beyonce first stadium tour

Beyoncé adds extra dates for long-awaited Renaissance World Tour: See show schedule

"Please do not be alarmed, remain calm. Do not attempt to leave the dance floor."

Beyoncé announced her long-awaited tour for her seventh studio album " Renaissance " on Wednesday to kick off Black History Month . Demand for tickets skyrocketed so fast, the artist added second show dates seven cities: Toronto; Chicago; Washington D.C.; Atlanta; Houston; Inglewood, Calif. and East Rutherford, New Jersey.

The album, which debuted in July, is an ode to Black queer culture. Disco anthems, soulful ballads and sexy lyrics are packaged together in "Renaissance."

"RENAISSANCE WORLD TOUR 2023," she shared on Instagram .

Beyoncé performs in Dubai  for luxury hotel opening, daughter Blue Ivy joins

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Beyoncé's 'Renaissance' album review: Unapologetic and raunchy as she beckons us to the dance floor

Full Renaissance World Tour dates

Beyoncé's world tour kicks off in May and ends in September and includes stops in Nashville, Louisville, Chicago, Detroit, New York, Boston, Miami, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and many more.

Note: Some dates have changed. For the most up-to-date information, visit  tour.beyonce.com .

• May 10: Stockholm, SE (Friends Arena)
• May 14: Brussels, BE (Baudoin Stadium)
• May 17:  Cardiff, UK (Principality Stadium)
• May 20: Edinburgh, UK (Murrayfield)
• May 23: Sunderland, UK (Stadium of Light)
• May 26:  Paris, FR (Stade de France)
• May 29: London, UK (Tottenham Hotspur Stadium)
• May 30:  London, UK (Tottenham Hotspur Stadium)
• June 6:  Lyon, FR (Groupama Stadium)
• June 8: Barcelona, SP (Olympic Stadium)
• June 11:  Marseille, FR (Orange Vélodrome)
• June 15:  Cologne, DE (Rheinenergiestadion)
• June 17:  Amsterdam, NL (JC Arena)
• June 18: Amsterdam, NL (JC Arena)
• June 21:  Hamburg, DE (Volksparkstadion)
• June 24: Frankfurt, DE (Deutsche Bank Park)
• June 27:  Warsaw, PL (Pge Nardowy)
• July 8:  Toronto, CA (Rogers Centre)
• July 9: Toronto, CA (Rogers Centre)
• July 15: Nashville, TN (Nissan Stadium)
• July 17: Louisville, KY (L&N Federal Credit Union Stadium)
• July 20: Minneapolis, MN (Huntington Bank Stadium)
• July 22: Chicago, IL (Soldier Field)
• July 23: Chicago, IL (Soldier Field)
• July 26: Detroit, MI (Ford Field)
• July 29: East Rutherford, NJ (Metlife Stadium)
• July 30: East Rutherford, NJ (Metlife Stadium)
• Aug. 1: Boston, MA (Gillette Stadium)
• Aug. 3: Pittsburgh, PA (Heinz Field)
• Aug. 5: Washington, DC (FedEx Field)
• Aug. 6: Washington, DC (FedEx Field)
• Aug. 9: Charlotte, NC (Bank of America Stadium)
• Aug. 11: Atlanta, GA (Mercedes Benz Stadium)
• Aug. 12: Atlanta, GA (Mercedes Benz Stadium)
• Aug. 16: Tampa, FL (Raymond James Stadium)
• Aug. 18: Miami, FL (Hard Rock Stadium)
• Aug. 21:  St. Louis, MI (Dome at Americas Center)
• Aug. 24: Phoenix, AZ (State Farm Stadium)
• Aug. 26: Las Vegas, NV (Allegiant Stadium)
• Aug. 30: San Francisco, CA (Levi's Stadium)
• Sept. 2:  Inglewood, CA (SoFi Stadium)
• Sept. 3:  Inglewood, CA (SoFi Stadium)
• Sept. 11: Vancouver, CA (BC Place)
• Sept. 13: Seattle, WA (Lumen Field)
• Sept. 18: Kansas City, MO (Arrowhead Stadium)
• Sept. 21: Dallas, TX (AT&T Stadium)
• Sept. 23: Houston, TX (NRG Stadium)
• Sept. 24: Houston, TX (NRG Stadium)
• Sept. 27: New Orleans, LA (Caesars Superdome)

How to purchase tickets, presale information

Ticketing begins Feb. 6, starting with an exclusive presale to BeyHive members.

There are several presale ticket options for Beyoncé fans. Verified fan registration for North American dates are available on beyonce.livenation.com  and Ticketmaster . Citi cardmembers will have access to a presale via citientertainment.com . Verizon Up members can buy presale tickets at  verizon.com/featured/verizon-up .

Visit the various websites for more on presale tickets as times vary by city.

You can also find "Register" buttons next to each date on her tour website .

Beyoncé returned to the stage for first time in four years in January

Last month, Beyoncé made her return to the stage and performed at the opening of the Atlantis The Royal hotel in Dubai. Despite the luxury experience, the singer left fans wanting more, as she did not perform any songs from "Renaissance," The Hollywood Reporter reported.

The invitation-only event marked her first concert in more than four years. She last performed at the  Global Citizen Festival: Mandela 100 event in 2018.

Beyoncé dominates Grammy nominations

The singer's tour announcement comes days ahead of the Grammys where Beyoncé leads the 2023 lineup with nine nominations, including best dance/electronic album ("Renaissance"), best R&B performance ("Virgo’s Groove") and best traditional R&B performance ("Plastic Off the Sofa"). 

With 28 wins and 88 total career nominations, Beyoncé now ties her husband, rapper Jay-Z , for the most nominations in Grammy history. If Beyoncé picks up four or more awards this year, she will surpass the late Georg Solti for the most Grammy wins of all time. (The Hungarian-born conductor holds the record with 31.) 

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Beyoncé and Jay-Z have got "to be the most intense power couple in the history of music," Recording Academy president Harvey Mason Jr. Mason said after the nominations were revealed. "That’s music and Grammy royalty – that’s the royal family."

Their combined 176 nominations are "absolutely a testament to their talent, to their level of excellence, to their work ethic, to their level of greatness over a long period of time. I don’t even know what the next (leading) couple would be, but it’s not anywhere close.”

Beyoncé's 'Break My Soul.' Taylor Swift's 'Anti-Hero.'  These are the 10 best songs of 2022, ranked.

Beyoncé noticeably was not nominated in any of the music video categories for the Grammys, having not released any album visuals for "Renaissance" since its debut.

Contributing: Patrick Ryan

Beyoncé Returns To The Global Stage For Renaissance World Tour

WELCOME TO THE RENAISSANCE

40 shows across north america and europe, verified fan registration open for north american dates now at   beyonce.livenation.com, citi cardmembers, verizon up and beyhive members will have additional access to presales.

Following the wildly successful release of BEYONCÉ’s seventh studio album,  RENAISSANCE , the global superstar has announced RENAISSANCE WORLD TOUR  today, her first solo tour in over six years. The North American leg of the tour is leveraging Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan technology to ensure more tickets get into the hands of concertgoers. Fans can register now   HERE . Ticketing will begin Monday, February 6, 2023, starting with an exclusive presale to BeyHive members.

The 2023 tour, produced by Parkwood Entertainment, and promoted by Live Nation, kicks off on May 10, 2023, at Friends Arena in Stockholm, SE, making stops throughout Europe in Cardiff, Edinburgh, Sunderland, Paris, London, Marseille, Amsterdam, Warsaw and more. The tour then continues across North America with shows in Toronto, Chicago, East Rutherford, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Houston and more.

RENAISSANCE WORLD TOUR  will also visit Brussels, Barcelona, Cologne, Frankfurt, Hamburg, and more in Europe in May & June. Additional North American cities include Boston, Charlotte, Dallas, Detroit, Kansas City, Louisville, Miami, Minneapolis, Nashville, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, St. Louis, Tampa, Vancouver and more.

As with previous tours, Beyoncé will make her mark offstage, too, with BeyGOOD, the initiative she founded in 2013 to support people and programs around the world.  BeyGOOD will continue its legacy of philanthropy, building out this focus on economic equity by supporting organizations that serve marginalized and underserved communities with access to scholarships, opportunities for internships that lead to job placement, and resources to support entrepreneurship.

In various cities throughout the tour, BeyGOOD will support entrepreneurs through Black Parade Route luncheons, celebrating small business owners, with grant opportunities being awarded and a foray of services with global partners to promote business sustainability. One thousand small businesses will be supported with a commitment totaling one million dollars.

BeyGOOD will also support students through scholarship funds that will be given to colleges and universities in ten different cities along the tour. Each school will be given one hundred thousand dollars and will select the student recipients. BeyGOOD’s total scholarship commitment during RENAISSANCE WORLD TOUR will be one million dollars.

Working with Beyoncé and the BeyGOOD Foundation, Citi and Verizon will purchase 100 tickets combined in each market across the U.S. touring leg for distribution to local community initiatives.

A noted partner with Beyoncé, Tiffany & Co. is the official jeweler of  RENAISSANCE WORLD TOUR.  Tiffany & Co. has a longstanding commitment to conducting itself responsibly, sustaining the natural environment, prioritizing diversity and inclusion, and positively impacting the communities in which it operates.

TICKETING DETAILS :

On sale dates:

• North American Dates:  Verified Fan Registration is open now and closes at different times based on city. Visit  beyonce.livenation.com  for the exact details as ticketing on sale timelines vary by city. 
• Europe an  Dates:  Check your local event listings for complete ticket information regarding European dates of the tour.

Pre sale dates:

• Citi Presale powered by Verified Fan:  Citi is the official credit card of  RENAISSANCE WORLD TOUR . After the Verified Fan process, Citi cardmembers may have the opportunity to access the special Citi Presale powered by Verified Fan for tour dates in the United States. For those who are not existing Citi cardmembers, consumers can apply for the Citi Custom Cash Card online. If approved, new cardmembers may request instant access to their card for the Citi Presale powered by Verified Fan.* For complete presale details visit  www.citientertainment.com  and for details on Custom Cash instant access visit  www.citientertainment.com/faq . 
• Verizon Up Presale:  Verizon Up customers can access this presale by visiting   Verizon Up . Verizon will offer an exclusive presale for  RENAISSANCE WORLD TOUR  in the U.S through the customer loyalty program Verizon Up. Customers will have access to purchase presale tickets for select shows.

