Touring
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SaveLive, the platform launched in 2020 during the pandemic to assist independent venue owners and promote concerts in secondary and tertiary markets, has changed its name to Gate 52. The company was co-founded by John Fogelman and Marc Geiger “to bring scalable services and advantages to independent venue owners and secondary markets,” according to a press release […]
James Estopinal is having an existential crisis.
For most of his professional life, Estopinal has operated as Disco Donnie, an old school concert promoter known for throwing festivals and taking dance artists on tours across the country. Estopinal was what many called a “pure play” promoter, meaning he didn’t own any venues himself; 100 percent of his attention and capital was spent building artists’ touring careers and supporting acts on the road.
Unfortunately for Estopinal, it has become increasingly difficult to sustain oneself as a full-time road warrior, renting out venues and battling club owners each night for his artists’ fair share. After a bumpy festival season in 2024, Estopinal and his partner, Patrick Tetrick, crossed the concert world’s Rubicon last summer and opened Silo, a brand-new nightclub in Dallas’ burgeoning Design District. Silo is not a typical nightclub — it’s a 30,000-square-foot transformed historic grain storage facility with beveled walls, 40-foot height ceilings, a 1,200-square-foot stage and a massive 100,000-watt sound system made by German loudspeaker company D&B Sound. Silo is Dallas’ first ever concert venue built for the electronic dance world and, to most people, opening their city’s hottest new nightclub would be the ultimate flex on a high-profile 30-year career in music and touring.
But Estopinal is not like most people.
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“I’m really struggling to suddenly be a club owner; it’s just not how I’m programmed,” he tells Billboard, noting that the transition from tour promoter to venue management has been difficult. As a promoter, Estopinal was taught early on not to trust venue managers and to always be skeptical of the line they’re pushing.
“I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with club owners,” Estopinal says. “They’re shady and I’m always trying to do the right thing. Like 90 percent of them have some shady shit going on and I never imagined myself being on that team.”
Making the leap from promotion to club operations is like a public defender suddenly joining the district attorney’s office, or an environmental activist going to work at a big oil company. Traditionally, the nightclub owner is the adversary of the show promoter, due in large part to the economic model of concert promotion.
Concerts typically make money in two ways: ticket sales and food and beverage sales. In a perfect world, the artist and the promoter keep 100% of the ticket sales, while the venue keeps all the food and booze money. That part’s easy — the tricky part is splitting up the show costs and deciding who pays each bill. Typically, venues will cover bar staffing and basic production needs, but the bigger the show, the more ticket takers and bouncers need to be hired, and the more expensive backline becomes.
These types of details should be worked out in advance, typically months ahead of time when the promoter is paying the deposit to book the venue. But it’s not uncommon for surprise expenses to pop up when the bill is settled between the parties. That’s when the gamesmanship begins, Estopinal explains, with both sides going line by line through bills, arguing over money.
Estopinal says he loathes the idea of hitting acts that play Silo with last minute expenses. As a promoter, when it “came to the settlement, I would always fight back,” Estopinal says, especially when club owners tried to make him pay their house nut — essentially a standard fee the venue would charge every touring show to recover unspecified expenses. To Estopinal, the house nut is like a hotel charging a $40 resort fee or an Airbnb rental charging a $100 cleaning fee — “they’re junk fees that are just a cash grab.”
Shakey Settlement
Inside Silo Dallas
Patrick Le
Estopinal remembers a show settlement in El Paso, Texas, when a club owner shook him down for a last-minute $1,000 “rent” charge.
“The deal was that he kept the bar and I got the door. Rent wasn’t in the original deal and I told him I wasn’t going to pay him rent,” Estopinal explains. “So, he opens his drawer and pulls out a gun and puts it on the desk. So, I say, ‘Oh, you’re threatening me now? Fine, take your $1,000 blood money.’”
Estopinal says he returned to the tour bus and stewed in anger for a while, before going back inside to confront the club owner again. Six security guards were summoned to the office, and “one got me in a headlock and they all kind of picked me up in a lateral position, carried me out down the stairs and put me back on the tour bus,” he recalls. “I never got my $1,000 back, but I did hear that he later got arrested for something else.”
