The Weeknd expands After Hours Til Dawn stadium tour
The Weeknd is continuing his After Hours Til Dawn stadium tour with newly announced legs in Europe and Latin America.
The Canadian singer-songwriter-producer (real name Abel Tesfaye) recently concluded his record-breaking North America leg, which grossed over US$130 million to date.
The next leg of the After Hours Til Dawn Tour will kick off 10 June 2023 at Manchester’s Etihad Stadium in the UK, with stops in Stockholm, Amsterdam, Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro, and more before wrapping up in Santiago, Chile, on Sunday 15 October at Estadio Bicentenario de La Florida. Additional 2023 dates will be announced soon.
Kaytranada and Mike Dean will join the CAA-repped singer on all European dates. The outing is in support of The Weeknd’s 2020 album After Hours, as well as his critically-acclaimed album Dawn FM, which was released in January this year.
The Weeknd’s global After Hours til Dawn tour was originally scheduled in 2020 (when it was just the After Hours tour) to hit 105 arena dates beginning June 2020, but was postponed due to the pandemic – first to 2021 then January 2022 and then summer 2022.
The singer recently concluded his record-breaking North America leg, which grossed over US$130 million to date
In October 2021, the singer/producer broke the news that he was nixing the 104-date arena trek in favour of stadiums, saying “I want to do something bigger and special for you which requires more stadiums”.
For the second leg of the After Hours Til Dawn Tour, Tesfaye – a United Nations World Food Programme Goodwill Ambassador – will once again partner with the U.N. World Food Programme to contribute funds from the second leg of the tour to the XO Humanitarian Fund, which supports the organisation’s response to the global hunger crisis.
One Euro from each ticket sold across Europe, £1 in the UK and the $1 equivalent in countries across Latin America will go to this important cause. The fund raised money during the North American leg of the tour through ticket sales, proceeds from an exclusive tour t-shirt, and a $500,000 donation directly from The Weeknd.
The Weeknd’s corporate partners, tour venues, World Food Program USA board of directors and supporters also stepped up to contribute, as well as tour sponsor Binance, who contributed US$2m to the fund. The first grant of $2m will be going to provide emergency food and nutrition assistance to the most food-insecure regions of Ethiopia.
The After Hours Til Dawn tour is powered by Binance, the global blockchain ecosystem behind the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, bringing Web 3.0 technology to concert-goers worldwide.
Ticket holders receive souvenir NFTs in addition to access to an exclusive NFT collection for The Weeknd’s tour, in collaboration with HXOUSE, a think-center and community incubator for creative entrepreneurs. Five percent of the sales from the upcoming tour NFT collection will be donated to the XO Humanitarian Fund.
AFTER HOURS TIL DAWN TOUR 2023 EUROPE TOUR DATES:
Sat Jun 10 – Manchester, UK – Etihad Stadium
Wed Jun 14 – Horsens, Denmark – Nordstern Arena
Sat Jun 17 – Stockholm, Sweden – Tele2 Arena
Tue Jun 20 – Oslo, Norway – Telenor Arena
Sat Jun 24 – Amsterdam, Netherlands – Johan Cruijiff ArenA
Wed Jun 28 – Dublin, Ireland – Marlay Park
Sun Jul 2 – Hamburg, Germany – Volkspark Stadium
Tue Jul 4 – Dusseldorf, Germany – Merkur Spiel Arena
Fri Jul 7 – London, UK– London Stadium
Tue Jul 11 – Brussels, Belgium – King Baudouin Stadium
Fri Jul 14 – Frankfurt, Germany – Deutsche Bank Park
Tue Jul 18 – Madrid, Spain – Cívitas Metropolitano
Thu Jul 20 – Barcelona, Spain – Lluís Companys Olympic Stadium
Sat Jul 22 – Nice, France – Allianz Riviera
Wed Jul 26 – Milan, Italy – Ippodromo La Maura
Sat Jul 29 – Paris, France – Stade de France
Tue Aug 1 – Bordeaux, France – Matmut Atlantique
Fri Aug 4 – Munich, Germany – Olympic Stadium
Sun Aug 6 – Prague, Czech Republic – Letnany Airport
Wed Aug 9 – Warsaw, Poland – PGE Narodowy
Sat Aug 12 – Tallinn, Estonia – Tallinn Song Festival Grounds
AFTER HOURS TIL DAWN TOUR 2023 LATIN AMERICA TOUR DATES:
Fri Sep 29 – Mexico City, Mexico – Foro Sol
Wed Oct 4 – Bogotá, Colombia – El Campín Stadium
Sat Oct 7 – Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – Nilton Santos Engenhão Stadium
Tue Oct 10 – Sao Paulo, Brazil – Allianz Parque
Fri Oct 13 – Buenos Aires, Argentina – San Isidro Racetrack
Sun Oct 15 – Santiago, Chile – La Florida Bicentennial Stadium
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Lady Gaga extends worldwide stadium tour
Lady Gaga has extended her previously announced summer 2022 stadium tour, spanning 14 cities worldwide.