RENAISSANCE WORLD TOUR DATES:

May 10, 2023 – Stockholm, SE – Friends Arena

May 14, 2023 – Brussels, BE – King Baudouin Stadium

May 17, 2023 – Cardiff, UK – Cardiff Principality Stadium

May 20, 2023 – Edinburgh, UK – BT Murray Field Stadium

May 23, 2023 – Sunderland, UK – Stadium of Light

May 26, 2023 – Paris, FR – Stade de France

May 29, 2023 – London, UK – Tottenham Hotspur Stadium

May 30, 2023 – London, UK – Tottenham Hotspur Stadium

June 08, 2023 – Barcelona, ES – Olympic Stadium

June 11, 2023 – Marseille, FR – Orange Velodrome

June 15, 2023 – Cologne, DE – Rhein Energie Stadion

June 17, 2023 – Amsterdam, NL – Johan Crujff Arena

June 21, 2023 – Hamburg, DE – Volksparkstadion

June 24, 2023 – Frankfurt, DE – Deutsche Bank Park

June 27, 2023 – Warsaw, PL – PGE Narodowy

NORTH AMERICA

July 8, 2023 – Toronto, ON – Rogers Centre

July 12, 2023 – Philadelphia, PA – Lincoln Financial Field

July 15, 2023 – Nashville, TN – Nissan Stadium

July 17, 2023 – Louisville, KY – L&N Federal Credit Union Stadium

July 20, 2023 – Minneapolis, MN – Huntington Bank Stadium

July 22, 2023 – Chicago, IL – Soldier Field Stadium

July 26, 2023 – Detroit, MI – Ford Field

July 29, 2023 – East Rutherford, NJ – MetLife Stadium

Aug. 01, 2023 – Boston, MA – Gillette Stadium

Aug. 03, 2023 – Pittsburgh, PA – Acrisure Stadium

Aug. 05, 2023 – Washington, DC – FedEx Field

Aug. 09, 2023 – Charlotte, SC – Bank of America Stadium

Aug. 11, 2023 – Atlanta, GA – Mercedes-Benz Stadium

Aug. 16, 2023 – Tampa, FL – Raymond James Stadium

Aug. 18, 2023 – Miami, FL – Hard Rock Stadium

Aug. 21, 2023 – St. Louis, MO – Dome at America’s Center

Aug. 24, 2023 – Phoenix, AZ – State Farm Stadium

Aug. 26, 2023 – Las Vegas, NV – Allegiant Stadium

Aug. 30, 2023 – San Francisco, CA – Levi’s Stadium

Sept. 02, 2023 – Inglewood, CA – SoFi Stadium

Sept. 11, 2023 – Vancouver, BC – BC Place

Sept. 13, 2023 – Seattle, WA – Lumen Field

Sept. 18, 2023 – Kansas City, MO – Arrowhead Stadium

Sept. 21, 2023 – Dallas, TX – AT&T Stadium

Sept. 23, 2023 – Houston, TX – NRG Stadium

Sept. 27, 2023 – New Orleans, LA – Caesars Superdome

For complete ticketing and additional information visit  beyonce.livenation.com  and  tour.beyonce.com .

*Citi Instant Access Process:  *If approved for the card after applying online, new Citi Custom Cash cardmembers must write down their temporary account information to have ready when they go to try to make a purchase during the presale. They will not have access to their information again until the physical card arrives in the mail, which may take 7-10 days. 

About Parkwood Entertainment

Parkwood Entertainment is a film and production company, record label and management firm founded by entertainer and entrepreneur, Beyoncé Knowles-Carter in 2010.  With offices in Los Angeles and New York City, the company houses departments in music, film, video, live performances and concert production, management, business development, marketing, technology, creative, philanthropy, and publicity.  Under its original name, Parkwood Pictures, the company released the film Cadillac Records (2008), in which Beyoncé starred and co-produced. The company has also released the films Obsessed (2009), with Beyoncé as star and executive producer, the winner of the Peabody Award for Entertainment, Lemonade (2017), the Emmy®-nominated Homecoming: A Film By Beyoncé (2019), which documents Beyoncé’s history-making performance at the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival in 2018, and the Emmy®-winning Black Is King (2020). Parkwood Entertainment produced The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour (2013-2014), The Formation World Tour (2016), and the aforementioned “Homecoming” performances at Coachella (2018) and co-produced the ON THE RUN Tour (2014) and ON THE RUN II (2018).

About Live Nation Entertainment

Live Nation Entertainment (NYSE: LYV) is the world’s leading live entertainment company comprised of global market leaders: Ticketmaster, Live Nation Concerts, and Live Nation Sponsorship. For additional information, visit   www.livenationentertainment.com .

MEDIA CONTACTS:

Parkwood Entertainment

Yvette Noel-Schure, Parkwood Entertainment  |  [email protected]

Live Nation Concerts

Monique Sowinski |  [email protected]

Maya Sarin |  [email protected]

Valeska Thomas |  [email protected]

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Beyonce Announces 2023 Renaissance World Tour

The 41-show global outing kicks off in Stockholm in May.

By Carl Lamarre

Carl Lamarre

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Megan Thee Stallion Announces 'Megan' Album & Reveals Release Date at Atlanta Show

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The announcement photo may look familiar to fans, as she donned the same glittery attire on the cover of her seventh studio album. Bey also added “Renaissance World Tour” on her Instagram bio, further accenting the news. Last week, Beyonce performed a full concert for the first time in four years at a luxury resort in Dubai in front of influencers and journalists. The 19-song set included a collaboration with her oldest daughter Blue Ivy as the two performed “Brown Skin Girl,” which earned them a Grammy two years ago for best music video.

Crowned a triumphant win by music lovers, Renaissance stormed to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 last year and rattled off two Hot 100 top 10 hits, including her chart-topper “Break My Soul.” The dance-centric album also notched nine Grammy nominations, the most for any nominee for this year’s ceremony. Bey is looking to rack up more trophy wins, as she currently sits at a staggering 28 wins. Nominated for album of the year, song, and record of the year, Bey is facing some stout competition , especially in the former. The R&B juggernaut will tango against Adele, Harry Styles, Kendrick Lamar, Bad Bunny, and more for album of the year. A win in this category would serve as Beyonce’s first. The 65th Grammy Awards will occur Sunday night in Los Angeles at 8 pm EST.

Check out Beyonce’s Instagram post and 2023 Renaissance dates below.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Beyoncé (@beyonce)

2023 Renaissance European dates :

May 10 — Stockholm, SE @ Friends Arena

May 14 — Brussels, BE @ King Baudouin Stadium

May 17 — Cardiff, UK @ Cardiff Principality Stadium

May 20 — Edinburgh, UK @ BT Murrayfield Stadium

May 23 — Sunderland, UK @ Stadium of Light

May 26 — Paris, FR @ Stade de France

May 29 — London, UK @ Tottenham Hotspur Stadium

May 30 — London, UK @ Tottenham Hotspur Stadium

June 8 — Barcelona, ES @ Olympic Stadium

June 11 — Marseille, FR @ Orange Velodrome

June 15 — Cologne, DE @ Rhein Energie Stadion

June 17 — Amsterdam, NL @ Johan Cruijff Arena

June 21 — Hamburg, DE @ Volksparkstadion

June 24 — Frankfurt, DE @ Deutsche Bank Park

June 27 — Warsaw, PL @ PGE Narodowy

2023 Renaissance North American dates :

July 8 — Toronto, CA @ Rogers Centre

July 12 — Philadelphia, PA @ Lincoln Financial Field

July 15 — Nashville, TN @ Nissan Stadium

July 17 — Louisville, KY @ Cardinal Stadium

July 20 — Minneapolis, MN @ Huntington Bank Stadium

July 22 — Chicago, IL @ Soldier Field

July 26 — Detroit, MI @ Ford Field

July 29 — East Rutherford, NJ @ Metlife Stadium

August 1 — Boston, MA @ Gillete Stadium

August 3 — Pittsburgh, PA @ Heinz Field

August 5 — Washington, DC @ Fedex Field

August 9 — Charlotte, NC @ Bank Of America Stadium

August 11 — Atlanta, GA @ Mercedes Benz Stadium

August 16 — Tampa, FL @ Raymond James Stadium

August 18 — Miami, FL @ Hard Rock Stadium

August 21 — St. Louis, MI @ Dome at America’s Center

August 26 — Las Vegas, NV @ Allegiant Stadium

August 30 — San Francisco, CA @ Levi’s Stadium

Sept. 2 — Inglewood, CA @ Sofi Stadium

Sept. 11 — Vancouver, BC @ BC Place

Sept. 13 — Seattle, WA @ Lumen Field

Sept. 18 — Kansas City, KS @ Arrowhead Stadium

Sept. 21 — Dallas, TX @ AT&T Stadium

Sept. 23 — Houston, TX @ NRG Stadium

Sept. 27 — New Orleans, LA @ Caesars Superdome

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Beyoncé | Renaissance World Tour

Following the wildly successful release of BEYONCÉ’s seventh studio album, RENAISSANCE , the global superstar has announced RENAISSANCE WORLD TOUR today, her first solo tour in over six years. The North American leg of the tour is leveraging Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan technology to ensure more tickets get into the hands of concertgoers.

Verified Fan Registration is now closed for North American dates at beyonce.livenation.com .

We ask for all guests attending this event to please review the stadium event guide prior to your arrival.

Parking passes, and tickets should be added to Apple Wallet or Google Wallet to expedite entry at parking and stadium gates.

Ticket Policy

• All guests ages 2 and above must have an event ticket to enter the stadium.
• There is no re-entry after admittance.
• Guests should have their tickets ready to scan upon approaching the stadium entry gates.
• The ticket barcode must be visible no matter the ticket type.
• The Visa Box Office opens at 3:00 pm and is located at the north end of the stadium at Toyota Gate F. Walk-up tickets may also be available at the Visa Box Office.
• Tickets will not be emailed or available to print. Your mobile ticket must be displayed on your phone to get into the event . 

