Billie Eilish has announced dates for her upcoming world tour. Photo / Getty Images
Billie Eilish has announced dates for her upcoming world tour. Photo / Getty Images
Grammy Award-winning pop star Billie Eilish has announced she’ll tour her upcoming studio album Hit Me Hard And Soft around the world - but her Kiwi fans are disappointed to see she hasn’t included any New Zealand dates on the itinerary.
Promoter Frontier Touring announced her 2024 and 2025 tour dates for Australia, the US, Europe, the UK and Ireland today, with tickets going on presale on May 1 and the general sale starting on May 3.
The Australian leg of the tour will kick off in February 2025 before she heads to Europe and the UK.
Fans quickly picked up on the fact that she did not include a New Zealand tour date in the announcement.
“You’re really going to skip New Zealand like that huh,” one commented, while another simply wrote “NEW ZEALAND!!!”
The Australian tour dates include four shows at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre next year, as well as four at Sydney’s Qudos Bank Arena and four more at Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne.
A press release from Live Nation read: “All shows have been announced and will go on sale on Friday, May 3 – no further Australian shows to be added. Get in fast to avoid disappointment!”
Eilish last performed in New Zealand in 2022, in one of the first major concerts to take place following the Covid-19 lockdowns. The pop star played three shows at a packed Spark Arena in Auckland, telling her Kiwi fans: “It’s nice to be back. This feels good.”
The latest tour announcement is a disappointing one for her New Zealand fans – and comes after megastar Taylor Swift skipped Aotearoa on her Eras tour, which saw countless Kiwis fork out thousands for tickets and flights to her Australia shows in February.
When Swift’s tour was first announced, it was rumoured that the country didn’t have a big enough venue to hold her 90-metre-long stage, while others theorised that she wouldn’t have sold enough tickets to justify the cost of bringing her tour here.
Billie Eilish performs onstage during the Happier Than Ever Tour at Spark Arena in 2022. Photo / Getty Images
Sautner said it ultimately came down to resource consent. “In 2020, our resource consent permitted Eden Park to hold up to six concerts in any 12-month period.”
He explained that the limit itself was not an issue, but promoters often required multiple concert dates to accommodate demand.
“Our current consent doesn’t make this possible, which means artists are bypassing New Zealand and fans are missing out,” he said at the time.
Eden Park has used up its quota of six shows this year with artists Pink and Coldplay performing several shows at the sporting venue.