The Chromatica Ball, presented by Live Nation, kicks off on 17 July in Dusseldorf and closes on 10 September in California.
In addition to cities announced before the pandemic, the blockbuster tour adds eight new markets to the schedule.
The CAA-repped act is due in Stockholm, Düsseldorf, Paris, Arnhem, London, Toronto, Washington, New York, Chicago, Boston, Dallas, Atlanta, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
In addition to cities announced before the pandemic, the blockbuster tour adds eight new markets to the schedule
The 15-date run includes two shows – the second newly added – at the 62,850-capacity Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London.
The tour will mark her first-ever public live performances from the #1 selling and Grammy-winning 2020 album Chromatica.
The Chromatica Ball will follow Gaga’s recently announced Las Vegas residency this spring.
See all dates for The Chromatica Ball below.
7/17 Düsseldorf. DE Merkur Spiel- Arena
7/21 Stockholm. SW Friends Arena
7/24 Paris, FR Stade de France
7/26 Arnhem, NL GelreDome
7/29 London, UK Tottenham Hotspur Stadium
7/30 London, UK Tottenham Hotspur Stadium
8/06 Toronto, ON Rogers Centre
8/08 Washington, DC Nationals Park
8/11 East Rutherford, NJ Metlife Stadium
8/15 Chicago, IL Wrigley Field
8/19 Boston, MA Fenway Park
8/23 Dallas, TX Globe Life Field
8/26 Atlanta, GA Truist Park
9/8 San Francisco, CA Oracle Park
9/10 Los Angeles, CA Dodger Stadium
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Move’s Bad Bunny stadium show sells out fast
Bad Bunny’s highly anticipated hometown shows at Puerto Rico’s Hiram Bithorn Stadium sold out in less than 20 minutes, promoters Move Concerts and Noah Assad Presents have revealed.
The urban sensation’s P Fkn R show, rescheduled from May 2020, went on sale on Friday (20 August) and sold out soon after. The concerts, which take place at the 18,000-seat stadium on 10 and 11 December, will be Puerto Rico-born Bad Bunny’s first shows this year.
P Fkn R is the first announced show of a new partnership between Miami-based Move Concerts, which has an office in Puerto Rico, and Noah Assad, whose Rimas Music represents some of the world’s biggest reggaeton artists.
Everyone attending the P Fkn R show will be required to present proof of vaccination
Everyone attending the 10 and 11 December shows, which have a capacity of 35,000 each, will be required to present proof of full Covid-19 vaccination.
The Hiram Bithorn Stadium, the island’s largest, has previously hosted concerts by the likes Bon Jovi, Ozzy Osbourne, Rihanna, Shakira, Sting and Whitney Houston, in addition to its regular use as a baseball park.
Multiple Grammy and Latin Grammy-winner Bad Bunny will follow up the show with a world tour, El Último Tour del Mundo 2022, which kicks off on 9 February 2022 at the Ball Arena (20,000-cap.) in Denver, Colorado.
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AI-powered screens detect mask wearing at venue
A North Carolina stadium is using artificial-intelligence (AI) technology to monitor for Covid-compliant public behaviour, such as social distancing and the wearing of face coverings, among fans arriving at the venue.
The 50,500-capacity Kenan Memorial Stadium in Chapel Hill, which is primarily used for American football, has installed ‘Health Greeter Kiosks’ to encourage anyone passing to wear masks and practice social distancing. The AI – specifically machine learning and computer vision – uses real-time data from a depth-sensing camera to detect if someone is wearing a mask and whether there is proper spacing between individuals. As people walk by the screens, a large display alerts them to either correct or continue their behaviour.
The technology was developed by the University of North Carolina’s Reese Innovation Lab, with support from Lenovo North America, and first deployed for an American football match (University of North Carolina vs Virginia Tech) on 10 October. The kiosks, which were placed at locations such as entrances, bag-check queues and ticket offices, “worked as intended, tracking and encouraging safe behaviour”, according to Lenovo.