Then there was a Skrillex show Estopinal promoted in the 2010s at a country western bar in San Antonio, Texas. Skrillex finished his set at midnight and his crew wanted to break down the show and leave, but the bar owner wanted to stay open to keep selling beer. The owner even had his resident DJ go on after Skrillex’s set and play Skrillex music.
“Suddenly all the fans that were leaving at the end of the Skrillex set turned around and came back in,” Estopinal says. “All so that the club owner can sell beer for two more hours.”
The tour managers approached Estopinal and told him to find the owner and shut down the faux Skrillex set so they could leave. “But I couldn’t find the owner anywhere. I noticed they had four bodyguards stationed around the DJ booth, and so I went back to the dressing room and said, ‘Hey, I can’t get this guy to turn the music off. You guys are just going to have to load out.’ They told me, ‘We can’t load out with all these people in here.’”
Worried that he might lose the rest of the tour if he didn’t quickly act, Estopinal took two shots of tequila with the tour manager and then “ran into the front of the DJ booth, dove inside, unplugged all the wires and pushed all the equipment on the floor,” he says. While the security guards weren’t able to stop Estopinal from silencing the bootleg set, they did “eventually get a hold of me and started wailing on me.”
The police eventually showed up, placed Estopinal in handcuffs and got him to fork over $2,000 to pay for the broken mixers and busted CDJ player. An expensive night, but minor when compared to the extortion Estopinal encountered when he tried to throw a rave with several big-name promoters in San Bernardino, Calif., in 1999. What had originally been forecast as a 5,000 to 8,000 person show quickly ballooned into a 25,000-person riot with fans swarming the box office, desperate to buy tickets.
“It was cash only and we’d have people come up to the window with a huge wad of cash and be like, ‘Give me 16 tickets,’” he says. “The money was coming in so fast that one of the ticket takers just started sweeping the cash onto the ground. There was no place to put it. And she just keeps selling tickets, ankle deep in cash.”
Eventually, Estopinal lost control of the show and “the police called in the riot squad, and they arrived in helicopters and tear gassed the front of the venue,” he says. Once the dust eventually settled, the venue manager approached Estopinal and told him the police wanted $40,000 in cash, right away. “I asked, ‘Can I give it to them myself?’ And they told me, ‘No, that would be illegal.’ The whole thing sounded illegal to me, but my only goal was not to have that party shut down. So, I went and got the $40,000 in cash and gave it to the venue manager. I don’t know where it went, but the event never got shut down.”
Promising Signs
Inside Silo Dallas
Tyler Church
The concert world has changed significantly since Estopinal’s riotous rave in 1999, mostly for the better, he concedes. The corporatization of the business led by Live Nation and AEG has standardized the show settlement system, and major talent agencies have become much more vigilant about sticking to the language of the contract and avoiding last-minute surprises.
“I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how I can change the dynamic as a club owner and make the venue more artist-friendly,” Estopinal says. “I can try to make the tickets as cheap as possible and not let people bribe the doorman to cut in line or slip in through a side door that the promoter doesn’t know about.”
He’s also decided to make Silo available to community groups during off hours and has even struck a deal with a local Dallas church to lease the club for its Sunday services.
Pastor Richard Ellis with the Dallas-based Reunion Church told Billboard that he happened to stumble upon Silo while looking for a new home after the church ended its lease at the Dallas Convention Center.
“I met with Donnie’s partner Patrick Tetrick and he told me, ‘I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but it would be good for us to have you in here,’” recalls Ellis. “Sometimes a club like that can have a reputation and one can soften that reputation by having a church in the building on Sundays.”
Estopinal says he has other community uses for Silo in mind and notes that having a church in the building makes him feel better about crossing over into the venue world.
Protect The Enterprise
Inside Silo Dallas
Bo Buckley
Estopinal also says he has started to bring a lot of his own experience to Silo and do some of the club’s bookings in-house, tapping into his own expertise. One of his first lessons came during the opening of Silo in September when he ignored his own advice about splurging on a big headliner for opening night.
Estopinal says it’s a “classic mistake” to book a big a headliner for an opening night concert at a new venue because “if there’s any type of delay due to permit issues or construction, you’re not going to be able to open the venue and you’re still going to end up owing the artist the money.”
