formation tour vs renaissance tour

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Tina Knowles praises Beyoncé and Taylor Swift for boosting the economy. See how much their tours have made

Tina Knowles is celebrating two of 2023’s hottest tickets — Beyoncé’s “Renaissance Tour” and Taylor Swift’s “Eras Tour.”

On Instagram , Knowles shared a screenshot of a Facebook post from New York Times , which linked out to an article that detailed the economic and cultural impact of her daughter Beyoncé’s tour.

In the caption of her post, Knowles wrote, “This is so awesome ! To b able to stimulate the economy is no small feat! @beyonce.”

Knowles also gave a sweet nod to Swift in her caption, adding, “And ! @taylorswift ! Just being young women and being able to say this , is so awesome!!! Proud of them both !”

Beyoncé and Swift’s tours overlapped in the United States during the summer. Both were a pop culture sensation, with social media platforms inundated by various trends coming out of each tour.

For Swift’s “Eras Tour,” friendship bracelets and DIY themed costumes became the norm while Beyoncé’s “Renaissance” world tour birthed the “mute” challenge and had concertgoers following her request for a silver theme in celebration of Virgo season.

With Beyoncé’s tour wrapping up on Oct. 1 and Swift’s on-going tour resuming Nov. 9 in Argentina, both tours have already generated millions of dollars along the way.

Read on to learn more about each tour's economic impact.

How much has the “Renaissance Tour” made?

Beyoncé’s “Renaissance Tour” kicked off May 10 in Sweden and will conclude Oct. 1 in Kansas City. Before the tour kicked off, Forbes estimated that Beyoncé would earn nearly $2.1 billion from her tour.

The “Cuff It” singer’s tour set multiple records over the summer, including back-to-back records for the highest one-month gross in history in both July and August, according to a Sept. report by Billboard .

In July, she grossed $127.6 million and in August, that number increased to $179 million. The outlet also reported the “Renaissance Tour” became the highest grossing tour by a female artist, surpassing Madonna's “Sticky & Sweet Tour” with $461.3 million.

During the “Renaissance Tour,” Beyoncé also gave back $2 million to students and small business through her charity foundation, BeyGOOD. Half of the donations went to entrepreneurs, with luncheons hosted by BeyGOOD the day before each show for a chance to win a $100 thousand grant. The other portion of the $2 million donation was allocated to the Renaissance Scholarship Fund.

Beyoncé’s tour spawned several special moments over the course of its run, including a special tribute to the late Tina Turner , a birthday surprise from Diana Ross , as well as numerous performances alongside her eldest daughter, Blue Ivy.

It was also a hotspot for celebrities including Leonardo DiCaprio, Vanessa Bryant, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, Kim and Khloe Kardashian, and more.

How much has the “Eras Tour” made?

Swift’s “Eras Tour” originally ran from March 17 through August 9. Throughout the year, Swift added on additional dates including several international dates in 2023 and 2024 as well as additional 2024 dates in the United States and internationally. 

While Swift’s tour still has 13 months to go, so far it’s been estimated she's earned $1 billion in sales , with Pollstar estimating the singer will exceed $1.4 billion in the new year .

Swift's economic impact far has exceeded solely ticket sales, too. The tour also increased revenue for hotels across the country, with fans flocking to each city to experience her career-sprawling performances.

It was also reported Swift made several donations with her tour’s earnings, including donating to local food banks at each stop and gifting $100,000 bonus checks to her truck drivers at the end of the U.S. leg of the tour.

The singer’s tour is also set to hit the big screen in the United States, and now internationally. In a press release, AMC said that it took less than 24 hours for the film to “shatter AMC’s U.S. record for the highest ticket-sales revenue during a single day in AMC’s 103-year history.”

Swift’s “Eras Tour” was not without its faults though.

The singer spoke out against Ticketmaster after fans struggled to obtain tickets to the tour due to “historically unprecedented demand” causing the website to crash. The debacle sparked public scrutiny, including questions from senators , and elicited changes from the company before Beyoncé’s “Renaissance Tour” tickets went on sale.

Francesca Gariano is a New York City-based freelance journalist reporting on culture, entertainment, beauty, lifestyle and wellness. She is a freelance contributor to TODAY.com, where she covers pop culture and breaking news.

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Beyoncé: Renaissance World Tour review – a dizzying three-hour spectacular

Friends Arena, Stockholm Queen Bey’s first solo headline tour in seven years is a lavish leap forward for live entertainment, dripping with sci-fi disco decadence, sex and Black pride

E ven without Taylor Swift’s Ticketmaster-melting Eras Tour nipping at her heels, it wouldn’t do for a star as compulsively ambitious as Beyoncé to merely protect her status as the greatest pop show on Earth. Not when her first solo headline tour since 2016 could instead push 21st-century live entertainment another lavish leap forward.

Titled after the Texan’s disco glitter bomb post-pandemic party album of the same name , Renaissance is a monster blockbuster concert experience on a different plane. Fifty-seven stadium dates globally, starting in Stockholm, are projected to gross as much as £1.9bn ($2.4bn) by the time the tour ends in New Orleans late September. Dripping with sci-fi disco decadence, sex, body positivity and feminine Black pride, the near three-hour spectacular plays out in front, behind and, at times, inside a football-pitch-wide high-definition video screen designed to assault the senses at dizzying scale.

The BeyHive, as Beyoncé’s fans collectively style themselves, are buzzing pre-show as they flood into the venue from around the world for their first chance proper to see their queen live since 2018’s On the Run II co-headliner with Mr B, Jay-Z. Dressed head to toe in official tour merch, including a cap and hoodie both emblazoned with the word “THIQUE”, Mykwain Gainey has been to 20 Beyoncé shows over the past two decades and has spent nearly £2,000 to fly here from New York. “To see her transcend, and become what she has become, especially as a Black woman, is exciting,” he enthuses.

Brazilian Yhes Bezerra wears a spangly cowboy hat like the one sported by Beyoncé in the tour poster, except theirs is homemade; sticking on the thousands of tiny mirror panels took nine hours. They were determined to come to the opening night to avoid social media spoilers about what to expect. “I want everything to be a surprise,” Bezerra smiles.

Beyoncé appears first in a video cut scene, laid out luxuriously across the giant screen semi-naked in dimensions big enough to be visible from space. And yet, once she emerges in the flesh – all sequins, shoulder pads and that megawatt smile, drinking in the crowd’s screams – she begins disarmingly with a slew of her rawest soul songs. By the second, Flaws and All, she already appears to be fighting back tears, whether of release or gratitude or both. It’s an opening that seems designed to strip away artifice, if only to provide some sharp contrast for the heavily technologically augmented spectacle about to follow.

Harking back to early house and techno and the ecstatic utopia of the dancefloor, a segment dedicated to the Renaissance album ensues with Beyoncé done up something akin to the Maschinenmensch in Metropolis. She grinds with a dozen backing dancers to the jittery reggaeton of her boss bitch mission statement I’m That Girl, then dances with some actual robots (a pair of mechanical arms) during Cosy. Were all that not semi-hallucinogenic enough, Alien Superstar interpolates narcissistic anthem I’m Too Sexy by 90s dance-pop twosome Right Said Fred.

With many of the setlist’s whopping 36 songs abridged, the tempo is relentless. Blink and you’ll miss dancers popping out of the stage like champagne corks, or Beyoncé’s powerhouse band getting wheeled into occasional view on a tall stepped riser (shades of Beychella), such as during Chic-style feelgood funk workout Cuff It. “Y’all having a good time, Stockholm?” our host inquires, wiping an imperceptible bead of sweat from her brow. “Me too.”

Black Parade finds Beyoncé cruising the stage atop what looks like a kind of lunar rover. Somewhat comically, it exits up the gusset of a pair of massive splayed legs. Later she sings Plastic Off the Sofa stretched out in a clamshell. Come Crazy in Love, the show finally gets the enormous disco ball it seems to have long craved, dangled from the rafters for only a bit longer than the time it takes for the crew to get it up there and back down.

Bass-quaking, envelope-pushing Black power anthem Formation is a powerful political statement in any setting. Performed in a kind of virtual cathedral, horny southern rap and gospel cocktail Church Girl (sample lyric: “drop it like a thottie, drop it like a thottie”) might just be intended to provoke. But by Beyoncé’s own standards, it’s hard not to read Renaissance as a show much lighter on overt socio-political messaging than it is sheer, unfettered, mildly chaotic indulgence. And who could blame her?

In a final, unsubtle, retro-futuristic fanfare, Bey summons Bianca Jagger’s iconic Studio 54 moment by gliding through the air on a glitter-encrusted white horse while Summer Renaissance – which samples Donna Summer’s I Feel Love – blares. The disco history references may or may not be landing with the mostly young BeyHive, but that’s not really the point. By rewiring dance music past in a sensory overload of truly stunning ambition and stamina, Beyoncé is writing some history of her own.

The Renaissance World Tour continues until 27 September, see https://tour.beyonce.com/ for dates

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Beyoncé Finally Comes Down to Earth

In her new concert film  renaissance , the megastar embraces her imperfections..

