Beyoncé’s fans have been waiting for this day: the pop megastar finally announced that she will embark on the long-awaited Renaissance World Tour. She uploaded a post to Instagram early Wednesday morning with the caption: “RENAISSANCE WORLD TOUR 2023,” and her official website has been updated to show the tour dates. The tour starts in May in Sweden and will hit Belgium, the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Poland, before she makes her way to North America. The first date stateside will be in Philadelphia, Pa., in July and the tour will hit the major U.S. cities before wrapping up in New Orleans, La., on Sept. 27.
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Following the release of her seventh album, Renaissance, in July, fans have been itching for a tour announcement, in addition to music videos to accompany the songs. Beyoncé’s last solo tour was the Formation World Tour back in 2016 to support her sixth album, Lemonade. Following that, she went on the On The Run Tour with her husband, Jay-Z, in 2018 after releasing their joint project, Everything Is Love. The announcement of a new tour just before the Grammy Awards on Sunday raises suspicion that Beyoncé might be performing or, at the very least, attending the night’s festivities.
The singer is nominated for nine Grammys at this year’s awards ceremony, which are set to take place on Feb. 5 in Los Angeles. This year, she is up against Adele for multiple awards, including Album of the Year, Song of the Year, and Record of the Year. There has been speculation about whether or not Beyoncé would be performing ever since the nominations were announced. The last time fans saw her perform on a major televised stage was at last year’s Oscars ceremony, where she performed “Be Alive” from the King Richard movie for the first time.
Read More: 6 Takeaways from Beyoncé’s New Album Renaissance
Beyoncé most recently took the stage for a private concert at the opening of the Atlantis The Royal resort in Dubai in January. However, she did not perform any songs from Renaissance. Also, given that Beyoncé unveiled the album’s title on Instagram as “act [one],” her dedicated fanbase has been busy theorizing what acts two and three might be. Some have hypothesized that the tour would be act two and then a concert movie would be act three. Others have ventured to guess that this is a three-part album and that Renaissance was just the beginning.
Tickets for the concert will not be an easy get if Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour is any indication. Beyoncé’s fans can click on the date they would like to attend to register for Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan program and will then have to wait to see if they are given an access code to purchase tickets to the event. With Verified Fan and the “unexpected” traffic the pre-sale brought to the site, many Swifties likened the ticket-buying process to a warzone. The disastrous rollout drew ire from Swift’s fans and political officials alike. After the ticketing fiasco, the Senate held a hearing to look into whether Live Nation and Ticketmaster have a monopoly over the ticketing industry. This, coupled with the technical problems that Swift fans faced, have Beyoncé fans worrying that finding their way to an actual concert will be nothing short of an ordeal.