For reasons he can’t explain, Estopinal ignored his own advice and booked superstar DJ Tiesto as the opening artist for Silo. “The day of the show arrived and we still don’t have the permit needed to open the venue” due to a disagreement with the local fire marshal about Silo’s sprinkler system, he says. “The show sold out and I’m just sitting there imagining, ‘How am I going to get out of this one?’” Estopinal recalls. “Then Tiesto’s agent calls me and says, ‘I got some bad news. Tiesto’s plane had depressurized, and he had to turn back.’”
Estopinal described the news as divine intervention: If Tiesto was cancelling on Silo, then he didn’t owe the Dutch DJ a dime — crisis averted.
“And then, oddly enough, about an hour later, my phone rang again,” he says. “It was the fire marshal’s office. The permit issue had been resolved, and I was cleared to open Silo.”
Estopinal says he was shocked, but also clear-eyed in what he had to do. Tapping into his instincts as a promoter, new club owner and lifelong hustler, Estopinal grabbed the phone and immediately dialed Tiesto’s agent.
“I told him, ‘You better put him on a new plane immediately and get him out here tonight or else!’” Estopinal remembers. Tiesto made it in time to play the gig and the show opened without a hitch.
Surprisingly, Estopinal said he didn’t feel bad about the episode, noting that club ownership and tour promotion had one key component in common.
“You’ve got to protect the enterprise,” he says. “No matter what side you’re on, you want the show to go on.”
Fresh off their appearance on Joe Bonamassa’s Keeping the Blues Alive at Sea X cruise, Grammy winning sisters Rebecca and Megan Lovell of Larkin Poe have announced their 2025 Bloom tour in support of their new record of the same name.
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Born in Georgia and currently residing Nashville, the pair begin their trek on April 8 in St. Louis, Mo., and run coast to coast with stops across the country. On March 31, days before the tour opens, Larkin Poe and Emmylou Harris are set to perform at Woofstock at City Winery in Nashville.
Bloom follows last year’s Grammy winning album Blood Harmony from 2022. Bloom debuted at No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Blues album charts.
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“History isn’t quick to point it out, but Rock ‘n’ Roll has been underpinned by a strong, matrilineal root that has been growing deep for generations, abiding. And now, more than ever, that root is coming to bloom,” a statement attributed to the band reads. “As female songwriters, producers, instrumentalists, and record label owners — we are proud to be standing on the shoulders of the strong women who have come before, and to be a part of the empowered chorus that is climbing to sing from the rooftops. When we won a Grammy for Best Contemporary Blues Album in 2024, for the first time ever, that category was represented by a female majority of talent. This is just a taste of what’s coming. In the prophetic words of Shania Twain, ‘let’s go girls.’”
Dates for Larkin Poe’s Bloom Tour 2025 can be found below:
3/31 – Nashville, TN – Woofstock at City Winery with Emmylou Harris4/8 – St. Louis, MO – The Hawthorn *4/10 – Kansas City, MO – The Truman *4/11 – Denver, CO – Ogden Theatre *4/12 – Salt Lake City, UT – The Depot *4/15 – Boise, ID – Treefort Music Hall *4/17 – Seattle, WA – The Showbox *4/18 – Portland, OR – Crystal Ballroom *4/19 – Vancouver, BC – Commodore Ballroom *4/22 – Grass Valley, CA – The Center for the Arts *4/23 – Los Angeles, CA – The Fonda Theatre *4/25 – San Francisco, CA – The Fillmore *4/26 – San Diego, CA – House of Blues *4/27 – Santa Barbara, CA – Arlington Theatre *5/8 – Philadelphia, PA – Union Transfer ^5/9 – Washington, DC – 9:30 Club ^5/10 – New York, NY – Irving Plaza ^5/12 – Boston, MA – The Wilbur ^5/14 – Toronto, ONT – The Concert Hall ^5/16 – Minneapolis, MN – First Avenue ^5/17 – Chicago, IL – The Vic Theatre ^5/22-26 – Cumberland, MD – DelFest †5/29 – Nashville, TN – Ryman Auditorium5/30 – Atlanta, GA – The Eastern5/31-June 1 – Lexington, KY – Railbird Music Festiva6/1 – Asheville, NC – The Orange Peel6/22 – Asbury Park, NJ – Asbury Lanes7/23-27 – Floyd, VA – FloydFest †9/4-7 – Las Vegas, NV – Big