Timeline Wednesday, August 30, 2023

All guests must have a valid event ticket, pass, or credential to park in a designated parking lot. Please download prepaid parking passes ahead of time and add them to your mobile wallet for an expedited parking process. Day of parking will be available on a limited basis. Credit card payment only. For more information, please go to ticketmaster.com.

Accessible Parking Mobility Services will be onsite at 3:00 p.m. to provide roving carts from the mobility kiosks in Red Lot 1.

Bicycle Parking Bicycle parking will be located outside Dignity Health Gate C and open at 3:00 pm.

Buses/Oversized Vehicles  Buses/oversized vehicles must park in Blue RV and contact the Visa Box Office at 408-579-4449 to purchase parking in advance.

Tailgating Tailgating is not permitted for this event.

Parking Lots in Operation Please note the prices below represent event day pricing.  

*with valid placard

All guests must have a valid event ticket, pass, or credential to park in a designated parking lot. 

Only bags that comply with Levi’s Stadium® Clear Bag Policy will be allowed. Bag check services are available for this event in Green RV lot.

Levi’s® Stadium prohibits all bags, backpacks and other carriers from being brought into the stadium with the following exceptions:

• Clear Backpacks
• Clear Fanny Packs
• Clear Purses
• One gallon clear plastic zip lock type bags
• Small Clutch Bag (the size of an adult hand) (4.5” x 6.5”)
• Seat Cushion

ALL INDIVIDUALS AND THEIR BELONGINGS ARE SUBJECT TO SEARCH. THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE.

Fans with medical bags or items they must carry with them must be inspected and either have a wristband or sticker placed on it to show that it has been inspected.

The following items ARE PERMITTED in the stadium during Levi’s® Stadium Events:

Bags that comply with the Clear Bag Policy

o Clearbagupto12”x6”x12”

o Non-clearclutchupto4.5”x6.5”

Binoculars shorter than 6 inches (case prohibited)

Cameras with 3-inch lenses or shorter (no lights, tripods, selfie-sticks or monopods)

Diaper bags accompanying a child

Flags smaller than 2’ x 3’ (No Poles)

Food and fruit (must be cut into pieces).

Plastic water bottles (factory sealed, no-alcohol, less than 24 ounces)

Reusable transparent water bottles (no-alcohol, less than 24 ounces)

Seat cushions

Strollers (contact nearest Playmaker if in need of storing)

Sunscreen & hand-powered misters

Umbrellas (no obstruction of other fans view)

Protective face coverings

Hand sanitizers up to 12 ounces

The following items ARE PROHIBITED in the stadium:

Aerosol cans

Alcoholic beverages

Bags that violate the Clear Bag Policy

Cameras with lenses larger than 3-inches (lights, tripods, selfie-sticks and monopods are also prohibited)

Cans, glass bottles or alcoholic beverages

Drugs & Drug paraphernalia, marijuana & marijuana products

Coolers (including soft-sided coolers)

Glow sticks, light-up costumes, light-up signs, battery packs

Hoods, masks, or face coverings that hide one’s identity or objects to cover one’s face

(medical & religious articles exempt)

Intoxication or signs of impairment related to alcohol or drugs

Irresponsible drinking or behavior

Klaxons, bullhorns, whistles or any other noisemakers

Laptops and Laptop Bags

Laser pointers of any type

Offensive clothing

Plastic bottles larger than 24 ounces and thermoses

Projectiles (footballs, Frisbees, etc.)

Selfie Sticks

Signs, banners or poles

UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles)

Weapons of any kind (including silverware)

Anyone possessing PROHIBITED items will be asked to return them to their cars or dispose of them in the garbage cans provided at the gate.

Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) VTA will operate increased train service from Mountain View station (Caltrain transfer) and Milpitas station (BART transfer) two hours prior to event start. Post-event service will run for approximately 60 minutes post-event in coordination with Caltrain. For more information, please visit  www.vta.org .

Caltrain Guests heading to the concert can get off at the Mountain View station and transfer to the VTA light rail service to Levi’s Stadium. Post-event, Caltrain will operate one extra train northbound from Mountain View to San Francisco approximately 75 minutes after the concert ends. For more information, please visit the https://www.caltrain.com/news/caltrain-will-be-you-beyonces-concert-levis-stadium

Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART)

BART will run extra trains and offer special limited service for this event in coordination with VTA event service. For more information, please visit  https://www.bart.gov/news/articles/2023/news20230822

Capitol Corridor Capitol Corridor will offer special train service to and from Levi’s Stadium. Eastbound train 550 will depart Great America Station at 11:59pm. For more information, please visit  https://www.capitolcorridor.org/blogs/get_on_board/take-the-capitol-corridor-to-see-taylor-swift-beyonce-and-ed-sheeran-at-levis-stadium-2023/

RIDESHARE The rideshare drop-off location at Levi’s® Stadium for this event will be on Great America Parkway curbside, between Tasman Drive and Old Glory Lane. The pick-up zone is located in Red Lot 7. Follow signage and staff instructions for additional directions.

Valley Transportation Authority (VTA)

VTA will operate increased train service pre-game from Mountain View station (Caltrain transfer) and Milpitas station (BART transfer) two hours prior to game start. Post-game service will run for approximately 60 minutes from the official end of game. For more information, please visit www.vta.org , or call 408-321-2300.

Capitol Corridor

Capitol Corridor will operate regular weekend schedule southbound to Santa Clara. For more information, please visit www.capitolcorridor.org .

Caltrain provides services from San Francisco to South San Jose with stops all along the peninsula. On Sunday, fans heading to the game can get off at the Mountain View station and transfer to VTA light rail service to Levi’s Stadium. Post-game, Caltrain will operate regular weekend schedule and northbound trains will depart Mountain View at 4:34 pm, 5:34 pm and 6:34 pm.

For more information, please visit the game service page at  www.caltrain.com .

BART will operate regular weekend schedule. For more information, please visit www.bart.gov .

All accessible parking will be directed to Green Lot 1. Guests who possess a valid placard will be directed to park and must display their placard at the entrance to be admitted.

All accessible parking will be directed to Red Lot 1. Guests with valid placards will be directed to park in this lot and must display their placards at the entrance to be admitted.

Levi’s® Stadium takes pride in providing elite service to all guests, including those requiring mobility assistance. We provide a variety of services for our guests with special needs. These services include courtesy shuttle buses from selected parking lots, golf cart shuttles in the Main lot, and Guest Services representatives to provide wheelchair service if requested. Guests who require additional assistance are encouraged to contact our mobility assistance team at 408-579-4610 or email [email protected] .

Suite rentals are available for this concert. Click here to learn more about the suite life at Levi’s® Stadium or sign up below to find out more.

Beyoncé's Renaissance World Tour stops in LA. What to know about the SoFi Stadium shows

The beyhive will get in formation and shimmer in silver over labor day weekend for three shows at sofi stadium., by jonathan lloyd • published september 1, 2023 • updated on september 1, 2023 at 4:48 pm.

Beyoncé's much-anticipated Renaissance Tour stops in Inglewood Friday for the first of three shows at SoFi Stadium.

The LA shows kick off Queen Bey's birthday month -- more on that below -- and follow stops in Las Vegas and San Francisco. The world tour visits Vancouver, Seattle, Dallas, Houston and New Orleans before wrapping Oct. 1 in Kansas City.

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When are Beyoncé's concerts at SoFi Stadium?

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The concerts, part of Beyoncé's first solo tour in more than six years, are Friday, Saturday and Monday with a break Sunday for her 42nd birthday.

Shows begin at 8 p.m. each day.

Additional “no stage view - listening seat” tickets have been released for Beyoncé’s sold out show tonight in LA. #InDemand #RENAISSANCEWorldTour 🎟️ - https://t.co/Iw9YKSr0Pd pic.twitter.com/eFELGtxdZF — RENAISSANCE WORLD TOUR (@RenaissanceWT) September 1, 2023

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Silver dress code.

A concert dress code? 'Code' is a little strong, but Beyoncé has requested that fans wear their 'most fabulous silver fashions' to her September shows in recognition of her birthday month.

"We'll surround ourselves in a shimmering human disco ball each night," she posted on her website . "Everybody mirroring each other's joy. Virgo season together in the House of Chrome."

Everybody on Mute Challenge

Remember, when Beyoncé performs 'Energy,' it's time to hush after she sings, 'Look around, everybody on mute.'

Beyoncé via https://t.co/tEWPvbkEQW “Washington D.C. - EERBODY ON MUTE WAR WINNER” #RENAISSANCEWorldTour pic.twitter.com/VLQdckUFcy — RENAISSANCE WORLD TOUR (@RenaissanceWT) August 7, 2023

Getting to SoFi Stadium

Plan your trip to SoFi and leave early.

If you're planning to drive, check here for parking at the stadium. Off-site parking is also available nearby. For more details about parking in the city of Inglewood click  here , and for info regarding parking at the Kia Forum click  here .

Parking zones typically open between two to four hours prior to events. Check your event parking pass for the event-specific parking hours.

If you're looking to avoid traffic entirely, public transportation is also an option. Visit  LA Metro  to for bus and train schedules. Metro also directed fans to Rally chartered buses .

Tickets, bags and other rules

Keep your tickets in your mobile wallet . Only mobile tickets from the Ticketmaster app will be accepted, screenshots and PDF's won't be valid.

SoFi will not permit fans without tickets to gather outside the stadium.

Bags must be clear and cannot be bigger than 12x6x12 inches.

If you're planning on bringing a sign, it'll need to be no larger than 3-by-5 feet .

No professional cameras or cameras with extendable or attachable lenses. No professional audio or video gear. No banners or poles.

Click here for a complete list of prohibited items and an A-to-Z stadium guide.

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Beyoncé Returns to the Global Stage for Renaissance World Tour

Following the wildly successful release of BEYONCÉ’s seventh studio album,  RENAISSANCE , the global superstar has announced  RENAISSANCE WORLD TOUR  today, her first solo tour in over six years. 

The 2023 tour, produced by Parkwood Entertainment, and promoted by Live Nation, kicks off on May 10, 2023, at Friends Arena in Stockholm, SE, making stops throughout Europe. The tour then continues across North America with shows at  SoFi Stadium  on  September 1 ,  2  and  4 , 2023.

