Beyoncé has shared details about her first tour in seven years. The much-anticipated Renaissance world tour will kick off on May 10 at Stockholm’s Friends Arena before hitting stadiums across Europe and the UK in the spring and summer. The North American leg of the tour kicks off July 7 in Toronto and runs through the fall, with the final date set for September 27 at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans.
The Renaissance World Tour includes an extensive run of UK dates: Beyoncé will play Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on May 29 and 30, with Cardiff, Edinburgh and Sunderland scheduled for May 17, May 20 and May 23 respectively. Tickets for all dates will be available from Beyoncé’s website.
Beyoncé’s last tour was the Formation World Tour in 2016. This show, in support of her sixth album Lemonade, saw her in Sunderland, Cardiff, London, Manchester and Glasgow, totaling over 300,000 tickets in the UK alone.
The Renaissance World Tour supports Beyoncé’s 2022 self-titled album. Widely hailed as the best of her career, the album was applauded for its orientation towards club styles such as house and disco, as well as a credit list that highlights black LGBTQ+ pioneers such as Honey Dijon, Kevin Aviance, Ts Madison and Big Freedia. Voted the best album of 2022 by the Guardian’s music critics, it debuted at number 1 in the UK and US charts and was certified gold in the UK, indicating sales of over 100,000. Writing about the album in an essay in year’s end, Jenessa Williams said Renaissance “sees Beyonce at her most lyrically playful, political by fate rather than design.”
Although Renaissance was praised for platforming LGBTQ+ artists upon its release, Beyoncé faced criticism this year for choosing to perform at the private opening of Dubai’s luxury hotel Atlantis the Royal, given the United Arab Emirates’ criminalization of homosexuality and claims that migrant workers in the country face conditions amounting to indentured servitude.
Jason Okundai wrote for the Guardian: “The question of migrant labor adds an extra dimension to the conversation about the ethics of gigging.”
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“It matters as much where Beyoncé performed as who she played for and who she took money from,” he wrote. “Renaissance’s lead single, Break My Soul, may have been billed as the pro-worker anthem of last summer’s Great Resignation, but it’s muted when the money talks.”
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