If you’ve seen Beyoncé perform within the past decade, whether on a televised awards show or in the flesh, then congratulations: You have borne witness to a seamless orchestration of myriad moving parts, a perfect machine that only grows more gargantuan and complex with each new tour. “Spectacle” would be one way to put it, though that suggests that a Beyoncé performance is merely something to look at. “Experience” may be the more accurate term: Beyoncé envelops you in her craft, in her storytelling, in her sheer force of gravity—and, increasingly, since the 2016 “Formation” tour for her acclaimed album Lemonade , in the long-hidden messier inner workings of her life and her art. A decadeslong pursuit of perfection began to shift, in that stage of her career, to breaking down those same barriers of perfection that demarcated her as more idol than human. Now, after spending the past few years chipping away at this facade, the megastar has not just embraced her imperfections, but released a full-scale celebration of them with her latest concert film Renaissance , now playing in theaters.

Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé begins in the same way as the shows from her “Renaissance” tour do, with the songs “Dangerously in Love” and “Flaws and All.” Specifically, the performance of “Flaws and All” that Beyoncé gave in Inglewood, California, on the day of her 42 nd birthday, prefaced by a moving speech about everything she’s thankful for, from her family and fans to “every flaw, every stretchmark, every fupa .” This expression of vulnerability, coming from an artist who, just a decade ago, made headlines for banning professional photographers from her concerts following the publication of apparently not-flattering-enough photos , is perhaps a sign that Beyoncé has gone all in on, as she describes it, “the ability to make lemonade out of lemons,” a loosening of absolute control and a demystification of the icon that began with Lemonade . Granted, everything we see in Renaissance , including the singer’s depiction of her own imperfection, has still been curated by her, but the fact that the film details so many of the lemons she has encountered throughout her life—the resulting lemonade, of course, being the show we are currently witnessing—feels, at the very least, like a sizable shift in image, and, at the most, gratifying.

Though Beyoncé’s previous concert film, 2019’s Homecoming —which centered her celebration of Blackness at her historic Coachella headlining performance—took the same approach of blending concert and behind-the-scenes footage, and earned praise for highlighting Beyoncé’s dancers and the star’s strict regimen in getting show-ready after having twins, it stopped just short of showing the true extent of manual labor involved in creating the production. A large part of breaking down the idea of Beyoncé is unveiling the workhorse that functions under her name, and the Renaissance film does that by highlighting the nuts and bolts of what the singer describes as the “well-oiled machine” of the tour. She reminds the audience of the huge crew that worked tirelessly for the four-plus years it took to create the show. She dresses her crew members in reflective jumpsuits to showcase the “choreography of what they do.” The work is far from flaw-proof, she reminds us: Half an hour into the film, after she goes long on the fine-tuned technicalities of the production, Beyoncé inserts footage of the moment, during her August performance in Arizona , when the audio unexpectedly cut off. It’s the making-of-lemonade in action: In the scramble to reinstate the audio, her team decides to have her do a costume change, ensuring that every exit and entrance onto the stage, even the unplanned ones, are a moment .

The film’s inclusion of that hitch, which is smartly edited to trick the audience into thinking the movie has cut out for a moment, illustrates a point that Beyoncé states outright later on: She “doesn’t give a fuck” anymore. By now, she has nothing to prove; everything that an artist could possibly achieve in a lifetime, she’s already done. (Save for an eyebrow-raisingly elusive Grammy for Album of the Year, but do not get me started on that.) She says she used to rehearse constantly so that she would be prepared enough to be free onstage, but on this tour, she’s “just free.” That sense of freedom comes through, evident in the countless fan videos of the singer messing up, laughing at her own mistakes, and sharing inside jokes with her fans. Looking back at videos of Beyoncé from early in her career, it was always obvious that she had a personality, but there was a time that she shielded it behind layers of fiercely upheld privacy and careful image calibration. Now, finally, she is in what my friends and I have dubbed a return to her “funny era.”

But Renaissance isn’t only about coming back from, transforming, or chuckling at minor, split-second fumbles onstage. In the behind-the-scenes footage, Beyoncé details her struggles, like suffering, at the age of 13, from a vocal injury that she feared would jeopardize her entire career, or undergoing knee surgery shortly before rehearsing for this show. She even shows herself reuniting with the other members of Destiny’s Child for, she explains, the first time ever—a reunion that included the two members whose exit from the group, before it became the trio many recognize it as today, was the subject of a lawsuit that was settled out of court in 2002 —alluding to the tumultuous and notably hush-hush history of the group’s many iterations.

Beyoncé’s most touching display of vulnerability, however, concerns motherhood. Though the show is a well-oiled machine, Beyoncé states in the film that she is not; she’s a human who struggles to balance her work with motherhood because, as demanding as her work is, her primary job is to be a present and involved mother. “Kids don’t care what you do for a living, they just want their mom,” she says. Admittedly, it’s in the portrayal of Beyoncé’s struggle balancing motherhood and work that the film indulges too much in the classic hagiography present in most concert films: Beyoncé says she still takes her kids to school, but doesn’t quite seem to realize how out of touch it may come across as to mention in the same breath how she would fly to Cannes to join her children in a luxurious French home for the second half of her tour. And, of course, there’s no mention of the help she can afford—the nannies for her children, the best physical therapists that can travel with her to monitor her knee rehab, all the other unseen labor that goes into facilitating her quest to have it all.

Nevertheless, Beyoncé’s story of motherhood is still compelling—nowhere more than in the part of the film that focuses on Blue Ivy, Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s 11-year-old daughter, who became something of a sensation this summer after dancing during the “My Power”/”Black Parade” medley, first at Beyoncé’s Paris show on May 26 , then subsequently at various stops. In a rare moment of vulnerability, mother and daughter share how Blue Ivy faced criticism on social media over her first performance. With more clarity than many celebrity parents seem to possess, Beyoncé explains that she was hesitant to let her child go onstage because Blue Ivy hasn’t been through the obstacles that Beyoncé has, which, difficult as they were, prepared her to be the performer she is today. But by honoring her child’s desire to join her on the main stage—a child who has been criticized online since her birth for no real reason other than having famous parents—Beyoncé obliterated a cycle of idealized perfection: All Blue Ivy had to do was take the leap, face the criticism, and work hard to overcome her challenges, rather than become paralyzed by the unattainability of perfection.

The film, as made explicit by Beyoncé’s opening speech, is built on the idea of exalting that which makes us human, whether it’s our flaws, our vulnerabilities, or our identity. It’s a meditation on time, aging, and motherhood. Watching it in the darkness of the cinema, surrounded by the palpable joys and heartbreaks of my fellow theatergoers, I teared up at the film’s touching remembrance of Beyoncé’s Uncle Johnny , a close friend of her mother’s, whose influence on Beyoncé’s life—as a Black, Southern, gay man—before he passed serves as the inspiration for this album. Life and death are two sides of the same coin; in embracing what it means to be mortal—and, by extension, human and imperfect—Beyoncé found a way, in this Renaissance era of hers, to celebrate life and liberation. She does it in a way that only a Beyoncé who has stepped down to earth from her pedestal after more than 20 years finally can.

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Music and Concerts | Concert review: Beyoncé delivers meticulously…

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Music and concerts, subscriber only, music and concerts | concert review: beyoncé delivers meticulously crafted concert spectacular beneath the stars, there really needs to be more shows at huntington bank stadium.

The summer’s second in a would-be trilogy of pop music spectaculars all but took over Huntington Bank Stadium Thursday night as Beyoncé thrilled a crowd of about 35,000 with an eye-popping, meticulously planned and executed evening of outsized, celebratory song and dance.

Taylor Swift kicked it off last month with two sold-out U.S. Bank Stadium shows that stand among the finest-ever live pop music productions. Madonna was set to wrap the trifecta July 30 at Xcel Energy Center until she was hospitalized with a “serious bacterial infection” following weeks of relentless tour rehearsals and forced to postpone the outing’s North American leg. (The move has caused many fans to speculate her health problems are far more serious than what they’ve been told.)

Like all three women, the 41-year-old Beyoncé is well-known for wielding an iron fist over all aspects of her music, career and image and that fact was on full display Thursday night. (That included not allowing local press to photograph the proceedings and banning critics from bringing laptops to file a review from the venue.)

Where Swift offered a curated career overview with an eye toward her most devoted followers, Beyoncé designed her entire performance around her seventh album “Renaissance,” a love letter to late 20th century Black and queer dance music. That meant a set list stuffed with samples, cover versions (“River Deep, Mountain High,” “I’m Going Down”) and remixes (most notably her epic reimagined take on “Break My Soul” that incorporates Madonna’s “Vogue,” complete with an updated spoken word interlude paying homage to such greats as Grace Jones, Nina Simone, Whitney Houston, Diana Ross and Lizzo).

As such, she skipped some of her biggest smashes, including “Irreplaceable,” “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” and “Halo.” But if the fans missed those bangers, it wasn’t evident as the bulk of the crowd spent the two-and-a-half hours screaming in pleasure, singing along and swaying to every last beat. (Shout out to the guy behind me who quite poorly sang/shouted throughout and kept banging me in the head with his bag of Beyoncé merch.)

