HOLLYWOOD—We all watched the Grammys and saw Beyonce win a record-breaking 32nd Grammy Award, while making history as she won Best Dance/Electronica Album for her euphoric dance opus, “Renaissance.” In doing so, she overtook Hungarian-British conductor George Solti, whose record of 31 Grammys had stood for more than 20 years. While she finally arrived at the Grammys, she missed some of the early presentations after getting stuck in gridlocked downtown Los Angeles.
It was a day after that her tickets went on general sale. Beyonce fans faced high demand as tickets went on sale for her UK leg of her first solo tour since 2016. The superstar is playing stadium shows in Cardiff, Edinburgh, Sunderland and London in May and June. Perhaps not as severe as Taylor Swift Tickermaster fiasco, but still frustrating to fans. Some users got an error message on the Ticketmaster website, while others said they were kicked out of the queue, which in some cases was 500,000 strong. So three more dates were added on Tuesday, Febraury 7, due to high demand, taking the number of UK dates to eight.
A portion of the UK tickets had already been sold in a series of pre-sales, while the first pre-sales for her North American dates began the date after the Grammys. There is some scrutiny in the US of how Ticketmaster handles the tour, especially since the company’s systems were overwhelmed by demand for Taylor Swift tickets last year. The UK concerts are part of a world tour in support of her Grammy-nominated album. The shows kick off in Sweden on May 10, before leading at Cardfiff’s Principality Stadium a week later.
She will proceed to Edinburgh’s Murrayfield on May 20, Sunderland’s Stadium of Light on May 23 and London’s Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on May 29 and 30. After the tickets went on general sale on February 7, she added three further shows at the Tottenham stadium June 1, 3 and 4. As all concert tickets, they are not inexpensive, including the VIP packages, super expensive, for guaranteed front row seats or even seats on the stage. Super expensive. According to published reports, the five-month tour could earn the superstar up to $275 million.
Ticketmaster said it changed its process for the US leg of Beyonce’s tour following the Taylor Swift debacle in November. The company of course, apologized after bots disrupted the sales for Swift’s Eras tour. Ticketmaster said there was a “terrible consumer experience”, while Taylor said she was annoyed that many fans felt “like they went through several bear attacks” to get seats. That’s putting it mildly. The US Senate is now investigating the company. Will see, what or if anything happens. Beyonce’s fans were asked to register for Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan Process-which the company says filters out touts-before the first US pre-sale opened February 6.
Those who managed to sign up ahead of time were entered into a “lottery-style process” after demand outstripped the number of available seats. If there are remaining tickets after those on the waiting list have been offered a chance to buy, then they will go on general sale-but that is very unlikely. Her last tour was in 2016, “Formation” tour, which saw the star perform in front of a 60ft LED cube called the “monolith.”
She staged a joint tour with Jay-Z, in which the couple re-enacted their estrangement and reconciliation every night, in a two-and-a-half hour musical melodrama. Last month, she performed her first headline concert in four years at the opening of a luxury hotel in Dubai, but did not play any of her new material. She was reportedly paid $24 million for the one-off show, but faced a lot of criticism for performing in a country where homosexuality and gender reassignment are outlawed. For some reason, she avoids making music videos for the “Renaissance” album, so it will be the first visual interpretation of tracks from the album.
Rose’s Scoop: For those asking, Beyonce wore a custom metallic silver Gucci gown with a ruffled hemline at the Grammys 2023.