Blues Bender †10/3 – Miramar Beach, FL – Moon Crush Avett Moon10/9-12 – Nashville, TN – Tommy Emmanuel’s Guitar Camp10/17 – Manchester, UK – Manchester Academy10/18 – Glasgow, UK – O2 Academy10/19 – Bristol, UK – Bristol Beacon10/21 – London, UK – Eventim Apollo10/22 – Birmingham, UK – O2 Institute10/24 – Paris, France – Salle Pleyel10/25 – Tilburg, Netherlands – 013 Poppodium10/26 – Cologne, Germany – E-Werk10/28 – Oslo, Norway – Sentrum Scene10/29 – Stockholm, Sweden – Circus10/30 – Frederiksberg, Denmark – Falkoner Center11/1 – Berlin, Germany – Tempodrom11/2 – Warsaw, Poland – Klub Stodola11/4 – Vienna, Austria – Gasometer11/5 – Munich, Germany – Tonhalle11/8 – Geneva, Switzerland – Salle De L’Alhambra11/9 – Nimes, France – La Paloma11/12 – Lisbon, Portugal – Coliseu Dos Recreios11/14 – Madrid, Spain – Sala Riviera11/15 – Barcelona, Spain – Razzmatazz 111/16 – Bordeaux, France – Le Rocher de Palmer11/18 – Clermont-Ferrand, France – Le Cooperative de Mai11/19 – La Rochelle, France – La Sirene11/21 – Antwerp, Belgium – De Roma
w/ Special Guest Parker Millsap^ w/ Special Guest Amythyst Kiah† Festival Appearance
Larkin Poe’s Bloom tour
Courtesy Photo
Shakira tops Billboard’s monthly Top Tours chart for the first time, earning $32.9 million from 282,000 tickets sold in February, according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore.
The Top Tours ranking in recent times has been repeatedly led by acts who have crowned the list previously. P!nk returned for her fourth victory in October, followed by Coldplay’s fifth in November. Trans-Siberian Orchestra popped up for a fifth time in December, and then Coldplay returned to the summit in January.
Shakira follows Bad Bunny, Los Bukis, and RBD among Latin artists who have topped the monthly ranking, making her the first solo Latin woman to hit No. 1.
Not only is this Shakira’s first month at No. 1, but it’s also her very first appearance on the 30-position chart. The tally’s first edition covered the biggest tours of February 2019, which was three months after the wrap of her previous outing, 2018’s El Dorado World Tour.
Shakira kicked off Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran World Tour on Feb. 11 at Rio de Janeiro’s Estadio Nilton Santos with a $2.9 million gross with 35,200 fans. Her pace accelerated throughout the month, to $6.4 million in Sao Paulo on the 13th, to $11.3 million in Atlantico, Colombia, on the 20th and 21st, and finally to $12.3 million during a double header at Bogota’s El Nemesio Camacho (Feb. 26-27). The two Colombia stops finish at Nos. 3 (Bogota) and 6 (Atlantico) on Top Boxscores.
For almost 30 years, Shakira has been a reliable sellout act in arenas, while flirting with stadiums. Her 2025 outing thrusts her into major-market stadiums, almost exclusively, for the first time. So while her Latin American dates across the 21st century have averaged $1 million to $1.5 million per show, her February shows paced $5.5 million and 47,000 tickets each night.
Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran World Tour continues in Mexico, Chile and back to Columbia through April, before taking Shakira to the U.S. and Canada through the end of June. Including two rescheduled dates in Lima, Peru, in November, the tour will likely soar passed $200 million in total grosses, potentially tripling her career earnings by the end of 2025.
Tyler, the Creator follows on Top Tours at No. 2 with the first shows from Chromakopia: The World Tour. It’s his highest ranking ever, having previously hit No. 10 in March 2022, plus two other top 20 appearances in autumn 2019. He’s only the third rapper to rank as high since the chart’s launch, following Post Malone (No. 1 in October 2019 and February 2020) and Travis Scott (No. 2 in October 2024).
Across 14 shows in February, he grossed $29 million and sold 188,000 tickets. The Chromakopia outing isn’t Tyler’s first rodeo in arenas, though it does continue an alarming rise among the ranks of headliners. Averaging $2.1 million per night, the tour doubles 2022’s Call Me If You Get Lost Tour ($993,000). That tour did the same to 2019’s Igor Tour ($414,000), which itself had two-timed the pace of 2017-18’s Flower Boy Tour ($177,000). For kickers, that run quadrupled 2016’s Okaga, CA Tour ($41,700).
