Halsey’s all-outdoor tour should be the new standard
While most major acts are carrying on indoors, the singer chooses to emphasize COVID-safe touring.
Halsey is taking a COVID-friendly approach for their next tour to support the critically-acclaimed record If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power. Each stop on The Love and Power Tour has been booked at an outdoor venue. The road trip follows $1 million in box office earnings from the fall 2021 theatre release of the album’s accompanying film.
The music industry has been hit hard by COVID: touring was shut down altogether as the pandemic began, and the Delta and Omicron variants have complicated efforts to return to the road ever since. This is Halsey’s first time back on a performing schedule since their Manic tour was halted in early 2020. They announced The Love and Power tour on Instagram on Monday. “It’s been far too long, and I could not be more excited to see you all,” they said. The decision to use outdoor venues — a combination of amphitheater shows and festival performances — is a refreshing approach to getting back to the stage that it will be interesting to see if other artists will copy. If other variants emerge, which is likely, outdoor shows will have fewer cancellations and less risk of being super spreader events. It’s a big move on Halsey’s part, considering that most major tours are or soon will be rattling on indoors regardless of Omicron, like those of Kacey Musgraves, War On Drugs, Justin Beiber, Dua Lipa, and Elton John.
This is also Halsey’s first time back on tour since giving birth. They described the creation of making If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power last year as being, “about the joys and horrors of pregnancy and childbirth.” Halsey spoke a lot about the experience of becoming a mother while promoting the record. They told Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, “I think that the weight of … a female artist [is] deciphering time as not your enemy, when you’ve been taught for so long to think that it is. ‘Don’t get too old. Don’t get pregnant because then you can’t go on tour.”
The Love and Power Tour will kick off in West Palm Beach on May 17, and run through July 9. Tickets go on sale this Friday.
