Madonna has announced a tour celebrating her 40 years as a recording and touring artist. Dubbed the Celebration tour, the 35-date run will begin in Vancouver, Canada, on 15 July, and run through to winter, ending on 1 December at Amsterdam’s Ziggo Dome.
First teased in a promotional video for last year’s dance chart No 1s album Finally Enough Love, the Celebration tour was officially announced in a clip parodying Madonna’s 1991 tour film Truth or Dare. In the video, celebrities including Diplo, Jack Black, Lil Wayne and Amy Schumer play a game of truth or dare with Madonna, which culminates with Schumer “daring” Madonna to embark on a greatest hits tour. “You think people would come to that show?” Madonna asks. “The answer is – fuck yeah.”
Per a press release, the Celebration tour will showcase “Madonna’s artistic journey through four decades and pays respect to the city of New York where her career in music began.”
Supporting Madonna on all dates is drag performer Bob the Drag Queen, AKA Caldwell Tidicue. Best known for winning season eight of RuPaul’s Drag Race, Tidicue has also released a handful of singles, starred in a production of Angels in America at the Berkeley Repertory Theater, and hosts a podcast, Sibling Rivalry, with Monét X Change.
The Celebration tour is Madonna’s 12th concert tour. The last time she went on the road was in 2019 and 2020, when she performed in intimate venues in support of her album Madame X. That run saw her play 12 shows at the 2,200-capacity London Palladium, with similarly lengthy stints in New York, Los Angeles and more.
The only UK date of the Celebration tour announced thus far is on 14 October at London’s 20,000-capacity O2 Arena. In a statement, Madonna said: “I am excited to explore as many songs as possible in hopes to give my fans the show they have been waiting for.”
Live Nation, the producer of the Celebration tour, has faced criticism in recent months, with the US government currently in the midst of an antitrust investigation into the touring giant and Ticketmaster parent company over whether it has abused its power in the entertainment industry. Scrutiny intensified in November, when Taylor Swift slammed Ticketmaster over the bungled pre-sale for her own greatest hits shows, dubbed the Eras tour.
In a letter to the company, the US Senate’s antitrust committee chair Amy Klobuchar expressed “serious concern about the state of competition in the ticketing industry and its harmful impact on consumers”.
Tickets for the Celebration tour go on sale on 20 January and are available from Madonna’s website.