That’s a consistent rise that has grown Tyler’s per-show earnings potential almost 50 times over, over the course of less than a decade. His March schedule is busier than February’s (17 shows vs. 14), before the tour travels to Europe, back to North America and then to Australia and Asia before the end of September.
February’s 10 highest grossing acts are evenly spread across country, Latin, pop, rap and rock. Even among pop and rock, each with multiple acts in the upper tier, there is diversity: that of language and geography between ATEEZ (No. 7) and Ed Sheeran (No. 8), and a generational gap to separate the Eagles (No. 5) from Linkin Park (No. 9).
Mexico City and Australia split the prize atop the monthly venue rankings. The former’s Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez crowns Top Stadiums, powered entirely by Electric Daisy Carnival’s $20.9 million over Feb. 21-23. Auditorio Nacional rules Top Venues (5,001-10k capacity) with a broader stroke of 22 shows during the 28-day window.
Sydney’s Qudos Bank Arena is No. 1 among venues with a capacity of 15,001 or more, thanks in large part to multi-night runs by Drake and Billie Eilish. And Brisbane Entertainment Center wins the 10,001-15k category with $17.2 million from 13 shows.
Thanks to substantial tours from Tyler, the Creator, Kylie Minogue, Kelsea Ballerini and more, AEG Presents presides over Top Promoters. The global touring giant earned $201.8 million and sold just under two million tickets from a reported 687 shows in February.
Country Music Hall of Fame group Alabama has set a new slate of tour dates for 2025, with the first leg of its Live in Concert 25 Tour, set to launch April 17 in Phoenix.
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Alabama founders Randy Owen and Teddy Gentry will bring the headlining tour to cities including Lincoln, Calif.; Wichita, Kan.; and York, Pa., as well as a stop in Windsor, Ontario.
“There’s nothing I look forward to any more than performing the songs our great fans have made hits and some surprises along the way,” Owen said in a statement. “Every show I count as one more beautiful blessing! Much love to you, our fans! Looking forward to seeing all of you on the tour!
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“We are eager to get back on the road and make more cherished memories with each of you,” Gentry added. “It is a joy to play for our followers and friends who have supported us through thick and thin. We can’t wait to reconnect and share the music that brought us all together.”
Opening various shows on the two-time Grammy-winning group’s tour will be Lorrie Morgan, Pat Green, Eddie Montgomery, Lee Greenwood, Jamey Johnson, Ned LeDoux, BlackHawk and Alex Miller.
In the 1980s, Alabama became one of country music’s most successful groups, notching 33 Billboard Hot Country Songs chart-toppers, including “Lady Down on Love,” “Down Home,” “Mountain Music,” “The Closer You Get” and “Song of the South.” They earned the CMA’s coveted entertainer of the year three times, from 1982-1984. Following the passing of Alabama bandmember Jeff Cook in November 2022, Owen and Gentry carry on Alabama’s mission of bringing the group’s music to fans.
See the full slate of tour dates below:
April 17: Phoenix – Footprint Center (w/ Lorrie Morgan)
April 19: Lincoln, Calif. – Thunder Valley Casino Resort (w/ Lorrie Morgan)
April 27: Wichita, Kan. – Intrust Arena (w/ Eddie Montgomery)
May 23: Bonner Springs, Kan. – Azura Amphitheater (w/ Lee Greenwood)
May 25: Ridgedale, Mo. – Thunder Ridge Nature’s Arena (w/ Pat Green)
June 5: Windsor, Ontario, Canada – The Colosseum at Caesars Windsor
June 7: Bradley, Ill. – Bradley 316 Festival (w/ Eddie Montgomery)
June 14:Creighton, Pa. – Iron City Stage at Pittsburgh Brewing Company (w/ Jamey Johnson)
June 18: Redding, Calif. – Redding Civic Auditorium (w/ Eddie Montgomery)
June 20: Sparks, Nev. – Nugget Event Center (w/ Ned LeDoux)
July 19: Old Washington, Ohio – Old Washington Music Fest
July 25: York, Pa. – York State Fair (w/ Alex Miller)
Aug 9: Galva, Ill. – The Back Road Music Festival (w/ BlackHawk)
Aug 28: Allentown, Pa. – The Great Allentown Fair
Chris Brown is hitting the road again in 2025, as CB announced the Breezy Bowl XX stadium world tour with Summer Walker and Bryson Tiller on Thursday (March 27).