As with previous tours, Beyoncé will make her mark offstage, too, with BeyGOOD, the initiative she founded in 2013 to support people and programs around the world.  BeyGOOD will continue its legacy of philanthropy, building out this focus on economic equity by supporting organizations that serve marginalized and underserved communities with access to scholarships, opportunities for internships that lead to job placement, and resources to support entrepreneurship.

In various cities throughout the tour, BeyGOOD will support entrepreneurs through Black Parade Route luncheons, celebrating small business owners, with grant opportunities being awarded and a foray of services with global partners to promote business sustainability. One thousand small businesses will be supported with a commitment totaling one million dollars.

BeyGOOD will also support students through scholarship funds that will be given to colleges and universities in ten different cities along the tour. Each school will be given one hundred thousand dollars and will select the student recipients. BeyGOOD’s total scholarship commitment during RENAISSANCE WORLD TOUR will be one million dollars.

Working with Beyoncé and the BeyGOOD Foundation, Citi and Verizon will purchase 100 tickets combined in each market across the U.S. touring leg for distribution to local community initiatives.A noted partner with Beyoncé, Tiffany & Co. is the official jeweler of  RENAISSANCE WORLD TOUR.  Tiffany & Co. has a longstanding commitment to conducting itself responsibly, sustaining the natural environment, prioritizing diversity and inclusion, and positively impacting the communities in which it operates.

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Beyoncé Dazzles With a Sparkling Homage to Black Queer Culture at Levi's Stadium

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At her first world tour in 2007, a 26 year-old Beyoncé Knowles asked the audience, “Are you ready to be entertained?”

A decade and a half later, at the first California stop of her blockbuster Renaissance World Tour last night, Mrs. Knowles-Carter came ready not just to entertain but to claim her throne. In a two-and-a-half-hour tsunami of songs, Beyoncé commanded the sold-out audience of 50,000 at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, leaning heavily into the Black queer music and culture from the metallic world of her latest album, Renaissance .

Rising up out of the floor in a black Marc Jacobs miniskirt and platform boots, Beyoncé greeted a screaming stadium of silver-clad fans with five simple words: “Bay Area… I love you.”

Across an opening six-song block of mostly ballads, Queen Bey delivered a reminder that her vocals are still the foundation of her artistry, perching on a silver grand piano to serve an intimate “1+1.”

Beyoncé then plugged into the computerized world of Renaissance proper. Stepping out in a chrome bodysuit, the pop icon launched into “I’m That Girl,” “Cozy,” and “Alien Superstar,” the hyper-confident first tracks of her seventh studio album. She led her troupe of dancers and live band with the precision of a champion at the top of her game.

Dazzling projections on screen played with the concept of Beyoncé as a cyborg during the first hour, a tongue-in-cheek response to the criticisms that have followed the singer throughout her entire career: that she’s not “human” enough in her pursuit of perfection. As she deadpanned and pop-locked to the “Alien Superstar” lyrics, “I’m one of one / I’m number one / I’m the only one,” she challenged us to reconsider our expectations.

Throughout the show, Beyoncé paid homage to Black queer music and culture that inspired her Renaissance era: the voice of ballroom icon Kevin JZ Prodigy was ever-present, and dancers vogued during the mini ball that unfolded for “Pure/Honey.” The tour marked another acknowledgement of the Ballroom community in mainstream American culture, following the success of shows like FX’s Pose and HBO’s Legendary .

Beyoncé sprinkled musical nods to this community throughout the night like little love letters. To many, the flairs of First Choice’s “ Let No Man Put Asunder ,” or the strains of Diana Ross’ “ Love Hangover ” (expertly delivered in four-part harmony by background vocalists Tiffany Ryan, Karyn Porter, Natalie Imani and Tayler Green), might have just seemed like mere interludes. But to those in the ballroom scene, these tracks feel just as warm and familiar as “Crazy in Love” or “Get Me Bodied.”

Despite the stadium’s size, Beyoncé cultivated genuine moments of connection with the crowd: She invited attendees to sing the key changes in “Love On Top” a capella, and reveled in the sounds of paper and plastic shifting when the audience pulled out their fans for “Heated.” If she would have asked us to pick Levi’s Stadium up and move it six feet to the left, we would have found a way.

Such is the reward for an artist who has spent the past 25 years cultivating a fanbase that transcends the hard lines that the United States draws across race, class, gender and age. There was satisfaction in looking at a stranger and silently agreeing to take “Love on Top” up another half step, or noticing someone else also doing the iconic shoulder shuffle to “Diva.”

One of the night’s most electric moments came when Beyoncé introduced her 11-year-old daughter Blue Ivy Carter. Donning an orange and blue jersey with the Roman numerals “IV,” the protégé performed “My Power” and “Black Parade” alongside her mother under a Super Blue Moon, a rare celestial occurrence that won’t cross the sky again for another 14 years. Considering the rare skill required to lead an entire ensemble of trained dancers on a world tour before turning 12, it seemed fitting that Beyoncé would tell us to “give it up for Blue Ivy, a.k.a. Blue Moon.”

From 16-year-olds experiencing their Beyoncé baptism to sisters who traveled from across the country, the Beyhive made the concert into a full experience — celebrating the opulent and the divine diva that lives in us all, and supporting those whose identities put us at risk for violence. These are not far from the tenets of ballroom culture, and it’s what makes the Renaissance World Tour an occasion far beyond a concert.

It was a defiant, joyful release of personal and collective trauma, giving us all the chance to feel like a chromed-out Cinderella for the night. At the end of the show, soaring above the crowd on silver chrome disco horse that fans have jokingly named “Reneigh,” Mrs. Knowles-Carter said that she’ll “never forget tonight.”

Rest assured her Bay Area audience won’t either.

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Beyonce's Renaissance World Tour: See all the epic photos and fashions

Beyoncé is currently making her way through the North American leg of her Renaissance World Tour and captivating concertgoers with her dazzling performances and fashion moments.

The Grammy-winning singer most recently performed at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, Tuesday night and will perform next at FedExField in Summerfield, Maryland, Aug. 5-6.

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MORE: Beyonce's daughter Blue Ivy appears onstage during Paris show

Here are some of Beyoncé's most stunning looks from her shows so far:

Beyoncé first kicked off her world tour in Europe in May, wowing audiences with her vocals, theatrics and style choices in major cities including, Paris, London and Barcelona.

One standout look came during her first show in London, when she stepped out onstage in a red bespoke Off-White bodysuit, which was covered in 40,000 red hotfix crystals , according to the label.

She also wore a custom bee-inspired look from Mugler.

The singer's 11-year-old daughter Blue Ivy Carter has also appeared on the Renaissance World Tour stage. Blue Ivy made her tour debut during her mom's show in Paris . She also took the stage during Beyoncé's concert tour stop in East Rutherford, New Jersey, at MetLife Stadium.

See more of Beyoncé's showstopping looks below:

MORE: Beyonce announces 'Renaissance' world tour for 2023

Read on for everything you need to know about Beyoncé's world tour.

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When did beyoncé announce the world tour.

Seven months after the release of her seventh studio album, "Renaissance," the "Cuff It" singer took to Instagram to announce her Renaissance World Tour .

The tour is her first solo tour in more than six years.

When did the Renaissance tour start?

The Renaissance World Tour kicked off Wednesday, May 10, at the Friends Arena in Stockholm, Sweden.

According to the Friends Arena website , the show was slated to run for three hours.

MORE: Beyonce teases new release 'Break My Soul,' dropping at midnight

MORE: Beyonce officially drops 'Renaissance' album, thanks fans for 'unwavering support'

When does the tour run until?

In addition to Stockholm, Paris, London and Barcelona, the European leg of her tour made stops in Belgium, the United Kingdom, and Denmark. Beyoncé's final European show was in Warsaw, Poland, on June 28.

The North American leg of the world kicked off in Toronto at Rogers Centre on July 8. Following her show at FedExField -- which is located just outside Washington, D.C. -- the singer will head to Charlotte, North Carolina; Atlanta; and Tampa, Florida.

Beyoncé's final scheduled performance of the tour will be held Oct. 1 at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri.

When was the last time Beyoncé toured?

Beyoncé's last solo tour was the Formation World Tour in 2016, which followed the release of her sixth studio album, "Lemonade."

In 2018, she toured with her husband Jay-Z, for the On The Run Tour.

What is the Renaissance World Tour setlist?

During her tour, Beyoncé has performed songs off her latest album, including "Cuff It," "Heated" and "Virgo's Groove."

At her first tour stop in Stockholm on May 10, she sang a number of fan favorites, including "1+1," "Run the World (Girls)," "Get Me Bodied," and "America Has a Problem," among others.

Beyoncé's "Renaissance" album was released on July 29, 2022, after it was leaked two days prior. The album is the first part of a three-act project and features a total of 16 tracks with collaborations from artists such as Drake, Tems and Pharrell Williams.

In an Instagram post, the singer said that "Renaissance" was recorded over three years during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Creating this album allowed me a place to dream and to find escape during a scary time for the world," she said. "It allowed me to feel free and adventurous in a time when little else was moving. My intention was to create a safe place, a place without judgment. ... It was a beautiful journey of exploration."

How to get Beyonce 2023 tour tickets

While tickets to see the singer on tour sold out quickly in many cities around the world when sales began in February, fans can still purchase tickets on Ticketmaster.

This article was originally published on May 10, 2023.

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Beyoncé Announces Renaissance World Tour

The star’s first solo tour since 2016 will start May 10 in Stockholm.

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By Joe Coscarelli

For the first time since 2016 — a world before Beychella , Covid-19 and “Renaissance” — Beyoncé will headline a solo tour, the singer announced in a social media post on Wednesday.

Beginning on May 10 in Stockholm, and continuing in Europe through June before coming to North America, the Renaissance World Tour, in support of her seventh solo album, will run for at least 40 dates, largely in stadiums, according to dates posted to Beyoncé’s website . The tour includes one night at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey (July 29) and one at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif. (Sept. 2) amid stops in Chicago, Philadelphia, Toronto, Atlanta, Phoenix and Miami.

Limited tickets for certain tour dates will go on sale beginning Monday for members of Beyoncé’s BeyHive fan club, followed by the staggered release of additional tickets by market, using a complex registration system for various tiers of buyer.

