The Weeknd’s delayed Oz/NZ tour officially axed
The Weeknd’s highly anticipated return to Australia and New Zealand has officially been cancelled.
The stadium outing was first postponed in November 2023, just three weeks before it was due to kick off due to “unforeseen circumstances”.
Australian event ticketing company Ticketek informed ticketholders on Tuesday (23 April) that the Canadian singer, real name Abel Tesfaye, would not be making the trip Down Under.
“The Weeknd’s ‘After Hours Til Dawn Tour’ for Australia & New Zealand is still in process of being rescheduled,” Ticketek revealed.
“Whilst we continue to work through the rescheduling process with the artist, tickets for the existing 2023 tour will be cancelled. All purchased tickets will receive a full refund,” they continued.
“The Weeknd’s ‘After Hours Til Dawn Tour’ for Australia & New Zealand is still in process of being rescheduled”
Ticketek is encouraging ticket holders to join the waitlist for a forthcoming announcement to gain access to a priority pre-sale.
Originally, The Weeknd was due to perform 11 dates in the region including at Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium, Sydney’s Accor Stadium, Melbourne’s Marvel Stadium and Eden Park in Auckland.
The Weeknd launched his After Hours til Dawn stadium tour in summer 2022 and grossed US$130 million from 19 shows that year.
He returned to the road in June 2023 and completed 42 shows in Europe and Latin America, earning $220,985,529 at the box office from a ticket total of 2.2 million.
During the European leg, the star smashed Wembley Stadium’s record for sales with a traditional concert set up with 87,000 tickets sold. The artist also set a new attendance record for London Stadium after drawing 160,000 fans over two nights in July 2023.
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Bluesfest announces rescheduled 2021 dates
Byron Bay Bluesfest is now slated to take place in October with a four-day format, after the original 2021 event was cancelled at the eleventh hour.
The festival had been set to take place between 31 March to 5 April 2021 but less than 24 hours before it was set to open, the New South Wales government called it off due to a new Covid case in Byron Bay.
The rescheduled event will take place at Byron Events Farm across four days instead of five (1–4 October 2021), though the organisers have said that current five-day ticket holders will receive some ‘special’ news alongside the lineup announcement.
This Wednesday (19 April), the festival will announce the full line-up which organisers say ‘will be worth the wait’.
“Trust us when we say the wait will have all been worth it…,” reads a post on Byron Bay Bluesfest’s Facebook. “We’ve been adding more of Australia’s absolute best talent – a way of saying thank you to all of you who have supported us during this time.”
“Trust us when we say the wait will have all been worth it”
The April 2021 lineup included the likes of Jimmy Barnes, Tash Sultana and The Teskey Brothers. It’s unclear whether any of the acts from the original lineup will appear at the October event.
Season tickets will go on sale after the line-up is revealed, followed by three-day and one-day tickets.
The cancellation of the April Bluesfest event was touted as a “watershed moment” by the Australian music industry, which had been lobbying for a business interruption fund that would help live events redeem their costs in the event of an eleventh-hour cancellation.
The Australian Festivals Association’s Julia Robinson told IQ that such a fund is essential to boost business confidence. Read her comment here.
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