In celebration of the 20th anniversary of his self-titled debut album coming up later this year, Breezy will kick off the trek with a European leg in June before coming to North America in July.
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“TEAM BREEZY !!!!!TEAM BREEZY!!!TEAM BREEZY!!!!!BREEZY BOWL 20th anniversary TOUR!!!!!!!!!! CELEBRATING 20 years of CB,” he wrote on Instagram. “So excited to be able to share this moment with the world and my amazing fans. I CANT WAIT TO SEE ALL YALLS BEAUTIFUL FACES. IMA TAKE YALL THREW THESE ERAS BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY GIVE YALL MY HEART AND SOUL.”
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Tickets will be available through pre-sales starting on March 31, while the general public tickets go on sale on April 3 at 10 a.m. local time on Live Nation’s website. There are also various VIP packages for the North American fans.
Brown also revealed that more dates will be announced, so hang tight if your city isn’t on the list just yet. He also confirmed the viral meet-and-greets are coming back. “OH AND WE DOING THEM MEET AND GREETS,” he wrote to his Instagram Story.
Walker will be present on North America dates, while Tiller will be performing at all shows.
Europe’s shows begin in Amsterdam on June 8 and will hit Germany, Manchester, London, Dublin, Glasgow, Paris and more.
Miami gets the honor of being the first North America show on July 30, followed by stadium dates in Tampa Bay, Fla.; Detroit; Washington, D.C.; Philadelphia; Toronto; Boston; Chicago; Las Vegas; Los Angeles, Atlanta and many more.
CB is coming off some wins, as he took home best R&B album at the 2025 Grammys for his 11:11 (Deluxe) album. He was also on the road in 2024, dominating arenas across the country as part of his 11:11 Tour.
Find all of the Breezy Bowl XX stadium world tour dates below.
Grammy-nominated artist mgk (formerly known as Machine Gun Kelly) has signed with WME for representation worldwide. The global touring artist and actor (real name Colson Baker) was previously represented by UTA. mgk has notched 19 Hot 100 hits including No. 4 entry “Bad Things” with Camila Cabello in 2017, 2021’s “My Ex’s Best Friend” with […]
The Recording Academy’s MusiCares and mental health provider Amber Health are teaming up to look into the touring professionals’ well-being. The partnership will launch mental health study for touring professionals, entitled Headlining Mental Health: A Tour Study. Both artists and crews are encouraged to take part. The research will mark a pivotal step in addressing […]
Keyshia Cole, Monica and SWV are the performing stars enlisted to headline Femme It Forward’s first-ever cruise, Billboard can exclusively reveal. Presented in association with Sixthman and Vibee, Femmeland at Sea will sail from Miami to Nassau, Bahamas between Feb. 20-23, 2026.
Femme It Forward’s voyage aboard the Norwegian Pearl also marks the female-led music and entertainment firm’s transition into a 100% woman- and Black-owned company after a five-year partnership with Live Nation.
Femme It Forward president/CEO Heather Lowery, who founded the firm in 2019, tells Billboard, “I’ve always fought to have more equity in a company I’ve worked so hard to build. Now Femme It Forward is 100% woman-owned and Black- owned. I’m so excited! It feels like the beginning again, but this time I’m starting from a different place.
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“Live Nation was a great partner that allowed for a lot of business as well as personal growth,” continues Lowery, a Billboard Women in Music 2025 honoree. “They’ve provided me with a lot of resources for me to continue building Femme It Forward independent of the partnership. I’m super grateful for it all. We’re celebrating our five-year anniversary and there’s a lot of symbolism in the number five representing freedom, change, adventure and adaptability. I’m stepping into this next phase with open arms.”
In addition to the aforementioned live performances, Femmeland at Sea will also offer uniquely curated activities, live podcast recordings, parties, workshops/panels, mentorship labs, wine tastings and karaoke. The popular podcasts being featured include Keep It Positive Sweetie, hosted by Crystal Renee Hayslett, and Let’s Try This Again with B. Simone. Among the cruise’s additional activities will be wellness sessions helmed by WalkGood LA, Pretty Vee, Pretty Girls Sweat and Morning Mindset with Tai. Femme It Forward will also present its own branded activities such as Femme Salon and Femme Mentorship, with the latter hosted by mentors from the company’s Next Gem Femme and MUSE initiatives. Also on the schedule: Kirk Franklin’s Sunday School and #MusicSermon LIVE.
