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Madonna news - June 2024
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Madonna hits LadyLand 2024 to celebrate NYC Pride
Source: Billboard - 30 June 2024Since debuting in Brooklyn in 2018, LadyLand – a queer music festival organized by New York City nightlife force Ladyfag – has hosted performances by everyone from Eve to Kim Petras to Christina Aguilera to Honey Dijon to Gossip. After several successful years at Brooklyn Mirage, the festival moved to the Under the ‘K’ Bridge Park in 2023, a uniquely NYC locale that – when not hosting fashion-forward queer music fests – is a surprisingly green public park under the Kosciuszko Bridge in an industrial part of Greenpoint.
Once attendees get over their ‘where the hell am I walking to?’ trepidation, people quickly acclimate to the spacious, easy-to-navigate and visually stunning location. It’s a perfect spot for a Pride Month celebration, and who better to celebrate in 2024 than Madonna, hot off her career-spanning Celebration Tour?
Seven months after bringing that blockbuster trek to Barclays Center, the Queen of Pop returned to Brooklyn on Saturday (June 29) for the second night of LadyLand 2024 (Tinashe and Slayyyter rocked night one) to help close out Pride Month.
There had been rumors that Madonna, who was not on the festival’s bill, would make a surprise appearance at LadyLand before it was officially announced on Instagram on Thursday (June 27). But even after her presence at the fest was confirmed, no one quite knew what was going to happen. Would she come out during Tokischa’s set to perform their Hung Up on Tokischa collab, a reworking of her classic 2005 single, while making out with the Dominican rapper, as they did during Pride 2022 at Manhattan’s Terminal 5? Pop up while Arca – who made an onstage cameo during Madonna’s recent Barcelona tour stop – was performing? Spin a tune during the DJ set by Bob the Drag Queen, the Drag Race champ who deftly emceed her Celebration Tour?
Around midnight on the Fist Stage, attendees found out: Madonna was there to judge. Not the audience (though she may have been doing that, too), but a coterie of ballroom performers vogueing down the runway during a segment called the Vogue Ball House Battle that echoed the “Vogue” portion of her recent tour. Madonna, Arca, Bob the Drag Queen, Tokischa and Sevdaliza served as judges on a vogueing competition, flashing 10s for the various houses, with the House of Miyake-Mugler pulling out the win. And just like on her tour, preteen daughter Estere was there, only this time she gave a pre-vogue DJ set.
“Aside from my birthday, New York Pride is the most important day of the year,” Madonna said. “Thank you all New York City. Without you I am nothing.”
NYC’s Pride March, the city’s premier Pride Month event, takes over Manhattan on Sunday (June 30) in commemoration of the 1969 Stonewall Riots that marked the beginning of the modern LGBTQ rights movement.
Madonna scores highest-grossing tour of 2024 so far
Source: Variety - 24 June 2024Madonna has the highest-grossing worldwide tour of 2024 thus far, according to Pollstar's mid-year report, thanks to the success of her Celebration Tour. With average ticket prices of $208.85, the pop icon had an average gross of $2,794,007 with 13,378 average tickets sold, making for a total of 856,247 in ticket sales across 34 reported shows out of 65 dates.
Pollstar's mid-year report examines the industry on a wider scale, and after several years of record-setting ticket sales in the post-pandemic touring boom, the growth of live music has settled down in the first half of 2024. There were no major surges or declines in percentage differences compared to years prior. In 2023, overall gross was 51.1 percent higher than in 2022, and was 64.7 percent higher in average gross per show. But in 2024, there were no spikes larger than 17 percent, or decreases beyond 15 percent.
Of course, there are a few things that should be noted when examining Pollstar’s results — most notably, the absence of Taylor Swift, whose blockbuster “Eras” tour does not report its tour figures. Despite that, in December, Pollstar reported that her “Eras Tour” was the highest-grossing trek of all time and the first tour ever to cross the $1 billion threshold. It is likely that Swift, whose European leg of the “Eras” tour launched on May 9, will end up leading this year as well.
Not all promoters or tours report their numbers, or all of their numbers, to Pollstar, which was acquired by Irving Azoff and Tim Lieweke’s Oak View Group in 2017, but its statistics certainly reveal a large number of trends.
Bad Bunny trails closely behind Madonna with $174.6 million from his “Most Wanted Tour,” while Luis Miguel follows him with $169.4 million, U2 ranks at No. 4 with $135 million from the band’s Sphere residency and Karol G rounds out the top five with $111 million. The top 10 continues with Bruno Mars ($102 million), Coldplay ($100 million), Seventeen ($74 million), Eagles ($69 million) and Nicki Minaj ($66 million).
Will Madonna start shooting her biopic ‘in the next 12 months’?
Source: RetroPop - 3 June 2024Weeks after wrapping her epic 'Celebration Tour', Madonna is said to be back at work on her long-awaited big screen biopic.
The Queen of Pop put the project on hold while she embarked on her global tour, celebrating 40 years of hits, but now sources say it's back to business as she plots her next move.
"Madonna has only just finished her tour but in her mind it is on to the next project and fulfilling her dream of getting the biopic made," insiders tell The Sun's Bizarre column. "Julia [Garner] is still her lead actress and they have remained in touch for the past year, talking through ideas.
"They are committed to creating some magic."
Sharing the Express Yourself singer's reference points for the movie, they add: "Madonna feels that Queen's 'Bohemian Rhapsody' and Elton John's 'Rocketman' biopics have paved the way for her.
"She wants to make this more unique and dramatic than those. A range of secret meets are being organised with Universal Pictures to get the project nailed down.
"There is a lot to work on with locking down the rest of the cast, arranging shoots and completing the script but the hope is that they can start filming in the next 12 months."
Madonna is said to be heavily involved in the project and will direct the feature, which was first announced in 2020.
"I want to convey the incredible journey that life has taken me on as an artist, a musician, a dancer — a human being, trying to make her way in this world," she said in a statement at the time.
"The focus of this film will always be music. Music has kept me going and art has kept me alive. There are so many untold and inspiring stories and who better to tell it than me.
"It's essential to share the roller coaster ride of my life with my voice and vision."
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