Beyonce, Crazy in Love, 7.20.23, Huntington Bank Stadium. pic.twitter.com/RvG8CJ7VF7 — Ross Raihala (Alpha Male) 🏳️‍🌈 (@RossRaihala) July 21, 2023

Beyoncé split the concert into six distinct acts (actually seven, as the “Anointed” segment was divided in two), with an encore of “Summer Renaissance,” each with its own sonic and visual theme, complete with dazzling special effects like a massive mirror ball and giant robotic horse she rode in on. All of which took place behind a towering video wall, the center of which opened up to reveal her full band (with horn section and backup singers) and the nearly two dozen dancers.

The biggest issue in an otherwise outstanding show was the pacing. She began with a half dozen mid-tempo tracks and ballads, an unusual choice given she had no opening act to warm up the crowd. Also, the lengthy breaks between acts — to give Bey and her small army of dancers the chance to change into new, ever-more elaborate costumes — cut into the momentum, although one might say the audience needed the breaks just as much as she did.

Another takeaway from the night was the big question as to why the former TCF Bank Stadium on the University of Minnesota campus is so woefully underused for tours. Indeed, the last major concert in the venue was … Beyoncé’s first solo all-stadium Formation Tour in 2016. The answer, of course, is that U.S. Bank Stadium has a larger capacity and isn’t hindered by potential bad weather, even if concerts there suffer from notoriously muddy sound that gets worse the further one sits from the stage. That said, Thursday night’s weather proved absolutely ideal, to the point I stopped several times to remind myself I was sitting outside.

Highlights of the night included Beyoncé’s powerful vocals (which seem to get stronger with age), a surprise appearance from her 11-year-old daughter (with rapper Jay-Z) Blue Ivy Carter, the aforementioned “Break My Soul” mashup, another remix-enhanced number in “Cuff It” and barn-burning versions of her classics “Crazy in Love,” “Love on Top,” “Formation” and “Diva.”

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Culture | Music

‘Taylornomics’ and Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour: what are the most lucrative music tours ever?

It’s a good year for pop music fans, as two of the world’s biggest acts are currently on tour: over the last several months both Beyoncé and Taylor Swift have been travelling the world playing to sold out stadiums.

Beyoncé’s Renaissance tour began in May and saw the artist play five consecutive nights at London’s Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in June. Swift’s Eras tour launched in March; she is currently in the US and will play in London next summer.

The tours of both artists have already raked in approximately $300 million each. This places Taylor Swift at the fifth spot and Beyoncé at the sixth spot on the list of the highest-grossing tours of the decade.

But the success of the sold-out shows doesn’t stop there: Beyoncé’s Renaissance tour has broken Beyoncé’s own record, becoming the highest-grossing tour by any Black artist ever, having already made $295 million and with another 20 shows yet to go ahead. Beyoncé has easily surpassed the takings of both her 2016 The Formation World Tour, which earned $256 million, and her 2013-2014 The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour, which made $229 million.

And without adjusting for inflation, Beyoncé has also far exceeded the takings of both Michael Jackson’s 1987-1989 Bad World Tour (which earned $125 million) and Tina Turner’s 1987-88 Break Every Rule tour (which earned $60 million).

Similarly, Taylor Swift’s Eras tour has already made over $300 million, which has surpassed the takings of her 2015 The 1989 World Tour, which earned $250 million. Her 2018 Reputation Stadium Tour made $345 million dollars, and given that Swift is still yet to complete nearly half of her tour, its extremely likely that she will smash her own personal best soon too.

In December, Billboard predicted that Swift would make as much as $590 million when the Eras concerts are completed, and back then the American pop star had only planned 52 stops. Swift has been adding dates to her tour ever since, and she is now set to stage a whopping 146 performances. If Swift continues to make money in line with Billboard’s projections, the artist could make as much as $1 billion by the end of the worldwide tour.

Even if she doesn’t reach that mind-blowing figure, Swift is on track to smash the record for the top female solo artist on the tour money rankings. Madonna currently sits at the top spot: her 2008-2009 Sticky & Sweet Tour made $411 million (which is around $560 million when adjusted for inflation).

Swift is also reportedly having a major financial impact on the cities she visits: “It’s simple Taylornomics: When Taylor Swift comes to town, Swifties go on a spending spree,” said the Wall Street Journal. In July, The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia said that Swift’s concerts had helped to increase tourism in the region – a pattern that is emerging across the country.

So who tops the charts?

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Elton John is the artist who has earnt the most from a single tour, raking in a whopping $939 million for his Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour, which came to a close in June.

The 76-year Rocket Man singer said goodbye at this year’s Glastonbury, playing to a crowd of approximately 100,000 people – the performance was described by The Standard’s Dylan Jones as “ primal gratification on a massive scale ”.

Ed Sheeran is second on the money list, with his Divide Tour (2017-19) having made $776 million, while U2 sits at third place, with their 360° Tour (2009-2011) having made $736 million.

However, when these figures are adjusted for inflation, it’s reportedly U2 who actually sit at the top of the highest-earners list.

The list of top 20 highest-earning tours of all time includes a number of bands: Coldplay, Guns N’ Roses, The Rolling Stones, AC/DC, Metallica and The Police; major pop stars: Harry Styles, Madonna, Bruno Mars and Pink; country singers: Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood; and standout rock act Roger Waters.

When the list is narrowed down to the top earners of this decade, it shifts to include international acts such as Bad Bunny, Blackpink, and Daddy Yankee, showing the diversification of music over recent years.

The 2022 World’s Hottest Tour from Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny, who was crowned Spotify’s most-streamed artist last year after clocking 18.5 billion streams, earned $314 million, placing him at fourth place on the list. Meanwhile the K-pop girl group come in at eighth on the list with their ongoing Born Pink World Tour. It has made $220 million so far. The 83-date La Última Vuelta World Tour from Puerto Rican rapper Daddy Yankee, made $198 million last year, placing him at ninth on the list.

Coldplay, who have made $617 million and counting from their ongoing Music of the Spheres World Tour, sit at the top of the list.

Taylor Swift is set to play in London on June 21, 22 and 23 and August 15, 16 and 17 2024

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On Her Renaissance Tour, the World Is Beyoncé’s Ball

The pop superstar’s first solo outing in seven years draws on the dance-music cultures that inspired her 2022 album, and her work that led up to that ecstatic release.

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By Lindsay Zoladz

Reporting from Toronto

It was a crowd that had come to dance, dressed for a rodeo in the distant future: sparkling cowboy hats, silvery fringe, outré sunglasses and any other sartorial detail that represented “Renaissance,” Beyoncé’s dazzling seventh album and the occasion for her first solo tour in seven years. But as the imperial pop superstar took the stage at the Rogers Center in Toronto on Saturday night for the first North American show of her Renaissance World Tour, she reminded the club-ready audience just who was in charge. Because if they were prepared to move, she was going to make them wait a little longer.

Setting the table for a two-and-a-half-hour performance that was visually spectacular, vocally ambitious and sometimes tonally confused, Beyoncé, 41 — clad in a glimmering chain-mail mini dress — began the show with a nearly 30-minute stretch of ballads and deep cuts that harked back to her past: an acrobatically sung solo rendition of the 2001 Destiny’s Child track “Dangerously in Love,” a bit of “Flaws and All” from the deluxe edition of her 2007 album “B’Day,” and the sparse, soulful “1+1” from 2011, which she belted atop a mirrored piano.

It was a both a display of her vocal agility and a curiously traditional way to start a show centered around an album as conceptually bold and forward-thinking as “Renaissance” — a sprawling, knowingly referential romp through the history of dance music , with an emphasis on the contributions of Black and queer innovators. Here, instead, was a stopover in Beyoncé’s Middle Ages.

As a live entertainer, though, she has earned a fresh start. The Renaissance World Tour shows are some of Beyoncé’s first appearances since her dazzling, commanding performance headlining the 2018 Coachella festival (later released as the concert film and live album “Homecoming”), which served as a kind of mic-drop capstone to her career thus far. It would be futile to repeat that, and difficult to top it. The loose, fluid “Renaissance,” still said to be the first part of a trilogy , represents a new chapter in Beyoncé’s recorded oeuvre. And once the show finally found its center and, however belatedly, welcomed the crowd to the Renaissance, it heralded her maturity as a performer, too.

The show’s look — as projected in diamond-sharp definition onto a panoramic screen — conjured Fritz Lang’s “ Metropolis ” by way of the 1990 drag ball documentary “Paris Is Burning.” After a lengthy video introduction, Beyoncé emerged from a chrome cocoon and vamped through a thrilling stretch of the first suite of “Renaissance” songs; during “Cozy,” most strikingly, a pair of hydraulic robotic arms centered her body in industrial picture frames, like a post-human Mona Lisa.

In May, when Beyoncé began the European leg of the Renaissance World Tour, rumors swirled that she may have been recovering from a foot injury, since her choreography was a bit more static and less stomp-heavy than usual. The Toronto show did nothing to dispel that chatter, but it also showed that it doesn’t matter much. Perhaps because of some constraints, Beyoncé has embraced new means of bodily expression. She brought the flavor of ball movements into the show and served face all night, curling her lip like a hungry predator, widening her eyes in mock surprise, scrunching her features in exaggerated disgust.

Few seats in the stadium provided a legible view of Beyoncé’s face, of course, though the screen took care of that. She played expertly to the cameras that followed her every choreographed move, aware of how she’d appear to the majority of the audience and — perhaps just as crucially — in FOMO-inducing social media videos. The stage itself was breathtaking, featuring an arced cutout section of the screen that made for playful visuals, but its full grandeur was not visible from many of the side seats, making the band and sometimes the dancers difficult to see.