In the press release announcing the inaugural sailing, Lowery states in part that the cruise is “a vision I’ve had since our launch in 2020. I have always been bold about what Femme It Forward stands for and the experiences we create with women at the center. And despite the current optics and everything around us demanding we shrink, we will continue to do more — create more opportunities, make space for more representation and curate more experiences that amplify the voices of women everywhere.”
In turn, Femme It Forward will continue to present its various other events inaugurated over the last five years such as the annual Give Her FlowHERS Gala, the Femme It Forward High Tea and the My Sister’s Keeper Summit honoring artists and executives in music and entertainment. Future plans for its mentorship program include launching global chapters in South Africa and Europe.
Femmeland at Sea’s first round pre-sale sign-ups are available now through April 1 at 11:59 pm (ET). Final round pre-sale sign-ups will conclude on April 9 at 11:59 pm (ET). Public on-sales begin April 11 at 2:00 pm (ET), exclusively here.
LONDON — Following the controversial ticket sale for Oasis’ reunion dates in the U.K. and Ireland this coming summer, the CMA (Competition and Markets Authority) has said that Ticketmaster may have “misled” fans over pricing for the shows.
In August 2024, the Gallagher brothers announced their reformation for 19 stadium shows, their first since their split in 2009. The tour will begin on July 4 at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium, before heading to North America, Asia, Latin America and Australia in the ensuing months
The ticket sale process drew huge demand, but some fans complained of unclear pricing for tickets after long waits for the opportunity to purchase passes. An update to the CMA’s ongoing investigation highlights that Ticketmaster UK may have breached consumer protection law, by “Labelling certain seated tickets as ‘platinum’ and selling them for near 2.5 times the price of equivalent standard tickets, without sufficiently explaining that they did not offer additional benefits and were often located in the same area of the stadium.”
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The update adds that demand meant that cheaper tickets sold out first, but that the release of more expensive tickets for similar places in the stadiums meant that “many fans waited in a lengthy queue without understanding what they would be paying and then having to decide whether to pay a higher price than they expected.”
More than 900,000 tickets were sold for Oasis’ long-awaited reunion tour, but the pricing strategy proved controversial when standard standing tickets advertised at £135 plus fees ($174) were re-labelled “in demand” and changed on Ticketmaster to £355 plus fees ($458).
Following the furore, Oasis issued a statement saying they had no “awareness that dynamic pricing was going to be used” in the sale of tickets for the initial dates. The CMA launched an investigation in September to examine whether Ticketmaster had used “unfair commercial practices” to pressure fans into paying higher prices for tickets.
Ticketmaster denied the use of the so-called ‘dynamic pricing’ method, with the company’s U.K. director Andrew Parsons telling MPs in February, “We don’t change prices in any automated or algorithmic way.” He added that all prices are determined by artist teams and promoters SJM Concerts, MCD Promotions and DF Concerts, all of which have links to Live Nation, Ticketmaster’s owners.
The report acknowledges that since the opening of the investigation, “Ticketmaster has made changes to some aspects of its ticket sales process,” but that the CMA “does not currently consider these changes are sufficient to address its concerns.” The report does not directly comment on the alleged ‘dynamic pricing’ model, but cites other concerns around clearer sale practises.
The CMA says that, “Following a formal investigation, the CMA is now consulting with the ticketing platform on changes to ensure fans receive the right information, at the right time.”
In a statement to Billboard U.K., Ticketmaster U.K. said, “We strive to provide the best ticketing platform through a simple, transparent and consumer-friendly experience. We welcome the CMA’s input in helping make the industry even better for fans.”
Downing Street responded to the report (via the BBC) by repeating a quote given by culture, media and sport secretary Lisa Nandy following the news that the government announced plans to cap the value of resold tickets for live events like music. “The chance to see your favourite musicians or sports teams live is something that all of us enjoy… But for too long fans have had to endure the misery of touts hoovering up tickets for resale at vastly inflated prices.
“We’ve also seen cases where a lack of transparency has meant customers have been caught unawares by last minute price rises for high demand events.”