Lorde cancels New Plymouth show due to low ticket sales

Lorde performing at the Glastonbury Festival in June. Photo / Getty Images

Lorde has announced she has cancelled an upcoming show at New Plymouth’s Bowl of Brooklands, alerting fans of the decision in a newsletter and placing the blame on Covid-19.

“We have to cancel New Plymouth. I would love to wrap it in something to save face but honestly, it’s a pandemic and we haven’t sold enough tickets.

“I’m bummed, I love that venue, and I hope to play it some day in the future.”

Elsewhere in the newsletter, Lorde claimed that lower ticket prices and smaller profit margins were seriously impacting the music industry.

“We’re a collection of the world’s most sensitive flowers who also spent the last two years inside, and maybe the task of creating a space where people’s pain and grief and jubilation can be held night after night with a razor-thin profit margin and dozens of people to pay is feeling like a teeny bit much,” she wrote.

But the Kiwi superstar’s reason for canning the show didn’t sit well with some fans, who took to social media to query whether the pandemic was a worthy explanation, claiming there had been very little promotion of the event in Taranaki.

“There’s been no advertising about the show. Don’t think they actually wanted to come to New Plymouth,” one woman claimed.

It wasn’t all bad news for Lorde fans, however, with the Solar Power songstress announcing an additional show at Hawke’s Bay’s Black Barn Winery.

“Conversely, we are adding a second show at Black Barn. Yes, I know this sounds insane but the powers that be are telling me that’s what we should do. Can’t wait to find out if this was a smart move in real-time alongside you, lol,” she wrote.

“This show will take place on March 2nd, and if you come, I promise you something special and completely one-off, how’s that?”