The screen, though, was the point. Beyoncé’s two solo releases before “Renaissance” — her 2013 self-titled album and “Lemonade,” from 2016 — were billed as “visual albums,” featuring a fully realized music video for each track. Again toying with her fans’ anticipation, she has still not released any videos from “Renaissance,” giving the previously unseen graphics that filled her expansive backdrop an added impact, and making them feel more weighty than a convenient way to pass time between costume changes.

Many of the tour’s outfits struck a balance between Beyoncé’s signature styles — megawatt sparkles, high-cut bodysuits — and the futuristic bent of “Renaissance.” She played haute couture bee in custom Mugler by Casey Cadwallader and glimmered in a Gucci corset draped with crystals. But the night’s most memorable look — so instantly iconic that a few fans had already tried to replicate it, from photos of the European shows — was a flesh-tone catsuit by the Spanish label Loewe, embellished with a few suggestively placed, red-fingernailed hands.

Throughout the set, Beyoncé wove interpolations of her predecessors’ songs throughout her own, as if to place her music in a larger continuum. The grandiose “I Care” segued into a bit of “River Deep, Mountain High,” in honor of Tina Turner, who died in May . The cheery throwback “Love on Top” contained elements of the Jackson 5’s “Want You Back.” Most effective was the “Queens Remix” she performed of “Break My Soul,” which mashes up the “Renaissance” leadoff single with Madonna’s “Vogue,” paying homage to the mainstream pop star who brought queer ball culture to the masses before her. (The merch on sale at a Renaissance Tour pop-up shop in the days before the show included a hand-held fan emblazoned with the song title “Heated” for $40. It sold out.)

The show contained moments that sometimes felt conceptually cluttered and at odds with the “Renaissance” album’s sharp vision, like dorm-room-poster quotes from Albert Einstein and Jim Morrison that filled the screen during video montages. The middle stretch, arriving with a lively “Formation,” featured Beyoncé and her dancers clad in camo print, riding and occasionally writhing atop a prop military vehicle. There was a wordless, gestural power in the moment she and her entourage held their fists in the air, referencing a salute that had rankled some easily rankle-able viewers of the 2016 Super Bowl Halftime Show. But if Beyoncé was calling for any more specific forms of protest or political awareness — especially in a moment when drag culture and queer expression are being threatened at home and throughout the world — those went unarticulated.

Beyoncé’s endurance as a world-class performer remained the show’s raison d’être; she is the rare major pop star who prizes live vocal prowess. By the end of the long night — and especially during the striking closing number, the disco reverie “Summer Renaissance,” when she floated above the crowd like a deity on a glittering horse — she extended the microphone to lend out some of the high notes to her eager and adoring fans. “Until next time,” she said, keeping the stage banter relatively minimal and pat. “Drive home safe!”

Even when Beyoncé embraces styles and cultures known for their improvisational looseness, she still seems to be striving toward perfection — a pageant smile always threatens to break through the stank face. Commanding a stadium-sized audience, she was an introvert wearing an extrovert’s armor. That tension is part of both her boundless charm and her occasional limitations as a performer. And it makes moments of genuine spontaneity all the more prized.

Naturally, #RenaissanceWorldTour was trending on Twitter long after the show, but one of the clips that went viral was unplanned. During a rousing performance of her early hit “Diva,” Beyoncé accidentally dropped her sunglasses. She fumbled them for a second, mouthed an expletive as they fell to the ground, and gave a sincere, shrugging grin before snapping back into the choreography’s formation. For a fleeting moment, she seemed human after all.

Beyoncé Announces ‘Renaissance’ Stadium Tour Dates

By Jem Aswad

Executive Editor, Music

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As expected, Beyoncé has announced a 2023 world tour on Instagram, supporting her multiple-Grammy-nominated 2022 album, “Renaissance.” She also released the dates and cities on her official website.

The timing of the announcement, which comes just days before the Grammy Awards on Sunday, sparks speculation that the singer may perform or at least appear on the show. Beyoncé is the most nominated artist for the awards with nine, all related to “ Renaissance .” Sources tell Variety that her husband Jay-Z will perform with DJ Khaled on the show, most likely their nominated song “God Did.”

Beyoncé has said that “Renaissance” is a three-part project, so it’s possible that the next parts could be another album, a long-form video project or even the tour itself.

Beyoncé’s last full tour was the nearly six-month, 49-date “Formation” tour in 2016, which unusually featured no guest appearances until the final show, at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium, where she brought out Kendrick Lamar and Jay-Z.

She did, however, stage an epochal “Homecoming” headlining performance at the 2018 Coachella festival — which was postponed from 2017 due to the birth of her and Jay’s twins — for which she was accompanied by a full marching band in a nod to historically Black colleges and universities. That blockbuster performance was later released as the “Homecoming” album and — via a three-project deal with Netflix that sources tell Variety is worth $60 million — a feature-length documentary. It seems possible that a future “Renaissance” video project could be part of that deal as well.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Beyoncé (@beyonce)

May 10, 2023 – Stockholm, SE – Friends Arena

May 14, 2023 – Brussels, BE – King Baudouin Stadium

May 17, 2023 – Cardiff, UK – Cardiff Principality Stadium

May 20, 2023 – Edinburgh, UK – BT Murrayfield Stadium

May 23, 2023 – Sunderland, UK – Stadium of Light

May 26, 2023 – Paris, FR – Stade de France

May 29, 2023 – London, UK – Tottenham Hotspur Stadium

May 30, 2023 – London, UK – Tottenham Hotspur Stadium

June 08, 2023 – Barcelona, ES – Olympic Stadium

June 11, 2023 – Marseille, FR – Orange Velodrome

June 15, 2023 – Cologne, DE – Rhein Energie Stadion June 17, 2023 – Amsterdam, NL – Johan Cruijff Arena

June 21, 2023 – Hamburg, DE – Volksparkstadion

June 24, 2023 – Frankfurt, DE – Deutsche Bank Park

June 27, 2023 – Warsaw, PL – PGE Narodowy

NORTH AMERICA

July 8, 2023 – Toronto, ON – Rogers Centre

July 12, 2023 – Philadelphia, PA – Lincoln Financial Field

July 15, 2023 – Nashville, TN – Nissan Stadium

July 17, 2023 – Louisville, KY – L&N Federal Credit Union Stadium

July 20, 2023 – Minneapolis, MN – Huntington Bank Stadium

July 22, 2023 – Chicago, IL – Soldier Field Stadium

July 26, 2023 – Detroit, MI – Ford Field

July 29, 2023 – East Rutherford, NJ – MetLife Stadium

Aug. 01, 2023 – Boston, MA – Gillette Stadium

Aug. 03, 2023 – Pittsburgh, PA – Acrisure Stadium

Aug. 05, 2023 – Washington, DC – FedEx Field

Aug. 09, 2023 – Charlotte, NC – Bank of America Stadium

Aug. 11, 2023 – Atlanta, GA – Mercedes-Benz Stadium

Aug. 16, 2023 – Tampa, FL – Raymond James Stadium

Aug. 18, 2023 – Miami, FL – Hard Rock Stadium

Aug. 21, 2023 – St. Louis, MO – Dome at America’s Center

Aug. 24, 2023 – Phoenix, AZ – State Farm Stadium

Aug. 26, 2023 – Las Vegas, NV – Allegiant Stadium

Aug. 30, 2023 – San Francisco, CA – Levi’s Stadium

Sept. 02, 2023 – Inglewood, CA – SoFi Stadium

Sept. 11, 2023 – Vancouver, BC – BC Place

Sept. 13, 2023 – Seattle, WA – Lumen Field

Sept. 18, 2023 – Kansas City, MO – GEHA Field At Arrowhead Stadium

Sept. 21, 2023 – Dallas, TX – AT&T Stadium

Sept. 23, 2023 – Houston, TX – NRG Stadium

Sept. 27, 2023 – New Orleans, LA – Caesars Superdome

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Taylor swift vs. beyoncé is 2023's final box office battle - so who will win.

2023 sees the clash of music titans Taylor Swift vs. Beyoncé at the box office as The Eras Tour & Renaissance Tour movies hit the big screen.

• Taylor Swift and Beyoncé are both poised to have blockbuster concert movies in 2023, with Swift's Eras Tour projected to gross $2.2 billion in ticket sales in North America alone.
• Swift's concert movie has generated massive pre-sale hype, breaking AMC's record for the highest ticket-sales revenue in less than 24 hours, outselling Beyoncé's film 7-to-1 on day one.
• While both artists have strong fan bases, Swift's concert movie may have a broader appeal as a pure spectacle, while Beyoncé's movie takes a documentary-style approach, chronicling her behind-the-scenes journey.

As the end-of-the-year movie slate hits theaters, Taylor Swift vs. Beyoncé is shaping up to be 2023's final box office battle. Earlier in the year, Barbie and Oppenheimer — a.k.a. Barbenheimer — duked it out at the box office due to their simultaneous theatrical releases. Now, a new set of challengers enters the fray. Unlike other 2023 movie match-ups, however, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour and RENAISSANCE: A Film by Beyoncé don't share a release date. While Swift's 3-hour journey through her discography hits theaters on October 13, Queen Bey's boundary-pushing Renaissance Tour journey releases on December 1.