The tour, produced by Beyoncé’s Parkwood Entertainment and promoted by Live Nation, will use Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan system , which aims to limit bots and professional scalpers, marking one of the first major tests for Ticketmaster since extraordinary demand for early tickets to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour last year led to fan backlash and regulatory scrutiny . At a Senate Judiciary hearing last month spurred by the botched presale, artists, fans and politicians cast Live Nation Entertainment, the concert industry giant that owns Ticketmaster, as a monopoly that hinders competition and harms consumers.

Beyoncé’s shows will be the singer’s first live events available to the public since the On the Run II tour with her husband, Jay-Z, in 2018, tied to the surprise release of a joint album, “Everything Is Love,” by the duo billed as the Carters. Beyoncé last toured alone behind her previous solo album, “Lemonade,” in 2016. Two years later, she headlined the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.

That show — which went on to be released as “Homecoming” (2019), a live album and concert film — was called “rich with history, potently political and visually grand” in a review by the New York Times critic Jon Caramanica. “By turns uproarious, rowdy, and lush. A gobsmacking marvel of choreography and musical direction.”

In the years since, Beyoncé has surfaced intermittently, including with songs like “Black Parade,” which won a Grammy Award for best R&B performance, and “Be Alive,” which appeared in the movie “King Richard” and was nominated for an Oscar. Last year, in a taped performance, Beyoncé performed the song at the 94th annual Academy Awards.

But the singer made a return to the pop mainstream in earnest with the July 2022 release of “Renaissance,” a dance-floor-oriented album that she said was inspired by the L.G.B.T.Q. community and has spawned hits like “Break My Soul” and “Cuff It.” At the Grammy Awards on Sunday, Beyoncé is nominated nine times , with a chance to become the most-awarded artist in history.

Upon its release, the singer called “Renaissance” part of a “three act project” that she recorded during the pandemic. “My intention was to create a safe place, a place without judgment,” she wrote of the album, which was billed as Act I. “A place to be free of perfectionism and overthinking. A place to scream, release, feel freedom.”

Major music touring has largely recovered, especially at its highest levels, since the Covid-19 pandemic. According to the industry trade publication Pollstar , touring grossed a record-setting $6.28 billion last year, up more than 13 percent from 2019, due in part to pent-up fan demand, inflation and major acts like Bad Bunny, Elton John and Harry Styles.

In addition to Beyoncé’s shows, this year will see blockbuster tours from artists including Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, Metallica, Morgan Wallen and Madonna.

Last month, Beyoncé proved more polarizing than usual when she headlined the grand opening of a luxury hotel in Dubai, performing for an invite-only collection of guests, including influencers and journalists.

While some fans decried the optics of taking a major payday in a place that criminalizes homosexuality — “Beyoncé’s Dubai performance isn’t just an affront to LGBTQ+ fans, but workers’ rights in the UAE,” The Guardian declared — others noted that the singer’s set list did not yet include songs from “Renaissance.”

An earlier version of this article misstated the year Beyoncé headlined Coachella. It was 2018, not 2016.

How we handle corrections

Joe Coscarelli is a culture reporter with a focus on pop music. His work seeks to pull back the curtain on how hit songs and emerging artists are discovered, made and marketed. He previously worked at New York magazine and The Village Voice. More about Joe Coscarelli

Beyoncé lays claim to the throne at SoFi Stadium

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The Renaissance has reached Los Angeles.

Four months after it launched in Europe and immediately took over social media, Beyoncé’s blockbuster Renaissance world tour begins a sold-out, three-night stand at Inglewood’s SoFi Stadium on Friday. The pop superstar’s first solo outing since the Formation tour in 2016, Beyoncé’s latest live spectacle comes behind last year’s “ Renaissance ” album, her loving and meticulous ode to the Black and queer pioneers of half a century’s worth of dance music.

Reports from the road promise a high-tech, costume-heavy 2½-hour show in which the singer — after warming up with a series of R&B ballads — performs the songs from “Renaissance” in order with older tunes and covers interspersed among them. Close followers of the tour on TikTok also know to look out for onstage appearances by Beyoncé’s 11-year-old daughter, Blue Ivy, and for the so-called mute challenge , in which the crowd is supposed to go silent at a particular point in the song “Energy.” (Another recurring feature: Beyoncé’s husband, Jay-Z, who’s been spotted in the audience at more than a few gigs alongside the likes of Paul McCartney, Frank Ocean, Lizzo, Ariana Grande, Selena Gomez, Dua Lipa and Megan Thee Stallion.)

The ultimate guide to everything Beyoncé

Do you confuse Honey Balenciaga with Honey Djion? Carlos Basquiat with Jean-Michel Basquiat? Let The Times help, with this handy glossary for all things Queen B.

Aug. 28, 2023

The SoFi dates, which come as the tour enters its final weeks — and as its gross proceeds approach a half-billion dollars, according to Billboard — could prove especially splashy: Ahead of her 42nd birthday on Monday, Beyoncé has asked concertgoers to wear their “most fabulous silver fashions” to celebrate “Virgo season together in the house of chrome.”

The Times’ Mikael Wood and August Brown are at SoFi for opening night and will provide live updates from the show as it happens.

Entertainment & Arts

What to know about SoFi Stadium before Beyoncé’s Renaissance concert

Ahead of Beyoncé’s tour dates at SoFi Stadium, here are some things you should know, including the bag and outside food policies, what SoFi Stadium is like and what to eat once you’re there.

Aug. 29, 2023

7:15 p.m. Greetings from the (very) early shift at SoFi, where CeCe Peniston is pumping on the sound system and everyone seems to have obeyed Bey’s command to wear silver in honor of her triumphant Virgo season. I heard war stories of hours-long traffic jams for Taylor Swift’s Eras shows, so I took Metro to the stadium, which was relatively smooth sailing on the 212 bus. So far, the mood is pretty composed, but once all those fans’ tequila shots from the street vendors kick in (will we get “Drunk in Love” on this stop?), it’ll ramp up in short order. — August Brown

7:55 p.m. There’s no formal opener on the Renaissance tour, but there is a warm-up act for the Club Renaissance portion of the show: DJ Khaled, who made an extremely loud entrance with “All I Do Is Win.” Nice to see a guy so used to yelling his own name take a more humble billing. — A.B.

8:02 p.m. Can confirm the parking for Renaissance is just as nightmarish as the parking for Eras was! But traffic is far too boring a subject to dwell on as I walk into SoFi amid the beautifully silver-bedecked masses. Between recent gigs by Taylor, Morgan Wallen and Metallica, I feel like I’ve spent as much time in this building this summer as I have anywhere else in L.A. But no other fans can come close to matching the outfits on display tonight. — Mikael Wood

8:14 p.m. DJ Khaled brought a friend with him: 2 Chainz, who just popped out to do his songs “Watch Out” and “I’m Different” and to tell anyone with a birthday that we are most definitely celebrating tonight. Wonder if this cameo portends a special guest or two during Beyoncé’s set… — M.W.

8:22 p.m. As Khaled would say, ANOTHER ONE: Now Wiz Khalifa’s here, zipping through “Young, Wild & Free” and “See You Again.” (Alas, no Charlie Puth.) — M.W.

8:28 p.m. We’re still in the pregame portion, but now it’s local hero Roddy Ricch doing “The Box.” If you’re a rapper with a night off in L.A. and you’re not up here, it might be personal. — A.B.

8:30 p.m. Best silver outfits glimpsed so far: a guy in a glittery mariachi suit, a lady dressed as an alien superstar and a dude in full chain mail. — M.W.

8:36 p.m. When was the last time you listened to “Bad and Boujee”? If you’re at the Beyoncé show, you’re hearing it now: Offset just dropped in to rap the 2016 Migos hit with DJ Khaled. What a song. — M.W.

8:41 p.m. Lil Wayne just rolled up in a bucket hat and giant shorts like a true Zoomer. He was having some mic trouble and didn’t quite get off a full verse before departing. Still, it’s a great Bey bait and switch — why have one opener when you can have everyone open? — A.B.

8:42 p.m. This cavalcade of stars feels almost vulgar in its over-the-topness. Makes you proud to be an Angeleno. — M.W.

8:44 p.m. They’re tearing down Khaled’s rig. Countdown to Renaissance begins now. — A.B.

8:53 p.m. The lights have dimmed and we are approaching Bey o’clock. — M.W.

9:00 p.m. And ... it’s Beyoncé, in ballad mode out of the gate. She’s starting with “Dangerously in Love 2” with an all-silver backing band on a tall riser. No insane outfits, no fireworks, just a statement of intent that this is going to be a long ride, so get cozy. — A.B.

9:01 p.m. Man, can Beyoncé sing. I love the flex of opening the show with a vocal showcase like this. It’s like she’s saying: Yes, we’re gonna have a great time tonight, but first let me remind you of what I learned to do before you had any idea who I was. — M.W.

9:03 p.m. “Flaws and All” is next up. “I’m a train wreck in the morning,” she sings, absolutely perfectly, obviously. We knew this going in, but I love that this show starts on a very slow simmer before the rave. — A.B.

9:04 p.m. Two songs in and this band is cooking. — M.W.

9:07 p.m. Shout-out to Bey’s very pregnant trumpet player in a cropped top! — A.B.

9:10 p.m. Beyoncé has taken her seat atop a grand piano and is singing the ever-loving stuffing out of “1+1.” The riffs. The runs. The mic control! Truly a master. — M.W.

9:17 p.m. It’s easy to admire Beyoncé’s pace-setting fashion in a magazine shoot or music video, but wow, Shiona Turini and crew really saw this through down to the last stitch. We’ve barely even started, but it’s a whole new tier of care into these chrome and gold get-ups. — A.B.

9:19 p.m. Bey dedicates a slow roll through “River Deep, Mountain High” to the late Tina Turner, whom she calls “one of my biggest inspirations.” — M.W.

9:22 p.m. The ballads are finished; the club awaits. — M.W.

9:28 p.m. There’s a big camera rig on wires circling the stage and crowd; looks like the rumors of a concert doc being filmed may have some legs. — A.B.

9:30 p.m. The “Renaissance” portion of the evening opens with the album’s opener, “I’m That Girl,” and the way Beyoncé is toying with the song’s rhythms — stretching, shortening — let’s you know we’re in for a workout. — M.W.