“These kiosks will help us better understand human behaviour and encourage safe behaviour”
“We needed real innovation to meet this unprecedented challenge, and pushing the limits of technology is at the core of our lab’s mission,” says Steven King, chief innovation officer of Reese Innovation Lab. “Engineering a technological response to Covid-19 and event-attendance restarting is a real and rewarding challenge, [and] I’m grateful for the support of UNC-Chapel Hill leadership, our exceptional and inventive students and Lenovo.”
The kiosks, which use fully anonymised data, with no images saved or transmitted, may help shape safety protocol and provide insight on how crowds behave during the coronavirus pandemic, adds King.
“We see this as the starting point of wider deployment, with opportunities to refine and customise the technology,” he explains. “From campus hallways to outdoor events, these kiosks will help us better understand human behaviour and encourage safe behaviour, and I’m excited to see how we evolve and adapt this AI-powered solution.”
This article forms part of IQ’s Covid-19 resource centre – a knowledge hub of essential guidance and updating resources for uncertain times.
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World’s first mobile stadium takes shape
Ras Abu Aboud Stadium, a 40,000-seat temporary venue billed as the world’s first ‘demountable’ stadium, is under construction in Doha, Qatar.
Constructed on an artificial promontory in the district of the same name, Ras Abu Aboud Stadium is being built to a modular design, and partly out of old shipping containers from Doha Port. It is one of eight new venues under construction ahead of the Fifa World Cup football competition in 2022.
The first moveable stadium in World Cup history, Ras Abu Aboud Stadium “will be entirely dismantled and repurposed post-2022, setting a new standard in tournament sustainability and legacy,” according to Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy (SC), which is overseeing the Qatar 2022 world cup.
In a tweet sent on Friday (16 October), the SC said the new venue is “slowly taking shape”:
Ras Abu Aboud is slowly taking shape!
Constructed using shipping containers and other modular building blocks, this innovative 40,000-seat venue will be entirely dismantled and repurposed #Qatar2022, setting a new standard in sustainability.https://t.co/m6lhcF4zWE pic.twitter.com/K2VXngc2K0
— SC News (@roadto2022news) October 16, 2020
After the tournament, says the SC, the “modular seats and even the roof will be disassembled and reused”.
What they’ll be reused for, however, is still under discussion: the Qatari authorities note its modular design “could provide the building blocks for another 40,000-seat stadium in a different location, or for several different types of sporting or non-sporting venues”.
The Qatar 2022 Fifa World Cup takes place from 21 November to 18 December, with 32 national teams taking part.
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WHO: Stadium events “unrealistic” in most countries in 2020
It is “very unrealistic” to expect to see packed New Zealand-style stadia in the majority of countries this year, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said.
Speaking during an online discussion last week, Michael Ryan, executive director of the WHO’s health emergencies programme, said it would be “disastrous” to allow the return of stadium-level events, such as sporting fixtures, in territories that still have “community-level transmission” of Covid-19, reports AFP.
“Large crowds of 40,000, 50,0000, 60,000 people… it’s not just the risk of being in the stadium – it’s the risk of going to the stadium, the public transport, the bars and the clubs,” said Ryan (pictured).
“Imagine all the problems we have now with nightclubs and bars, and you squeeze all of that together into a four- or five-hour experience, where thousands of people go on the same public transport to a venue, get involved in the social aspects before a game, be involved in the game and then all of the social aspects after. In the context of community transmission, that could be disastrous.”
“We’re just going to have to be careful for a good bit longer”
Ryan said he expected stadia to continue to allow small numbers of fans – up to around 2,000, with social distancing in place – in countries with active cases of Covid-19 for the foreseeable future.
“We all want our sport back,” he continued. “We’re just going to have to be careful for a good bit longer.
“It’s very unrealistic in countries with community transmission that we’re going to be seeing large gatherings like that this year. Right now, it’s hard to see those fully reopened venues.”
New Zealand – which recorded a 102-day streak without a new coronavirus infection – has several hosted major arena and stadium events, including a rugby match attended by 43,000 people, since reopening its live sector in July. Japan and South Korea have also reopened sports stadia to fans.
The WHO released its latest guidance on holding ‘mass gatherings’, such as large music and sports events, safely in late May.
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Austria to allow up to 10,000 fans in stadiums
The Austrian government is to permit up to 10,000 fans in stadiums from September, culture and sports minister, Werner Kogler, has announced.
According to reports, the 10,000-person capacity limit will apply to all outdoor events from 1 September, with indoors shows of up to 5,000 also allowed.
Seat allocations, social distancing regulations and the enforcement of a track and trace system are a prerequisite for events going ahead.
“This is a freedom that we have all developed together,” says Kogler, who serves as Austrian vice chancellor, as well as the minister for arts, culture, the civil service and sport. “We should handle it carefully.”