Despite their different artistic tracks, both musicians are record-breaking icons in their own right. Beyoncé is the most-nominated female musician in Grammy Awards history, while Swift is the first and only female solo artist to nab the Album of the Year Grammy three times over. Plus, if the artists' dual concert success stories are any indication, The Eras Tour and Beyoncé's Renaissance concert movie are poised to be 2023's late-season blockbusters. Often, successful women are pitted against each other in one of pop culture's most frustrating and tired tropes, and, as a result, that has spectators wondering which concert movie has better box office odds.

Taylor Swift's Eras Tour Compared To Beyoncé's Renaissance

In a thrilling turn of events, audiences were treated to both Beyoncé's Renaissance Tour and Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour in 2023. Tina Knowles, Beyoncé's mother, praised both women for their ultra-successful tours, posting, " to stimulate the economy is no small feat " (via Today ). Knowles' isn't exaggerating either. According to Forbes , the Renaissance Tour has grossed more than $579 million across 56 stops. The wildly popular tour marked the singer's first since 2016's The Formation World Tour , which centered on Lemonade — another pop-cultural phenomenon. This made demand for tickets incredibly high and an estimated 2.2 million fans attended stops on Beyoncé's Renaissance Tour .

While Beyoncé's half-a-billion dollar gross is nothing to scoff at, Swift has eclipsed most other musicians when it comes to Eras Tour ticket sales and demand. In total, the "Anti-Hero" singer's tour will encompass a staggering 146 dates. According to Time Magazine , Swift's Eras Tour has a " projected gross of $2.2 billion in North American ticket sales alone. " Moreover, analysts predict Swift will cross the $1 billion mark in early 2024, shattering Elton John's $939 million record from his multi-year farewell tour. Ultimately, it's difficult to compare the tours, as both singers' shows have vastly different scopes and artistic aims.

Why Beyonce’s $73 Million Box Office Hit Is Still So Divisive 14 Years Later

Taylor swift's eras tour movie has more hype (for now).

Due to what Ticketmaster dubbed " historically unprecedented demand, " legions of Swifties were unable to secure Eras Tour tickets in late 2022. Although the website crashing and booting out Swift fans only added fuel to a fire that's been simmering for years, everyone from U.S. senators to the "All Too Well" singer herself has spoken out about the platform's choke-hold on ticket sales. That said, demand for Eras concert tickets was incredibly high. For fans who couldn't secure tour tickets and the casually curious alike, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour presents an exciting opportunity to see all 9 Taylor Swift eras featured in the concert on the silver screen.

With a movie ticket costing substantially less than entry to a Swift concert, there's been massive pre-sale noise surrounding the show's filmed version. According to AMC Theatres , the movie " shatter[ed] AMC’s U.S. record for the highest ticket-sales revenue during a single day in AMC’s 103-year history " in less than 24 hours. It's hard to top that kind of pre-release performance, but it's also true that Beyoncé's has only just announced the Renaissance Tour movie. While the "Cuff It" singer's first-day pre-sales generated roughly $6 million, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour tickets outsold Beyoncé's film 7-to-1 on day one (via Deadline ).

Why Taylor Swift's Eras Tour Will Beat Beyoncé At The Box Office

At this point, it's hard to see how Renaissance could out-perform The Eras Tour . While both artists have legions of fans who'll fill theaters across the country, The Eras Tour might have a somewhat broader appeal, if only because it's a pure concert-in-movie-form. Beyoncé's movie takes a more documentary-style approach, chronicling not just concert moments, but her behind-the-scenes journey too. For those wanting pure spectacle, Swift's movie might have the edge. So far, Swift's Eras Tour movie is projected to do $100 million in ticket sales (via CNBC ), and Taylor Swift has scared off five movies with her film's release date.

Taylor Swift & Beyoncé Will Both Be Big Box Office Winners In 2023

Ultimately, comparing their box office draws isn't as exciting as celebrating both Beyoncé and Taylor Swift's continued successes. Plus, the artists will both get hefty cuts of their respective, box-office-topping grosses. Taylor Swift could break a 12-year-old movie record based on how sales are going so far. Not to mention, the release of 1989 (Taylor's Version) will surely boost ticket sales further. Meanwhile, Beyoncé has chosen a historically slow week to open her film, meaning she'll turn a quiet time into a blockbuster moment. At a time when Hollywood needs some wins, both Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour and RENAISSANCE: A Film by Beyoncé will deliver.

Sources: Today, Forbes, Time Magazine, AMC Theatres, Deadline, CNBC

Beyoncé lays claim to the throne at SoFi Stadium

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The Renaissance has reached Los Angeles.

Four months after it launched in Europe and immediately took over social media, Beyoncé’s blockbuster Renaissance world tour begins a sold-out, three-night stand at Inglewood’s SoFi Stadium on Friday. The pop superstar’s first solo outing since the Formation tour in 2016, Beyoncé’s latest live spectacle comes behind last year’s “ Renaissance ” album, her loving and meticulous ode to the Black and queer pioneers of half a century’s worth of dance music.

Reports from the road promise a high-tech, costume-heavy 2½-hour show in which the singer — after warming up with a series of R&B ballads — performs the songs from “Renaissance” in order with older tunes and covers interspersed among them. Close followers of the tour on TikTok also know to look out for onstage appearances by Beyoncé’s 11-year-old daughter, Blue Ivy, and for the so-called mute challenge , in which the crowd is supposed to go silent at a particular point in the song “Energy.” (Another recurring feature: Beyoncé’s husband, Jay-Z, who’s been spotted in the audience at more than a few gigs alongside the likes of Paul McCartney, Frank Ocean, Lizzo, Ariana Grande, Selena Gomez, Dua Lipa and Megan Thee Stallion.)

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Do you confuse Honey Balenciaga with Honey Djion? Carlos Basquiat with Jean-Michel Basquiat? Let The Times help, with this handy glossary for all things Queen B.

Aug. 28, 2023

The SoFi dates, which come as the tour enters its final weeks — and as its gross proceeds approach a half-billion dollars, according to Billboard — could prove especially splashy: Ahead of her 42nd birthday on Monday, Beyoncé has asked concertgoers to wear their “most fabulous silver fashions” to celebrate “Virgo season together in the house of chrome.”

The Times’ Mikael Wood and August Brown are at SoFi for opening night and will provide live updates from the show as it happens.

Entertainment & Arts

What to know about SoFi Stadium before Beyoncé’s Renaissance concert

Ahead of Beyoncé’s tour dates at SoFi Stadium, here are some things you should know, including the bag and outside food policies, what SoFi Stadium is like and what to eat once you’re there.

Aug. 29, 2023

7:15 p.m. Greetings from the (very) early shift at SoFi, where CeCe Peniston is pumping on the sound system and everyone seems to have obeyed Bey’s command to wear silver in honor of her triumphant Virgo season. I heard war stories of hours-long traffic jams for Taylor Swift’s Eras shows, so I took Metro to the stadium, which was relatively smooth sailing on the 212 bus. So far, the mood is pretty composed, but once all those fans’ tequila shots from the street vendors kick in (will we get “Drunk in Love” on this stop?), it’ll ramp up in short order. — August Brown

7:55 p.m. There’s no formal opener on the Renaissance tour, but there is a warm-up act for the Club Renaissance portion of the show: DJ Khaled, who made an extremely loud entrance with “All I Do Is Win.” Nice to see a guy so used to yelling his own name take a more humble billing. — A.B.

8:02 p.m. Can confirm the parking for Renaissance is just as nightmarish as the parking for Eras was! But traffic is far too boring a subject to dwell on as I walk into SoFi amid the beautifully silver-bedecked masses. Between recent gigs by Taylor, Morgan Wallen and Metallica, I feel like I’ve spent as much time in this building this summer as I have anywhere else in L.A. But no other fans can come close to matching the outfits on display tonight. — Mikael Wood

8:14 p.m. DJ Khaled brought a friend with him: 2 Chainz, who just popped out to do his songs “Watch Out” and “I’m Different” and to tell anyone with a birthday that we are most definitely celebrating tonight. Wonder if this cameo portends a special guest or two during Beyoncé’s set… — M.W.

8:22 p.m. As Khaled would say, ANOTHER ONE: Now Wiz Khalifa’s here, zipping through “Young, Wild & Free” and “See You Again.” (Alas, no Charlie Puth.) — M.W.

8:28 p.m. We’re still in the pregame portion, but now it’s local hero Roddy Ricch doing “The Box.” If you’re a rapper with a night off in L.A. and you’re not up here, it might be personal. — A.B.

8:30 p.m. Best silver outfits glimpsed so far: a guy in a glittery mariachi suit, a lady dressed as an alien superstar and a dude in full chain mail. — M.W.

8:36 p.m. When was the last time you listened to “Bad and Boujee”? If you’re at the Beyoncé show, you’re hearing it now: Offset just dropped in to rap the 2016 Migos hit with DJ Khaled. What a song. — M.W.

8:41 p.m. Lil Wayne just rolled up in a bucket hat and giant shorts like a true Zoomer. He was having some mic trouble and didn’t quite get off a full verse before departing. Still, it’s a great Bey bait and switch — why have one opener when you can have everyone open? — A.B.