9:31 p.m. Bey is in a resplendent Philosophy di Lorenzo Serafini pink coat that could protect one from the most fabulous winter storm. — A.B.

9:33 p.m. “Cozy” — what a wonderfully insane word to build a song around. — M.W.

9:35 p.m. Different kind of physical performance from Bey on this tour. She’s a magnificent dancer, one of the best in music, but she’s also not afraid to pout and roll around on a pile of mattresses and let her crew contort. She’s having a blast. — A.B.

9:36 p.m. Something the endless TikToks from the Renaissance tour don’t prepare you for is how delightfully campy the I-woke-up-like-this sequence from “Alien Superstar” is. A+ comedy. — M.W.

9:37 p.m. “Alien Superstar”: It’s the “Sailor Moon” meme IRL! — A.B.

9:42 p.m. Here come Les Twins, the dancing French brothers who lend an uncanny, ultra-athletic sidecar to Bey’s main course. — A.B.

9:54 p.m. Now we’re into “Cuff It” with the full band, and it’s all slap bass and hot-pink corsets and exuberant ‘70s vibes. She’s brought out a killer horn section, wearing P-Funk space suits. — A.B.

9:55 p.m. Very moved by the deep musician-liness of this show. “I’m a seasoned professional,” she sings in “Cuff It,” and how many pop superstars are out here emphasizing their onstage experience? — M.W.

9:56 p.m. She just hit the big “Everybody on Mute” moment of “Energy,” and you better believe no one dared move or made a sound. Pretty cool to hear absolute silence in a packed stadium. — A.B.

9:58 p.m. Seems too depressing to get into right now, but we should probably think about how “Break My Soul” — with its screw-the-paymasters message — softened the ground for “Rich Men North of Richmond.” :( — M.W.

10:07 p.m. Sorry, Bob Dylan: Let’s take a minute here to commend what has to be history’s largest gaucho hat on Beyoncé’s head as she starts “Formation.” — M.W.

10:08 p.m. Hope everyone took notes during the roll call of “Break My Soul,” as Lizzo returned to tonight’s lineup. Wonder what Zoomers will make of “Mississippi Goddam” and “Pull Up to the Bumper” after they get home tonight and do some Googling. — A.B.

10:11 p.m. Blue Ivy Carter’s entrance during “Run the World (Girls)” gets a deafening cheer from the crowd. — M.W.

10:16 p.m. As a parent of children older than 11-year-old Blue Ivy, can very much relate to the moment Beyoncé is taking here to soak in the adulation for her daughter. What a wild summer internship. — M.W.

10:18 p.m. Pretty wild that rapping is, like, the fifth-best thing Beyoncé does when she’s onstage, but here comes “Savage” and she’s spitting absolute flames. — A.B.

10:19 p.m. We forgot to mention that Bey is doing all this on … a tank? — M.W.

10:26 p.m. After a costume change, we are back with “Church Girl.” Says Beyoncé, “If this is your song, I wanna give you permission to go crazy.” — M.W.

10:31 p.m. Has anyone ever sung a Frankie Beverly and Maze song at SoFi Stadium before? Beyoncé, and tens of thousands of fans, are doing it now on her cover of “Before I Let Go.” — M.W.

10:35 p.m. Bey’s singing “Rather Die Young” from “4” dressed like she’s about to hit the pool in Palm Springs. Love to hear a ballad about not making it to old age without your man, now sung on the other side of 40 surrounded by your family onstage. — A.B.

10:40 p.m. The crowd taking over “Love on Top” from Beyoncé as the song goes through its increasingly delirious key changes? Top 10 concert experience. — M.W.

10:51 p.m. What could be a more sumptuous setting for “Plastic Off the Sofa” than the inside of a three-story opalescent clamshell? Bey took it from there right into “Virgo’s Groove,” one of the spiritual centerpieces of the tour and the reason for all the silver in the crowd. — A.B.

10:55 p.m. Shout out to Syd of the Internet, the talented L.A. native who co-wrote and co-produced “Plastic Off the Sofa,” and who’s been making beautiful and wily soul music on a smaller scale in this town for close to a decade. — M.W.

10:58 p.m. Before “Heated,” Beyoncé asks how many concertgoers brought fans to the show — then advises folks to use them. — M.W.

11:07 p.m. She’s back from a break with “Thique” and has made the dancers essentially run a live barre class across a horizontal railing. From my very limited experience in such a setting, that’s a brutal turn this late in the set, but they’re handling it with aplomb. — A.B.

11:14 p.m . “I’m gonna need y’all’s help with this one,” Beyoncé says, and that’s the cue for “Drunk in Love,” a rarity on the Renaissance tour that’s throbbing throughout SoFi right now, as the singer ascends on a platform surrounded by sparks. — M.W.

11:22 p.m. If “America Has a Problem,” Beyoncé is here to tell you about it behind the prop desk at her KNTY4 NEWS stage rig, dressed in a menacing-looking Mugler bee helmet. — A.B.

11:28 p.m. As the show approaches its finale, Beyoncé dedicates “Pure/Honey” — with a bit of “Blow” — to “the legendary Beyhive.” — M.W.

11:32 p.m. Totally virtuosic ballroom circle happening with all the backup dancers during “Pure/Honey,” replete with death drops and some of the sauciest vogueing of the whole night. — A.B.

11:36 p.m. And now we have Beyoncé asking us to take a screenshot as she emerges astride an enormous, beglittered, Bianca-Jagger-at-Studio-54-style horse to sing “Summer Renaissance.” What a show. What a night. — M.W.

11:38 p.m. We’ve known this since Coachella 2018, but she is simply the best live performer working today. — A.B.

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Jennifer Lopez Canceled the U.S. Leg of Her 2024 Tour and Fans Are Disappointed

I n an era when some stadium tours are more profitable than ever, other artists have had to cancel their tours for one reason or another. The Black Keys canceled their tour basically due to lack of interest, and now, Jennifer Lopez 's 2024 tour has met a similar fate.

JLo announced the news that her 2024 This Is Me...Live Tour would be canceling all of its U.S. dates planned for the summer of 2024. The announcement came on May 31 and led many to wonder why the tour had been canceled. Here's what we know about why she made the decision.

Why did JLo cancel her 2024 tour?

LiveNation made the announcement that her tour was canceled, and said that JLo was "taking time off to be with her children, family and close friends."

JLo addressed the news separately through her newsletter, writing about how disappointed she was to have to change things up on her fans.

"I am completely heartsick and devastated about letting you down," she wrote. Tickets for the shows will be automatically refunded.

The tour was meant to come following her album This Is Me... Now , the singer's first new album in five years. The tour was set to kick off in Orlando on June 26 and conclude two months later in Houston.

"I wouldn't do this if I didn't feel that it was absolutely necessary," she wrote in her newsletter. "I promise I will make it up to you and we will all be together again. I love you all so much. Until next time."

Although JLo spent plenty of time apologizing, we still don't have a concrete explanation for her decision to cancel her tour. The news comes amid rampant speculation about the state of her marriage to Ben Affleck , though. Rumors suggest that the marriage may be headed toward its end, although neither Ben nor JLo has confirmed that news. The two have been married since 2022.

While doing interviews to promote a recent Netflix film, JLo was asked about the state of her marriage. When she was asked if the rumors of a divorce were real, JLo said “You know better than that.”

It's possible that JLo canceled the tour in an attempt to salvage her marriage, although there's another possibility that seems even more directly connected to the tour. Namely, that it simply wasn't selling tickets.

The news that JLo decided to cancel her tour could have been for the simple reason that the tour wasn't selling out venues the way that her team may have hoped. Taylor Swift and Beyonce can sell out the biggest venues in the country, but not every other artist can claim that same level of widespread popularity.

Whatever the reason, JLo's decision to cancel her tour may never become publicly available information. All we know for sure is that she won't be on the road this summer, and that she claims she'll be spending that time with her family instead.

Jennifer Lopez’s Canceled Tour, and Society’s Twisted Pleasure in Seeing Strong Women Fail

By Jem Aswad

Executive Editor, Music

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For a variety of reasons, one of the biggest stories in entertainment this year has been the precarious state of Jennifer Lopez ’s “This Is Me… Now” tour, which was finally put out of its misery yesterday.

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Just a few days earlier, another major act canceled their own overly ambitious North American tour that was scheduled to hit many of the same arenas that J-Lo’s was — the male rock duo the Black Keys. After that news broke, people asked what that said about the state of the touring business.

But when J. Lo canceled her tour just days later, people asked what it says about her.

As a society, why do we do that?

Broadly speaking, the reasons for both cancellations are the same: An artist past their commercial prime makes an overly optimistic projection about the response to their new project, gets it wrong, and pays the price — as do their partners in the enterprise, from promoters and venues down to dancers and truck drivers, because it takes a village to put on a tour of that size, and literally hundreds of people’s livelihoods are affected by those cancelations (which is something conveniently forgotten in the thinly veiled glee much of the public seems to take in such missteps).

Granted, the pop audience that J-Lo is targeting is very different from the more-loyal, less-fickle rock fans the Black Keys were aiming at. The pop world that J-Lo inhabits has the attention span of a smart fish and is infamously unforgiving of perceived transgressions, which can span from intentional factors — like a romantic partner who fans decide they don’t like — to unintended ones like, say, a multifaceted, self-absorbed autobiographical project by someone who famously is not the world’s kindest or most gracious superstar. For all her Bronx toughness and swagger, J-Lo has always been a pop artist and she knows that game and everything that comes with it.

But fame and power put people at a remove from reality, and it’s ultimately irrelevant whether everyone in her orbit also thought all this project and tour were a great idea, or whether no one dared to say, “Hey, after the disastrous failure of ‘Gigli’” — the dreadful 2003 Affleck-Lopez film that not only destroyed the pair as a commercial property, but also helped tank the first era of their relationship — “maybe reviving Bennifer as a commercial enterprise isn’t a great idea?” The end result was the same: a canceled tour and a stiff album. Artists make similar miscalculations every year.

