Photo Credit: Pari Dukovic
The Weeknd is officially set to embark on his “first ever global stadium tour” this summer after shelving his previous tour plans.
The Weeknd unveiled the North American stops on his After Hours Til Dawn Tour today, and the 18-show concert series is scheduled to kick off in his native Toronto on Friday, July 8th. The all-stadium tour will then proceed through states including New York, Florida, and Colorado before heading to Vancouver in late August and wrapping at Los Angeles’ SoFi Stadium in early September.
Doja Cat will join The Weeknd as a “special guest” on the tour, and tickets are scheduled to go on sale (after multiple pre-sale opportunities) next Thursday, March 10th. Additional dates, for concerts in South America, Oceania, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa alike, will be announced “soon,” Live Nation said.
Lastly, regarding the nuances of The Weeknd’s upcoming tour, the 32-year-old singer-songwriter has partnered with the UN’s World Food Programme to donate $1 from each ticket sold to his tour’s North American leg. These donations will be made specifically to the newly launched XO Humanitarian Fund, with The Weeknd fronting another $500,000 and the World Food Program USA contributing $1 million, according to the involved entities.
Needless to say, it’ll be worth monitoring the After Hours Til Dawn Tour’s ticket sales; the aforementioned original tour in support of The Weeknd’s After Hours had sold one million tickets by February of 2021, per Live Nation.
In inflicting unprecedented financial damage upon the live-entertainment space, COVID-19 restrictions also created pent-up fan demand for crowd-based events. But as more artists hit the road – and more fans finalize their summer-concert plans – it’s possible that scheduling and financial considerations could affect consumers’ decision-making processes.
The last week or so has brought tour announcements from OneRepublic (a 40-city series that will initiate in July), Japan’s Band-Maid (11 cities starting in October), and Brooks & Dunn (19 cities starting in May), to name some. Plus, Tomorrowland quickly sold out 600,000 tickets, and Coachella, Stagecoach, SXSW, and an abundance of other events are expected to take place (with physical editions) this year for the first time since the pandemic’s start.
Bearing in mind this jam-packed concert and music-festival calendar, Live Nation on Monday announced a “2022 Lawn Pass.” Priced at $199 plus fees, said pass will allow purchasers to attend as many as 40 shows at certain amphitheaters over the summer, including performances from Halsey, The Black Keys, Kid Rock, Keith Urban, and Brandi Carlile.
During today’s trading hours, Live Nation – which says that it “will not promote shows in Russia” and “will not do business with Russia” – experienced a nearly four percent stock-price slip. Shares (NYSE: LYV) were worth $116.23 apiece when the market closed, an increase of about 28 percent from early March of 2021.