8:42 p.m. This cavalcade of stars feels almost vulgar in its over-the-topness. Makes you proud to be an Angeleno. — M.W.

8:44 p.m. They’re tearing down Khaled’s rig. Countdown to Renaissance begins now. — A.B.

8:53 p.m. The lights have dimmed and we are approaching Bey o’clock. — M.W.

9:00 p.m. And ... it’s Beyoncé, in ballad mode out of the gate. She’s starting with “Dangerously in Love 2” with an all-silver backing band on a tall riser. No insane outfits, no fireworks, just a statement of intent that this is going to be a long ride, so get cozy. — A.B.

9:01 p.m. Man, can Beyoncé sing. I love the flex of opening the show with a vocal showcase like this. It’s like she’s saying: Yes, we’re gonna have a great time tonight, but first let me remind you of what I learned to do before you had any idea who I was. — M.W.

9:03 p.m. “Flaws and All” is next up. “I’m a train wreck in the morning,” she sings, absolutely perfectly, obviously. We knew this going in, but I love that this show starts on a very slow simmer before the rave. — A.B.

9:04 p.m. Two songs in and this band is cooking. — M.W.

9:07 p.m. Shout-out to Bey’s very pregnant trumpet player in a cropped top! — A.B.

9:10 p.m. Beyoncé has taken her seat atop a grand piano and is singing the ever-loving stuffing out of “1+1.” The riffs. The runs. The mic control! Truly a master. — M.W.

9:17 p.m. It’s easy to admire Beyoncé’s pace-setting fashion in a magazine shoot or music video, but wow, Shiona Turini and crew really saw this through down to the last stitch. We’ve barely even started, but it’s a whole new tier of care into these chrome and gold get-ups. — A.B.

9:19 p.m. Bey dedicates a slow roll through “River Deep, Mountain High” to the late Tina Turner, whom she calls “one of my biggest inspirations.” — M.W.

9:22 p.m. The ballads are finished; the club awaits. — M.W.

9:28 p.m. There’s a big camera rig on wires circling the stage and crowd; looks like the rumors of a concert doc being filmed may have some legs. — A.B.

9:30 p.m. The “Renaissance” portion of the evening opens with the album’s opener, “I’m That Girl,” and the way Beyoncé is toying with the song’s rhythms — stretching, shortening — let’s you know we’re in for a workout. — M.W.

9:31 p.m. Bey is in a resplendent Philosophy di Lorenzo Serafini pink coat that could protect one from the most fabulous winter storm. — A.B.

9:33 p.m. “Cozy” — what a wonderfully insane word to build a song around. — M.W.

9:35 p.m. Different kind of physical performance from Bey on this tour. She’s a magnificent dancer, one of the best in music, but she’s also not afraid to pout and roll around on a pile of mattresses and let her crew contort. She’s having a blast. — A.B.

9:36 p.m. Something the endless TikToks from the Renaissance tour don’t prepare you for is how delightfully campy the I-woke-up-like-this sequence from “Alien Superstar” is. A+ comedy. — M.W.

9:37 p.m. “Alien Superstar”: It’s the “Sailor Moon” meme IRL! — A.B.

9:42 p.m. Here come Les Twins, the dancing French brothers who lend an uncanny, ultra-athletic sidecar to Bey’s main course. — A.B.

9:54 p.m. Now we’re into “Cuff It” with the full band, and it’s all slap bass and hot-pink corsets and exuberant ‘70s vibes. She’s brought out a killer horn section, wearing P-Funk space suits. — A.B.

9:55 p.m. Very moved by the deep musician-liness of this show. “I’m a seasoned professional,” she sings in “Cuff It,” and how many pop superstars are out here emphasizing their onstage experience? — M.W.

9:56 p.m. She just hit the big “Everybody on Mute” moment of “Energy,” and you better believe no one dared move or made a sound. Pretty cool to hear absolute silence in a packed stadium. — A.B.

9:58 p.m. Seems too depressing to get into right now, but we should probably think about how “Break My Soul” — with its screw-the-paymasters message — softened the ground for “Rich Men North of Richmond.” :( — M.W.

10:07 p.m. Sorry, Bob Dylan: Let’s take a minute here to commend what has to be history’s largest gaucho hat on Beyoncé’s head as she starts “Formation.” — M.W.

10:08 p.m. Hope everyone took notes during the roll call of “Break My Soul,” as Lizzo returned to tonight’s lineup. Wonder what Zoomers will make of “Mississippi Goddam” and “Pull Up to the Bumper” after they get home tonight and do some Googling. — A.B.

10:11 p.m. Blue Ivy Carter’s entrance during “Run the World (Girls)” gets a deafening cheer from the crowd. — M.W.

10:16 p.m. As a parent of children older than 11-year-old Blue Ivy, can very much relate to the moment Beyoncé is taking here to soak in the adulation for her daughter. What a wild summer internship. — M.W.

10:18 p.m. Pretty wild that rapping is, like, the fifth-best thing Beyoncé does when she’s onstage, but here comes “Savage” and she’s spitting absolute flames. — A.B.

10:19 p.m. We forgot to mention that Bey is doing all this on … a tank? — M.W.

10:26 p.m. After a costume change, we are back with “Church Girl.” Says Beyoncé, “If this is your song, I wanna give you permission to go crazy.” — M.W.

10:31 p.m. Has anyone ever sung a Frankie Beverly and Maze song at SoFi Stadium before? Beyoncé, and tens of thousands of fans, are doing it now on her cover of “Before I Let Go.” — M.W.

10:35 p.m. Bey’s singing “Rather Die Young” from “4” dressed like she’s about to hit the pool in Palm Springs. Love to hear a ballad about not making it to old age without your man, now sung on the other side of 40 surrounded by your family onstage. — A.B.

10:40 p.m. The crowd taking over “Love on Top” from Beyoncé as the song goes through its increasingly delirious key changes? Top 10 concert experience. — M.W.

10:51 p.m. What could be a more sumptuous setting for “Plastic Off the Sofa” than the inside of a three-story opalescent clamshell? Bey took it from there right into “Virgo’s Groove,” one of the spiritual centerpieces of the tour and the reason for all the silver in the crowd. — A.B.

10:55 p.m. Shout out to Syd of the Internet, the talented L.A. native who co-wrote and co-produced “Plastic Off the Sofa,” and who’s been making beautiful and wily soul music on a smaller scale in this town for close to a decade. — M.W.

10:58 p.m. Before “Heated,” Beyoncé asks how many concertgoers brought fans to the show — then advises folks to use them. — M.W.

11:07 p.m. She’s back from a break with “Thique” and has made the dancers essentially run a live barre class across a horizontal railing. From my very limited experience in such a setting, that’s a brutal turn this late in the set, but they’re handling it with aplomb. — A.B.

11:14 p.m . “I’m gonna need y’all’s help with this one,” Beyoncé says, and that’s the cue for “Drunk in Love,” a rarity on the Renaissance tour that’s throbbing throughout SoFi right now, as the singer ascends on a platform surrounded by sparks. — M.W.

11:22 p.m. If “America Has a Problem,” Beyoncé is here to tell you about it behind the prop desk at her KNTY4 NEWS stage rig, dressed in a menacing-looking Mugler bee helmet. — A.B.

11:28 p.m. As the show approaches its finale, Beyoncé dedicates “Pure/Honey” — with a bit of “Blow” — to “the legendary Beyhive.” — M.W.

11:32 p.m. Totally virtuosic ballroom circle happening with all the backup dancers during “Pure/Honey,” replete with death drops and some of the sauciest vogueing of the whole night. — A.B.

11:36 p.m. And now we have Beyoncé asking us to take a screenshot as she emerges astride an enormous, beglittered, Bianca-Jagger-at-Studio-54-style horse to sing “Summer Renaissance.” What a show. What a night. — M.W.

11:38 p.m. We’ve known this since Coachella 2018, but she is simply the best live performer working today. — A.B.

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Taylor Swift 'The Eras' Tour vs Beyonce 'Renaissance' Tour: Which One Is The Biggest?

The Swifties and Beyhive have been fighting all over social media, primarily on Twitter, as each of the fandoms asserts dominance over the other on which tour is more successful than the other - is it "The Eras" Tour or "Renaissance" Tour?

Now, reports are finally in as the two tours come to a close on their respective legs. Check out which tour has grossed more than the other.

Beyonce 'Renaissance' Tour Sales, Gross Earnings

According to a Billboard Pro report , Beyonce's "Renaissance" World Tour is the top-grossing touring act of May 2023. The Billboard Boxscore reported that the first nine shows of Beyonce's "Renaissance" World Tour have racked up $67.5 million which equates to 461,000 tickets, making her the highest-grossing act of the month, and the first woman in four years to top the said charts.

But that was just in May, as she culminates the European leg in Warsaw, Poland, Beyonce's "Renaissance" World Tour was reported  to have amassed $154.4 million amounting to 1 million tickets across her 21-date show in Europe.

Billboard also noted that Beyonce's European leg is the biggest among her tours in the past. "The Formation Tour" in 2016 and "On The Run" II Tour collectively earned $87 million only.