Yet the online venom and hateration that has surrounded the failure of this enterprise has been epic in scale. The term schadenfreude — a combination of the German nouns Schaden, meaning “damage” or “harm,” and Freude, meaning “joy,” per Merriam-Webster — means taking pleasure, often illogical pleasure, in others’ misfortune. And while men certainly are the victims of it — does anyone remember Martin Shkreli and his unusually punchable face ? — society certainly seems to reserve the worst of its venom for powerful, successful, talented women.

It’s a matter of public record that women’s rights are under ferocious attack, from Iran, Afghanistan and Russia to the United States and our arguably corrupt Supreme Court, multiple state governments and even Benedictine College’s commencement . But the hate isn’t coming exclusively from men. At a certain point, we decide we don’t like a public figure anymore without really knowing — or at least without consciously thinking about — why.

Except subconsciously, it’s probably not that deep. Sometimes we just don’t like or get tired of someone’s face (cf. Shkreli, who never had a chance), sometimes we resent their success, sometimes we also resent their happiness, or at least their seeming flaunting of it. In the wider public eye, J-Lo seems to have run afoul of the latter two, and the rumors that she and Affleck may be separating after less than two years of marriage seem an almost inevitable final act before a (probably equally inevitable) redemption chapter, after everyone finally realizes how unfair they were (cf. Britney Spears).

This is a road that Beyonce also went down at the peak of her career. She (apparently) shared the challenges that her own marriage was facing — and intensified her already-deep connection with her audience — in the lyrics of her galvanizing “Lemonade” album and tour… but then made a sort of happy-ending follow-up with her 2018 duet album with husband Jay-Z, “Everything Is Love,” which landed well initially but in retrospect is self-indulgent, treacly and awkwardly self-congratulatory: It’s just hard to have much empathy for two near-billionaires singing about how difficult it was coming through the fire. Their ruling status — and the fact that people are genuinely afraid of their fanbases — enabled them to dodge the storm that usually follows such hubris.

J-Lo, as we’re seeing, hasn’t dodged those bullets. At 54, she’s at a tricky point in a pop star career: Hit singles for artists at that age are as rare as Bigfoot sightings — Cher’s “Believe” and Kylie Minogue’s “Padam Padam,” the two main examples that come to mind, were released more than a quarter-century apart — and only generationally defining stars with enormous catalogs of hits, like Paul McCartney, Elton John, Stevie Wonder and Billy Joel can tour arenas into retirement age. What’s missing from that category? Women. Most of the top-grossing female touring artists — Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Lady Gaga, Pink — are under 45. The only one who isn’t, Madonna, at 65 played to some middling audiences on her just-completed, mostly triumphant “Celebration” tour. She’s weathered all of the above storms — and then some — and come out on top, but it’s taken hurricane-force, once-in-a-generation level of determination (and probably has taken quite a personal toll as well).

Variety pursued the reports of J. Lo’s poor ticket sales aggressively, not for reasons of schadenfreude but because such stories are important in our corner of the media world, and it’s a sad fact of our business that bad news gets a lot more clicks than good news. Her fans swarmed on us, which comes with the turf, but the stories were hugely successful. As it does every time schadenfreude piles up on a female public figure, I was reminded of something: During the heyday of Lena Dunham’s TV series “Girls,” there was a video meme — or whatever passed for a meme in 2012 — of young women making comical, snarky opinions about show, with one of them saying, “I’ve never seen it… but I think I don’t like it.”

It was a joke, but still, that statement seems like a sadly perfect distillation of the amount of thought, let alone logic, that goes into the kind of hateration that J. Lo and so many other female public figures are receiving right now. It’s also not hard to imagine that syndrome playing a major role in many other successful women being brought down a peg after a majority of people decide they just don’t like her, not least the defeat of Hillary Clinton by her unapologetically misogynist opponent in 2016.

J. Lo is a great artist and she will be fine, and she’s clearly tough enough to weather all of this. But why should she have to? There’s obviously more going on here than just a canceled tour, and it does make one wonder whether the guilty pleasure of schadenfreude and our role in furthering it is a problem that goes beyond a few “harmless” clicks.

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• What Is Cinema?

‘Heartsick’ Jennifer Lopez Cancels Ambitious Stadium Tour

By Eve Batey

Jennifer Lopez , the polymath whose acting, directing, and musical aspirations have been on overdrive in 2024, is finally taking a break. After a year that saw the release of her self-financed Amazon movie/visual album This Is Me…Now: A Love Story and its accompanying documentary/document of her marriage to Ben Affleck , The Greatest Love Story Never Told , the star has called off the third part of the “This is Me” plan. In a statement posted to her website Friday, Lopez announced that the multi-city concert tour, which was most recently titled “This Is Me... Live,” has been canceled, and direct ticket purchasers will be fully refunded.

After tapping on an “Important Announcement” link, visitors to onthejlo.com are able to view a message reading “Representatives for Live Nation announced today that the Jennifer Lopez US Summer 2024 Tour ‘THIS IS ME…LIVE’ is canceled, citing … ‘Jennifer is taking time off to be with her children, family and close friends.'" “For those who purchased through Ticketmaster, tickets will automatically be refunded – there is nothing further fans need to do," the announcement continued. "For those who purchased via third-party resale sites such as SeatGeek, StubHub, VividSeats, etc. – please reach out to your point purchase for more details.”

Via a separate button entitled “Special Message,” website visitors were told "I am completely heartsick and devastated about letting you down. Please know that I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t feel that it was absolutely necessary,"

The message, which is presumably written in Lopez's voice, continues: "I promise I will make it up to you and we will all be together again. I love you all so much. Until next time…"

Pundits were quick to link the mention of time with family to ongoing speculation about the state of the Affleck/Lopez union. The couple has only been seen together a few times in recent months, and at a media event to promote Atlas , Lopez's recently released Netflix film, a question about the couple's less-than-two-year-old marriage was met with rebukes.

“Is your divorce with Ben Affleck real?" asked a reporter at a Mexico City event to promote the streaming sci-fi film, which has a brutal 19 percent score on critical site Rotten Tomatoes.

“These rumors?” the reporter continued. “What is the truth?” Before Lopez could respond, co-star Simu Liu jumped into the fray, snapping “Okay, we’re not doing that.”

Lopez followed up with chiding words of her own, saying, “You know better than that," to the thus far unnamed reporter.

Given that and the avalanche of headlines dissecting body language, wedding ring placement, and the couple's individual appearances, many assumed that relationship ills were the cause of the tour cancellation. But it's worth noting that the tour has been struggling for months: in March, back when the concert series was called “This Is Me… Now,” weak ticket sales prompted cancellations of stops in Cleveland, Nashville, Raleigh, Atlanta, Tampa, New Orleans, and Houston, Variety reported at the time .

Significant numbers of tickets to the tour's remaining 30 shows remained unsold as of early April, and later that month, the tour's name was quietly changed to “This Is Me… Live | The Greatest Hits."

According to Variety , “sources close to Lopez insisted that the tour was not being canceled due to poor ticket sales,” but did not specify a different reason, and representatives for Lopez have not responded to Vanity Fair 's request for comment as of publication time. A look at seating charts from a sample of the planned tour dates between June and August showed a notable number of available seats as of Friday, May 31.

Regardless of the reason, the cancellation is a muffled end to what began as a splashy “surrealistic magical odyssey” that cost Lopez at least $20 million to mount. But as VF 's Richard Lawson noted in his review of the film version of This Is Me... Now , if nothing else, the movie underscores that “Lopez’s true calling is as but a humble movie star.” Perhaps the sales for her planned tour convinced the actor/dancer/ entrepreneur of that, too.

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By David Canfield

This Isn’t Shaboozey’s First Rodeo

The musician on manifesting his foray into country and what comes after a very successful co-sign from Beyoncé

“It feels like a switch was flipped,” Shaboozey tells Harper’s Bazaar of his guest spots on “Spaghettii” (joining Black country icon Linda Martell ) and “Sweet Honey Buckiin’.” “As an artist, you get fans, you try to grow your community, but if someone like Beyoncé comes along and shines a light on you, it’s different. It turns into fame . All of a sudden, millions of people were tuning into me and to everyone else highlighted on [ Cowboy Carter ].”

From where he’s sitting—poolside in L.A., a few hours before rehearsal for his next show—it has all been a blur. In a matter of months, Shaboozey has been in rooms with country-music icons, gotten his first gold-record plaque, and heard his songs playing when he’s walked into a bar. Just as he’s trying to distill all these experiences, and make some sense of them on our call, he is momentarily derailed by a new friend walking past in the background.

“Sorry—that’s Yung Gravy saying hi,” he says with a laugh.

On the heels of all this, Shaboozey is preparing for the release of his third album, Where I’ve Been, Isn’t Where I’m Going , out today. Along with solid yeehaw party anthems like “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” and “Drink Don’t Need No Mix” (featuring rapper BigXthaPlug), the singer also delivers a range of raw and wistful tracks, like the scornful “Annabelle.” It’s classic country, with songs about heartbreak and regret, but it’s not cloying or cliché. Shaboozey walks the line, working within the genre while delivering something wholly new.

The idea behind the new album’s title, and how he settled on it, has been lost to the chaos of the last six months. But reflecting on it now, he says it feels almost like a harbinger—something even more true to him in the present than it was when he first chose it.

“It’s almost like the title manifested itself into my life,” he says. “I’ve just been working at this for so long. I’ve been signed to major labels, and there’s been a lot of people waiting for something like this to happen to me. For some of the people on my team, it’s been four years, 10 years—but for me? It’s been all my life.”

To understand Shaboozey’s aims in country music, you first have to know where he comes from. Born to Nigerian parents in Woodbridge, Virginia, about half an hour south of Washington, D.C., Collins Obinna Chibueze was raised on the music of Usher, J.Lo , and Ja Rule, along with the classic country-western that served as the soundtrack to his dad’s household projects—a constant stream of Kenny Rogers playing as his father tinkered around outside.

It was a mostly quiet place to grow up—not exactly rural, but sheltered enough from the bustle of the nearby metro area for life to feel slower. Even there on the border of Maryland, Virginia felt decidedly different. That part of the United States is where the North bleeds into the South, a cultural nexus that has birthed a long line of musical talents, including Pharrell, Timbaland, and Missy Elliott, but also the Carter Family, Patsy Cline, and Emmylou Harris (an alumna of Shaboozey’s high school).

