saints. New shows will be added weekly.
Joel Madden tells Billboard that the mission of Veeps has always been to connect fans who can’t attend a concert with their favorite artists, even if the artist is not touring in their city or the show is already sold out. He adds that by providing an affordable subscription option, Veeps is also helping Live Nation drive most artist discovery, connecting fans with a wider range of artists and their fan communities.
Veeps All Access will also include a wealth of archived content from artists including 5 Seconds of Summer, Aerosmith, Amy Winehouse, Dierks Bentley, Fall Out Boy, Imagine Dragons, Katy Perry, J Balvin, Lainey Wilson, Mumford & Sons, Muse, Niall Horan, Norah Jones, Poppy, PVRIS, Rage Against the Machine, Rolling Stones, Shania Twain, Slipknot, Sting, The Killers, The Smashing Pumpkins, Yeah Yeah Yeahs,= and more. Veeps will be powered by a show recommendation engine and nearly all concerts are delivered with spatial sound capabilities and high-quality 4K streaming.
Joel said partnering with Live Nation on the project has been critical to the company’s expansion, noting “If we call anyone inside Live Nation for help, we get support and access to a great group of people.”
Benji Madden added “there’s a lot of generosity with their resources and experience,” noting that “It’s taken a lot of investment build out a Netflix-style experience, but it’s important because everyone involved in this project believes that the future of live entertainment is access.”
That means reaching the far corners of the globe where bands don’t always tour — or finding a way for a fan that can’t be at the show to “have the same access that fans expect for their sporting events,” Joel Madden said. “We know that music fans are going to expect access more and more access with artists and we know that Live Nation is the right partner for to provide that access.”
Kyle Heller, co-founder and chief product officer at Veeps tells Billboard “one of the things that has blown us away on this journey is the attention a viewer pays to a Veeps show. We live in a world of 15-second clips, short-form videos, and quick 20-minute episodes dominating the landscape but when people switch Veeps on it’s not unusual for them to watch 2+ hours of content, uninterrupted. It’s unlike anything I’ve seen before.”
Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino added, “Live performances have a unique magic, and Veeps has done an incredible job bringing fans that experience in their homes. All Access is giving fans a new way to discover music and artists another marketing platform that will only continue to fuel the demand for live with an even bigger world of concerts at our fingertips.”
Subscription plans will initially be available in the U.S. with international expansion planned to meet Veeps’ global usership. Learn more and sign up at veeps.com.