Notably, her biggest earner was her five-day show in London's Tottenham Hotspur Stadium which grossed more than $42.2 million from 240,000 tickets. She is the highest-grossing female, black artist, and any act from the United States to have reaped those numbers.

READ ALSO: Beyoncé 'Renaissance World Tour': Fans Praise Blue Ivy for Gaining More Confidence Each Show

Taylor Swift 'The Eras' Tour Sales, Gross Earnings

In the United States, Taylor Swift is not yet done with her American leg of "The Eras" Tour. As she added more dates to her SoFi Stadium show, her total concerts in the US have now been bumped to a total of 53.

In a recent Pollstar report,  it was expected and projected to rake in a total of $1.4 billion in revenue as she makes her way to Europe in 2024. According to a Variety report , the said "conservative" estimation just relied on the face value of the tickets that were sold out across the announced venues throughout the world.

If the projections would come to fruition, Taylor Swift's "The Eras" Tour would be the biggest tour in history and the first one to reach and surpass the $1 Billion threshold. She would have to beat Elton John's "Farewell Yellow Brick Road" Tour which generated $884 million only.

'Renaissance' vs 'The Eras'

Based on the present data, we could not exactly conclude whose tour is bigger than what based on the continent each artist is touring on.

Since Swift's 34-date Europe tour would only start next year, we could not compare it to Beyonce's already-finished one. The same goes with Swift who hasn't finished her US Tour, and Beyonce's just about to start.

Since Swift's number isn't out yet, Beyonce remains on top; but given Pollstar's projections Taylor Swift could easily be hailed the winner.

READ ALSO: Taylor Swift 'The Eras' Tour: More Dates for California, Europe Added - Details

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Beyonce's Renaissance and Taylor Swift's Eras have changed tours forever, here's how they stack up

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: When two of the greatest musical artists ever embark on world tours, their fans are no wonder left in awe. Adding to the musical extravagance and spectacular visuals, Beyonce 's Renaissance World Tour and Taylor Swift 's The Eras Tour are dealing with numbers sufficient enough to boggle the mind of mere mortals.

With Queen Bey concluding her 'Renaissance Tour' on Sunday, October 1 at the Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, it is estimated that the tour has generated $4.5 billion for the American economy, per The New York Times .

While the 'Halo' singer recently dropped the curtains on her colossal spectacle, Swift is still very much on her tour, conquering cities after cities. Here we will make an in-depth comparison of the two mega global tours.

The Eras Tour vs The Renaissance Tour

Like 'Barbenheimer', the mega-tours of the two entertainers have set the box office ablaze. After a lull due to Covid-19, the two heavyweights of the music industry came back with a vengeance and conquered the hearts of millions.

Official announcement

While Beyonce teased about an upcoming tour on October 23, 2022, by auctioning a pair of tickets for an unspecified concert, per Evening Standard, the 'Single Ladies' crooner announced the concert tour on February 1, 2023.

Similarly, Swift also hinted at a tour in October 2022 during her appearances on 'The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon' and 'The Graham Norton Show'. On November 1, the 'Lover' singer announced her 'The Eras Tour' on Good Morning America and her Instagram, describing it as "a journey through the musical eras of [her] career".

          View this post on Instagram                       A post shared by RENAISSANCE WORLD TOUR 🪩 (@renaissancetour2023)

Official kick-off dates

Beyonce kicked off her record-breaking concert on May 10, 2023, at the Friends Arena in Sweden. Swift, on the other hand, performed on her first show for the tour at the State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona on March 17.

          View this post on Instagram                       A post shared by The Eras Tour (@taylorerastour)

Date of conclusion

Beyonce concluded the Renaissance Tour on October 1 after performing at the Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City. The 'Anti-Hero' songstress, on the other hand is scheduled to perform for another year before tentatively concluding on November 23, 2024 at Rogers Centre in Toronto, Canada.

Number of shows

Swift, initially announced to have a total of 52 shows per Billboard. Ever since, she has been adding shows to her concert and currently the number stands at a whopping 146 performances.

The mother of Blue Ivy, on the other hand, concluded her tour after performing in 56 concerts.

Number of songs played

Per Slate , Beyonce's set was composed of 35 songs, whereas Swift has a fixed set of 44 songs comprising of a selection from her entire career plus two surprise songs.

Time span of each concert

For performing her 46-song-list, Taylor Swifts spends 3 hours and 23 minutes on an average on stage, with some shows going north of 3 hours 30 minutes. Beyonce's concert, on the other hand clocked an average of 2 hours 29 minutes.

On an average, Swift changes her costumes 16 times per show where her dresses are in accordance to the theme and color palette of her different eras. Not only the costumes, but also her microphones and guitars are in accordance to the theme of her different eras.

Beyonce, on the other hand, changed outfits at least 9 times in her concert performance. Her tour generated at least $187 million in media impact value for the fashion brands, per Vogue .

Number of tickets sold

Beyonce's tour has been attended by more than 2.2 million people, and grossed $579 million, per Variety Magazine .

The number of footfalls for the Eras Tour is rising every day. Per Fortune and several other reports, The Eras Tour is projected to be the first tour ever to surpass $1 billion mark in the box office with the probability of grossing $2.2 billion from North America alone.

Both the two superstars have announced films based on their respective concerts. Swift announced the release of her concert film 'Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour' directed by Sam Wrench. The concert recorded at the SFi Stadium in Los Angeles, it will be released worldwide on October 13, 2023.

On October 1, Beyonce announced the release of her concert film 'Renaissance: A Film by Beyonce' and is scheduled to be released on December 1, 2023.

Compensating for the lull period created due to the pandemic, the two entertainers have contributed hugely to the US economy. With massive fanfare and staggering numbers, Beyonce and Taylor Swift have gifted the world two of the largest spectacles of music.

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Taylor Swift’s “Eras” Tour vs. Beyoncé’s “Renaissance” Tour, in Charts

• Oops! Something went wrong. Please try again later. More content below

Everyone is talking about the biggest movie battle of the year , but no one is talking about this summer’s other, equally important double feature: Taylor Swift ’s Ticketmaster-crashing “Eras” tour vs. Beyoncé’s record-breaking “Renaissance” tour. Now, here at Slate we’re not in the habit of pitting women against each other. But we are interested in celebrating the massive achievements of two of our most influential entertainers. In order to do that, it’s helpful to know just how massive these achievements are, especially when the two tours are projected to become the highest grossing of all time. And maybe you, like many unlucky others who couldn’t snag a coveted ticket to one or both, are wondering how they measure up to each other. We are on the case.

With the recent announcement of an additional extension, Taylor Swift’s “Eras” tour will wind up lasting for a year and a half, with her first date having occurred in March 2023 and her last (for now, at least) set for November 2024. Beyoncé, on the other hand, doesn’t have time for all that! In addition to being a superstar, she’s also a mother! Her “Renaissance” tour will run from May to October , barring any extensions.

While individual concerts on each tour vary in length, Swift’s career-spanning run-through generally clocks in at over three hours , sometimes as long as 3 hours and 30 minutes . Overall, Setlist.fm estimates that the average show length on the “Eras” tour is 3 hours, 23 minutes . Meanwhile Beyoncé’s traveling ballroom is more unpredictable—sometimes over three hours , sometimes closer to two and a half , with Setlist.fm estimating that the average performance is 2 hours, 29 minutes .

Swift takes the lead here with an average set list of 46 songs (including the two “surprise songs” that change each show), which makes sense considering her tour is a celebration of her entire career thus far. Whereas Beyoncé’s is a celebration of something else entirely .

This is for all the Swifties out there wondering how much play time each era gets in her setlist (excluding special songs). #JusticeForSpeakNow!

The three unreleased covers specified here include two sung by Beyoncé: Rose Royce’s “I’m Going Down” (popularized by Mary J. Blige) and a tribute to the late, great Tina Turner with “ River Deep–Mountain High .” The third cover is from Beyoncé’s backup singers, who offer a beautiful rendition of Diana Ross’ “Love Hangover.” Beyoncé also performs her version of “Before I Let Go,” by Maze, but we categorized that with  Homecoming: The Live Album , since that’s where her version was first released.

Though the numbers have changed over time, Taylor Swift goes through about 16 different costumes per show, most of which echo her iconic looks from each respective “era” she reprises. Beyoncé completes about half the amount of quick-changes, instead segmenting her show with visual interludes that allow her to sport around nine different costumes .

Swift may don more outfits per night than Beyoncé, but when it comes to switching looks, overall, it’s Queen Bey who takes the crown. Swift has worn approximately 44 costumes throughout her entire tour—though, I must say, many sources count a simple exchange of kitschy jackets as a whole new outfit, which is a debatable inclusion. By comparison, Beyoncé has worn nothing but the fashions of today’s top designers (including her own Ivy Park line), which she refreshes at nearly every stop on her tour. Her stylist, Shiona Turini, posted on Aug. 28 that after 42 shows in 12 countries, Bey officially wore her 100 th look (a black Loewe dress with a metallic bodice).

At Swift’s Aug. 9 show in Los Angeles, the crowd of 70,000 delivered an impressive eight-minute ovation following her performance of “Champagne Problems,” the extended applause for which has become something of a nightly showstopping ritual . On the other hand, Bey’s production doesn’t allow much time for cheering. But the loudest and longest cheers that have taken place have definitely been for her daughter, Blue Ivy , who often dances during the songs “My Power” and “Black Parade.”