As a teenager, Shaboozey hoped to be a novelist. Back then, music was just a hobby for him, not something he saw as a viable career.

“My parents thought there was no way to make it in that world at all,” he says. But by the time he’d graduated, his early gigs were bringing in a few hundred bucks here and there, and he started to take it more seriously. At the same time, he was supporting himself by shooting music videos and doing photography.

“I was always telling stories, always trying to find ways to create something,” he says. “Maybe that was a short film with my friends, or writing, but I was always drawn to telling stories.”

It’s not hard to find cinematic inspiration in Shaboozey’s work. From the beginning, the artist has been involved in every facet of his music, overseeing the production of his records, writing the treatments, and directing most of his videos. In his lyrics and his visuals, you can find tinges of filmmakers like Sergio Leone, Martin Scorsese, and the Coen brothers—just a few of his idols—auteurs who tell gritty, sweeping stories of betrayal, revenge, and the pitfalls of pride.

The third track on Where I’ve Been , “Last of My Kind,” is a blazing stomp-clap song featuring Texas country singer Paul Cauthen, fit to play in a stadium or on the next season of Yellowstone . And the yearning “East of the Massanutten” feels like it should play over the pivotal scene in an old western, when the hero decides to leave his hometown in search of something bigger.

“It’s all very organic,” Shaboozey says. “I just see things that inspire me, and I don’t think too much about why—I just follow my response. Whether it’s a vintage magazine, a movie, a pair of jeans, or a classic car, I just pay attention to what it makes me feel, and somehow that gets translated into music.”

Even his early songs have a flair for the dramatic. His debut single, “Jeff Gordon,” a sparse trap song with a stealthy piano beat, begins with overlapping audio from a Nascar race. And his 2018 collab with Duckwrth, “Start a Riot,” was on the soundtrack for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse .

By the time the latter song came out, Shaboozey had moved out to L.A. and just released his debut album, Lady Wrangler . It wasn’t yet “country,” but the influences were there, and even now, it still sounds undeniably “Shaboozey”—which is to say it’s a blend of genres: part trap and part pop, with a Southern bent. It was also initially intended to be the first installment of a trilogy, but he ended up scrapping the idea. Shaboozey had spent enough time reflecting on the sounds that inspired him to know he wanted to put his own mark on country music, but, he says, he wasn’t yet certain how he wanted to do it.

“Believe it or not, there was an album before Lady Wrangler that was all country,” he says. “I started it, and then for whatever reason, I felt like the world, or the culture, or even I wasn’t ready for it yet. I wanted to do something first that would ease me in.”

He was introduced to his co-manager Abas Pauti by mutual friends in 2019, when Pauti was new to Los Angeles. A musician himself, Pauti knew Shaboozey was trying to create his own sound, a mix of rap and country, and at first imagined something like Lil Nas X’s then-nascent blockbuster “Old Town Road.” Then Pauti heard an early cut of “Why Can’t Cowboys Cry?” (The track would eventually close out Shaboozey’s second album, 2022’s Cowboys Live Forever, Outlaws Never Die .)

“This was something that no one was doing,” he says. “I felt like he was building something special. It was something fresh and new, and I knew if he leaned into it, he would be a superstar.”

Earlier this month, in an interview with the BBC , Lil Nas X discussed his 2019 hit and the firestorm sparked by its removal from Billboard ’s Hot Country Songs chart. Five years later, Nas says he’s happy for Shaboozey and Beyoncé’s history-making runs on the country charts, but wishes he’d received the same support. “I wasn’t even able to experience this,” he says.

Shaboozey makes it clear that while he can’t speak to the rapper’s experience or interest in country music, he knows the impact “Old Town Road” had on the industry at large.

“At the end of the day, it’s one of the biggest songs of all time,” he says. But when it comes to what he wants to do in the country space? “I want to continue to be in this world, and evolve here,” Shaboozey says. “I want to make music like this for the next couple of projects, and tell stories from this point of view. I’m going to keep picking up a guitar and figuring out how to get better at crafting and telling this story, which is what I’ve been doing for the last 10 years.”

To get to this point, the singer adds, “I had to learn to embrace being different, embrace being my own artist. I just had to start making the music I would want to hear.” A few years ago, he and Pauti came up a tagline for his sound: “music for the modern cowboy.”

It’s the perfect encapsulation of Shaboozey’s ambitions, and the reality of his life, especially now that he’s been introduced to a massive global audience.

“Country music is evolving and becoming more exciting for the artists and the audiences, because they’re changing too,” Pauti says. “Shaboozey and Beyoncé are part of that movement, carving out a lane, while also paying homage to the people who came before. It matters that he’s climbing the charts, not looking like a stereotypical country guy, not making stereotypical country music, and still seeing success, because he’s a gateway for people to get excited about the genre.”

For Shaboozey, the accomplishments he’s racked up are just a manifestation of the space he’s cultivated for himself within the country ecosystem. He’s built long-lasting relationships with friends and collaborators who see the genre as fluidly as he does. “I tend to lean toward outlaw music,” he says. “In Nashville, that’s who me and my friends are: We’re the rebels, the outlaws, the outliers. So seeing my success and the success of my friends, we’re happy to be a part of this more alternative community, because we’ll always support each other.”

With so many eyes on him ahead of this release, he’s not daunted. In fact, Shaboozey says, he’s excited to surprise people with his range. The last few months have changed so much about his life, but they haven’t shaken him enough to make him forget just how long he’s been working toward this moment.

“I’ve been going to all of these places I’ve never been before, and every day that I wake up, it’s something new,” he says. “It feels like I’m finally here. There were a lot of challenges, places that I could’ve stopped or given up, but it was all part of the journey. And now I’m just looking forward.”

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Coldplay praised for “setting a new standard” as they share update on tour emission success

It has so far produced nearly 60 per cent less CO2e emissions than their 2016-17 stadium tour

Coldplay have shared an update about the sustainability initiatives they have implemented on their ongoing tour, and been praised as “setting a new standard” when it comes to an eco-conscious approach to live music.

• READ MORE: Coldplay interviewed: “This is our period of having no fear”

The band – who have always been conscious of the environmental impact of touring – shared an update on the sustainability results they have achieved so far earlier today (June 2).

The ‘ Music Of The Spheres’ tour , which began back in March 2022 and has sold over 9million tickets so far, has been revealed to have already produced 59 per cent less CO2e emissions than their previous stadium tour in 2016 and 2017. This already beats the original target that Chris Martin and co. had set to ensure they beat those of previous tours by 50 per cent.

It has also been revealed that 7million trees have been planted globally thanks to the success of the live shows. This comes as a result of the band promising to have one tree planted for every person who attends the tour.

“When we first announced the ‘Music Of The Spheres Tour’ in 2021, we pledged to reduce our direct carbon emissions (from show production, freight, band and crew travel) by at least 50 per cent,” the band wrote in a new statement. “We’re happy to report that direct CO2e emissions from the first two years of this tour are 59 per cent less than our previous stadium tour (2016-17), on a show-by-show comparison. These figures have been verified by the MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative.

“We’d like to say a huge thank you to our incredible touring family and to all the brilliant people who’ve made this possible. Most of all, we’d like to thank everyone who’s come to a show and helped charge the show batteries on the power bikes and kinetic dance floors; everyone who’s arrived by foot, bike, ride share or public transport; everyone who’s come with refillable water bottles or returned their LED wristband for recycling; and everyone who’s bought a ticket, which means you’ve already planted one of 7 million trees so far,” they added.

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“As a band, and as an industry, we’re a long way from where we need to be on this. But we’re grateful for everyone’s help so far, and we salute everyone who’s making efforts to push things in the right direction.”

Other new findings shared in the report include confirmation of an 86 per cent average return rate of the reusable, plant-based LED wristbands used at shows, 72 per cent of all tour waste diverted from landfill and sent for reuse, recycling and composting, and two solar-powered Ocean Cleanup River Interceptors deployed.

Additionally, it has been shown that 18 shows were powered entirely using the tourable battery system in 2023 made from recycled BMW i3 batteries, 23 partnerships were secured with green travel providers to help fans travel to shows via super-low carbon transport, and there was an average of 17kWh power per show generated via in-venue solar installations, kinetic dance floors and power bikes – enough to power the band’s C-stage performance each night.

The statistics have also been validated by Professor John E. Fernandez of MIT’s (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Environmental Solutions Initiative, who praised the band for “again setting a new standard for the entire music industry.”

“For some time now, Coldplay has been leading by example in taking seriously and acting on the various interrelated environmental and social challenges facing humanity; climate change, biodiversity loss, air and water pollution, environmental injustice and more,” Fernandez added.

“With each subsequent year of their tour, they demonstrate an evolving vision and expanded commitment to move the entire music industry toward true and humane sustainability and planetary resilience. From collecting unprecedented amounts of data to taking specific actions today based on rigorous analysis, Coldplay is modelling a trajectory toward a low carbon, biodiverse and equitable future.”

Coldplay’s ‘Music Of The Spheres World Tour’ continues in Athens, Greece next week and will also see the band headline at Glastonbury for the fifth time .

Their set at Worthy Farm this month will see them become the first act to top the Glastonbury bill five times, following headline performances in 2002, 2005, 2011 and 2016.

It’ll also come following them sharing details of a 25th anniversary vinyl edition of ‘Brothers & Sisters’ and making headlines with their headline show at the BBC Radio 1 Big Weekend  last month.

As for the future of the group, Martin has previously stated that he has plans to stop writing music as a band by 2025 .

“Well I know I can tell you: our last proper record will come out in 2025 and after that I think we will only tour,” Martin said during an interview with Jo Wiley. “Maybe we’ll do some collaborative things but the Coldplay catalogue, as it were, finishes then.”

NME spoke with Coldplay back in 2021 and Martin revealed a similar sentiment to us: “We’re going to make 12 albums. Because it’s a lot to pour everything into making them. I love it and it’s amazing, but it’s very intense too.”

“I feel like because I know that challenge is finite, making this music doesn’t feel difficult, it feels like, ‘This is what we’re supposed to be doing’.”

Back in 2022, the ‘Music Of The Spheres’ tour was given a glowing five-star review by NME , and described as delivering “a fantastical, feel-good bonanza that delivers on a bold promise”.

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