Red Hot Chili Peppers’ multi-year Unlimited Love Tour has entered the record books after drawing more than 3.4 million fans across the globe.

Launched in June 2022, the 86-date trek featured multiple legs around the world, visiting 20 countries and including 66 stadium shows.

The outing, which supported the group’s two 2022 #1 studio albums, Unlimited Love and Return of the Dream Canteen, ranks as the third best-selling rock tours of the 2020s so far, behind only Coldplay’s Music of the Spheres (7.7m and counting) and Elton John’s Farewell Yellow Brick Road (6.1m), according to Billboard Boxscore.

The tour featured special guests including A$AP Rocky, Anderson .Paak & The Free Nationals, Beck, City and Colour, DOMi & JD BECK, Haim, Ice Cube, Iggy Pop, Ken Carson, King Princess, Otoboke Beaver, Post Malone, Seun Kuti & Fela’s Egypt 80, St. Vincent, The Mars Volta, The Roots, The Strokes, Thundercat and Wand.

“We are thrilled to feature the very best of LA with local artists and are grateful to Billie, H.E.R., the Chili Peppers and Snoop for their collaboration”

On the final 18-date North American leg, which kicked off on May 28 this year at RV Inn Style Resorts Amphitheater in Ridgefield, Washington, and concluded on 30 July at Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre in St. Louis, Missouri, RHCP partnered with local dog adoption agencies at every tour stop to raise awareness for adoptable dogs in the city.

It was the seventh highest-grossing run of 2022 at $77 million, according to Pollstar, earning a further $91m in the first half of 2023 and has generated a total gross in excess of $300m, with the final total still to be verified.

The CAA-represented band also performed at last night’s Closing Ceremony of the Paris 2024 Games when the Olympic Flag was officially handed off from Paris to Los Angeles for the LA28 Olympic and Paralympic Games in their home city of Los Angeles. Other performers included Billie Eilish, Snoop Dogg and H.E.R.

“This is the biggest moment in LA28 history to date, as the Olympic flag passes from Paris to LA,” said LA28 and Wasserman Music chair Casey Wasserman, speaking ahead of the event. “We are thrilled to feature the very best of LA with local artists and are grateful to Billie, H.E.R., the Chili Peppers and Snoop for their collaboration on what will be an incredible show to a global audience that will give fans a taste of what’s to come in 2028.”

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Paris has opened its only purpose-built arena for this summer’s Olympic Games: Adidas Arena.

The 7,800-capacity venue in Porte de la Chapelle – which will eventually be used for concerts among other things – officially opened on Sunday (11 February) with a basketball match between Paris and Saint-Quentin.

Adidas Arena will host badminton and rhythmic gymnastic events during the Olympics, as well as para-badminton and para-powerlifting during the Paralympics.

During the Olympics, Adidas Arena will host badminton and rhythmic gymnastic events

Aside from the summer games, and as well as serving as the home of Paris Basketball, the arena will host other national and international sporting events, conferences and concerts.

The arena complex also features public facilities including an events hall and an 11.5-metre-high green terrace. The seats are made from recycled plastic and the arena will be powered by green energy.

German sportswear company Adidas acquired naming rights to the arena back in July 2022. The initial five-year contract with arena operating company SAE POPB is renewable for a further seven years.

The Paris Olympics will take place from 26 July to 11 August, with the Paralympics to follow from 28 August to 8 September.

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Live music organisation Prodiss has joined a raft of other French industry trade bodies in pleading for no festivals to be cancelled as a result of the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.

The 2024 Olympics are scheduled for 26 July to 11 August, with the Paralympics to follow from 28 August to 8 September.

Le Journal du Dimanche reports that the scale of the security operation has led to concerns that other events held at the same time will be left short on personnel. The interior minister has asked for “the postponement of certain festivals” that summer, while the culture minister has spoken of “certain cancellations if solutions are not found”.

Prodiss president Olivier Darbois, director of Paris-based promoter Corida, is one of 25 signatories of an open letter to president Emmanuel Macron, calling for cultural events planned for the duration of the 2024 Games to be maintained.

“Festivals are not only essential to an entire local economy… they are part of our identity”

“This will be an opportunity for millions of visitors to come and discover our country,” states the letter. “It will also be a time when France, watched by the whole world, must show its most beautiful face… But for the past few days, we have been extremely worried, because culture is on the way to being the great forgotten part of this beautiful picture.

“Summer, for the French men and women, for the cultural world, and for decades, is the time of festivals. Festivals are not only essential to an entire local economy, they are also an eventful, festive and cultural time, a time of meeting and social bonding, which is the pride of the territories, the elected officials and the volunteers who welcome and participate in them.

“They are part of our identity. They allow professionals to work and show their know-how, artists, musicians, actors, directors to get started and sometimes achieve national or international fame. They generate a substantial number of hours of work, so important for intermittent workers in the entertainment industry as well as for many seasonal workers.”

Other signatories on the letter include France Festivals, the Society of Authors, Composers and Music Publishers, the Civil Society for the Administration of the Rights of Performing Artists and Musicians, and the Federation of contemporary music venues, as well as music union SMA.

“We ask you to solemnly commit that no festival will be cancelled in France during the summer of 2024

“We, elected officials and professionals, know the constraints of managing such events,” it continues. “We also know that the means are not unlimited, those of our communities first and foremost.

“We are the first to understand that the organisation of an event of the magnitude of the [Olympics] will require a very important security infrastructure, and also that the festivals require to be secured. But we would not understand if our country, the seventh economic power in the world, is not capable at the same time of hosting the Olympic Games and maintaining the organisation of these major festivals which make up a major part of the cultural wealth of our country and of our territories.”

The letter concludes: “What place would we give to culture and its festivals in our country, if they become a simple adjustment variable according to the availability of the police? Especially since the consequences of the health crisis are still being felt and the energy crisis is also threatening performance venues.

“This is why, Mr President… we ask you to solemnly commit that no festival will be cancelled in France during the summer of 2024, and that solutions be found and objectified in connection with local authorities and the whole world of culture.”

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