“This is a freedom that we have all developed together. We should handle it carefully”
It is believed that, after an initial phase with an audience limit, there will be individual solutions decided on a case-by-case basis.
“I imagine that we can try to measure it per stadium – it may be that 12,000 people is less of a problem in one stadium, than 6,000 in another stadium,” says Kogler.
As of today (1 July), a maximum of 250 fans are allowed to attend indoor performances, with a capacity of 500 permitted for outdoor shows.
Capacity limits are increasing to 1,000 for indoor events and 1,250 for outdoor shows from 1 August.
Photo: Die Grüne Partei Österreichs/Flickr (CC BY 2.0) (cropped)
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17k Finnish fans to travel to Estonia for Rammstein
Over 17,000 fans will travel from Finland to Estonia in July to see Rammstein performance at Tallinn’s Song Festival Grounds on 21 July 2020.
The sold-out concert, part of the second leg of the band’s European Stadium Tour, will see Rammstein play to more than 60,000 fans. Two thirds of concertgoers will travel from outside of Estonia to attend the show, with representatives from over 60 different countries.
The Live Nation-promoted concert will be the largest outdoor show in Tallinn since Madonna’s 2009 appearance in the Estonian capital.
Kicking off in May 2020 at the Wörthersee Stadion in Klagenfurt, Austria, the second leg of Rammstein’s European tour will visit Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Great Britain, the Netherlands, France, Italy, Poland, Norway and Sweden, before wrapping up at Ceres Park in Aarhus, Denmark, on 4 August.
The first leg of the tour saw the band play 30 concerts in 24 cities across countries including Spain, Czech Republic, Luxembourg, Russia and Latvia, as well as multiple nations that will be revisited in 2020.
Tickets for the stadium tour – the band’s first ever – broke records for ticketing partner CTS Eventim, selling more than 800,000 tickets in a single on sale.
The tour has been commended for its “fireworks, massive pyrotechnics and overwhelming smoke effects”, with German newspaper Nordkurier writing the band were “shaking European stadiums” with their live shows.
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Eagles to play Wembley Stadium in Europe exclusive
US rock band Eagles are bringing their Hotel California tour to London’s 90,000-capacity Wembley Stadium on 29 and 30 August 2020, the group’s only European dates of the year.
Eagles, consisting of Don Henley, Joe Walsh and Timothy B Schmit, along with Deacon Frey and Vince Gill, will perform the Hotel California album in full at the Wembley concerts, followed by an additional set of the band’s greatest hits.
The group recently performed three sold-out performances of the album – the third best-selling US album in history – in Las Vegas. The concerts marked the first time Eagles had performed Hotel California in its entirety and featured 77 musicians on stage, including a 46-piece orchestra and 22-voice choir.
As the best-selling US band of the 1970s, Eagles have won six Grammy Awards, were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998 and received the Kennedy Center Honors for lifetime contribution to US culture in 2016.
“We are delighted to welcome back The Eagles who played a huge part in this year’s success story”
The Live Nation-promoted shows see Eagles return to the stadium for the second time in as many years, following a sell-out show in June. The band contributed to a record-breaking summer for Wembley in 2019, with over 900,000 fans watching acts including the Who, Fleetwood Mac, Bon Jovi, Billy Joel and Pink.
“We are delighted to welcome back The Eagles who played a huge part in this year’s success story,” comments James Taylor, senior commercial manager for Wembley Stadium.
“Wembley is an iconic venue that attracts the biggest and best acts and we are thrilled this legendary band has once again chosen our world-class stadium for what will be their only performances in Europe in 2020.”
Tickets for Eagles 2020 Wembley Stadium shows go on sale on Saturday 14 December at 9 a.m. (GMT), available here.
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UK stadium success for the Hella Mega tour
The Hella Mega tour, the upcoming world tour jointly headlined by Fall Out Boy, Green Day and Weezer, has sold out multiple stadiums in the UK, shifting 150,000 tickets for its three SJM-promoted British shows next June.
The tour sees the three ’90s/2000s rock icons (all of whom are represented by Jonathan Daniel and Bob McLynn’s Crush Music) heading out on the road together for the first time.
The trio will touch down in Europe on 13 June 2020, playing their first show at Paris’s 40,000-capacity La Défense Arena; the UK dates are at Bellahouston Park in Glasgow, London Stadium and John Smith’s Stadium in Huddersfield, on 24, 26 and 27 June, respectively.
North American dates follow in July and August.
For a full Hella Mega tour itinerary, visit hellamegatour.com.
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