At the end of her show, Beyoncé flies around the stadium on a gigantic silver horse , a reference to her Renaissance album cover . Unsurprisingly, Swift’s show features no equivalent.

Beyoncé’s 23 dancers include the famous duo Les Twins and an official dance credit for Blue Ivy, while Swift boasts a comparatively modest 16 dancers .

After all is said and done, the “Eras” tour will have hosted 10 opening acts , from established groups like Paramore and Haim to up-and-coming indie darlings like Beabadoobee and Girl in Red. In contrast, Beyoncé is her own opening act. [ Update, Sept. 5:  While Beyoncé has not had official openers, she has invited the occasional DJ to curate an opening set, including the musician Arca in June for her Barcelona show. For two of Beyoncé’s Los Angeles concerts at the beginning of September, which celebrated the singer’s Sept. 4 birthday, DJ Khaled filled that slot, bringing out 11 other hip-hop artists: 2 Chainz, Wiz Khalifa, Offset, Coi Leray, Roddy Ricch, Lil Wayne, YG, Big Sean, Doechii, O.T. Genasis, and Lil Durk. For the third L.A. performance, taking place on Beyoncé’s actual birthday, she was serenaded by Diana Ross, who sang “Happy Birthday,” and joined by Kendrick Lamar to perform their remix of “America Has a Problem.”]

Swift, very much in the spirit of celebrating other artists and turning her tour into a party, has had five special guests perform with her so far, including frequent collaborator Aaron Dessner of the National and rapper Ice Spice. The number jumps to eight if we’re including her opening acts joining her on stage for a song or two, though that’s less of a surprise. Beyoncé’s show is a tad more structured, and because of that, the only consistent “special” guest she’s brought on stage is her daughter. As of this writing on Sept. 1, the other special guest Beyoncé has featured was another dancer, voguer ChaCha Balenciaga, who performed in Washington, D.C., during the show’s mini ball section .

No tour, no matter how meticulously planned, can go off without a hitch. And it’s safe to say that’s no different for our reigning divas. From our research, we were able to find seven mishaps during Swift’s tour (that were no fault of her own): like when her trap door didn’t open on time , or her mic stopped working , or she swallowed a bug . Meanwhile, Ms. Carter had to work some stage direction into her song when her crew forgot to turn her fan on. There was also that time the aforementioned giant flying horse malfunctioned, which visibly annoyed the perfectionist . Nobody’s perfect, but even with equestrian blunders, some of us still come closer than others.

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What 2023’s great concert ‘Renaissance’ meant for the brands onstage

By Madeleine Schulz

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2.7 million. That’s how many people attended the 57-show Renaissance tour this year, during which Beyoncé averaged nine costume changes. Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, set to resume in 2024, will see out next year with a total of 151 shows, bringing expected concertgoers upwards of 10 million. Swift averaged 13 outfits a night.

Many of those millions dressed up in silver for Beyoncé and in sparkles, red or metallic green for Swift, depending on which of her 10 eras they channelled. Financial services company Klarna tracked hundred-plus per cent increases in purchases for Renaissance and Eras-themed buys, such as beaded bracelets (226 per cent in March; Eras) and cowboy hats (959 per cent in June; Renaissance) in 2023. And for this, brands have the stars to thank. “It comes from the aesthetic the artist is putting out,” says Elizabeth Holmes, journalist and creator of the So Many Thoughts newsletter, which has released editions on Renaissance and Eras Tour fashion. “People got dressed up for Taylor because she gets dressed up for them. Same for Beyoncé.”

2023 was the year of the “great concert comeback”, cemented by Beyoncé and Swift’s economy-boosting shows driving new levels of consumer spend, according to The Future Labatory’s Future Forecast report. “Fandom fashion” was a top trend in Klarna’s The Checkout consumer trend review, driven by pop culture moments including Renaissance and Eras ( and Barbie ). Madonna, Blackpink, Harry Styles and Sza were also among the gigs that made a splash.

Amidst this, concert fashion played a larger role in the cultural conversation than in past years, fuelled by fashion magazines and TikTok on-stage outfit dissections “It’s the post-pandemic boom,” says Shana Honeyman, president of PR firm The Honeyman Agency, who works with brands on celebrity placements. “This year felt like the first in many since Covid hit that felt safe to go back to music venues and major concerts,” she says. “Major icons toured, giving people a sense of joy to see them in person after such a long break. Fashion plays a pivotal role in the fun and fantasy.”

Beyoncé in custom Schiaparelli Haute Couture, designed by Daniel Roseberry, in Chicago.

By Lucy Maguire

By Laure Guilbault

By Yiling Pan

Performers — and their stylists — are tapping big-name and emerging brands to outfit their extensive tour wardrobes. For the stars, it’s a way to entrench their positioning in fashion. For brands, the looks break out of industry circles, reaching far more people than the audience that’s tapped into red carpet appearances and Vogue articles. In essence, it’s a key to the tastes of the masses.

“A global tour like [Renaissance] is a culture-defining event,” says designer David Koma, who designed four looks for the Renaissance shows. “Especially now, having seen the tour film, you appreciate how special it is,” he says. “The creativity that goes into putting on a show like that across all the departments, it is not just amazing exposure but a wonderful cultural moment to be a part of.”

Brands have noticed an uptick in eyeballs. Dsquared2 designers Dean and Dan Caten have been working with artists on tour costuming for over 20 years. This year they designed a sparkly look for Beyoncé’s Renaissance: “We have for sure seen an increase in attention in recent years,” they say. “Even comparing the visibility on the look we created this year versus seven years ago [for] her Formation tour, there is a huge boom of attention on what the artists are wearing for their performances.”

Dressing the year’s top performers garners online attention. People are extra attuned to both Beyoncé and Swift’s outfits because of how little both speak out in public, Holmes says. “Everyone cares deeply about what these women wear,” she says. “On social media, everyone is decoding and dissecting… When you don’t hear much from someone, you look for clues they’re sending: their outfit takes on heightened importance.” But does this attention translate to brand clicks — and sales?

Virality versus sales

Outfitting these performers is a big deal even for heavyweight designers. Beyoncé in a Loewe catsuit is the sixth photo in the carousel that Loewe’s creative director Jonathan Anderson posted on Instagram following his Fashion Awards Designer of the Year win. Rihanna, who Anderson dressed for the Super Bowl halftime show, also featured.

For luxury houses, onstage placement is a gateway to the mainstream. Those working in — and attuned to — fashion may well have come across Loewe, Schiaparelli, Roberto Cavalli and Ashish. But your average consumer is less likely to be familiar with such names.

Take the Super Bowl. After Rihanna’s halftime performance in a Loewe breastplate and Alaïa coat, search interest for Loewe was up 1,556 per cent, and 488 per cent for Alaïa, according to Data But Make It Fashion’s analysis. A Swift or Beyoncé tour provides this level of exposure for longer than a year. “If you’re not totally clued in, you probably know Chanel, but you might not know some of these smaller, cooler upcoming luxury brands,” Holmes says. “For them to be associated with these musicians, it’s worth all the hurdles.”

Rihanna in Loewe at the Super Bowl.

For emerging designers, appearing onstage can be a game changer, Honeyman says. “The brand visibility in dressing performers on this level for an emerging designer can be career changing. It brings worldwide recognition, which in turn can bring sales.”

That said, the primary goal of concert dressing isn’t to sell, Honeyman continues. “I don’t think any brand big or small expects a major sales surge from stage dressing. However the iconic moment it can create for a brand is everlasting.”

Koma, who has worked with Beyoncé since she wore a piece from his 2009 graduate collection to the MTV EMAs, says this year’s reach is unprecedented. “The looks worn on the opening night specifically had very high visibility,” he says. “It felt like every news platform and all the fashion press covered the outfits by the next morning!” Koma’s Instagram following grew 53 per cent in the month following the opening night, and the Beyoncé looks are his highest-reaching and most-liked posts of the year.

Following Beyoncé’s performances in their designs, Dsquared2 also noted high engagement across social media sites as well as an influx of brand-focused user-generated content. “For us, the objective is not really about sales but about image and the exposure that comes from aligning with a major artist that looks good in our clothes and fits our aesthetic.”

The affordability element is also key: “Not every fan can afford a David Koma dress, so it’s not necessarily a direct link to sales,” Koma says, citing this as part of the logic behind his handbag launch. “I am hoping more brand fans would be able to transition into customers with a more affordable category.”

Some designers design pieces inspired by their runway looks, creating ties between the more extravagant renderings and purchasable pieces. Eagle-eyed viewers tend to make these links. This does translate to sales, Koma says. “The mother of pearl mesh print dress, the closest to what Beyoncé wore on stage, sold out on davidkoma.com that day.” He notes that it’s harder to measure the immediate conversion for custom pieces.

Beyonce’s opening night look resembled looks 26 and 28 from Koma’s Spring 2023 ready-to-wear collection.

For smaller brands who want to build out the moment beyond an Instagram post, there is opportunity to market further around a concert look. Australian brand Bye Bambi dressed Jennie, Lisa and Jisoo for Blackpink’s Melbourne show after stylist Min Hee Park reached out via email. Bye Bambi uploaded TikTok vlogs of the process, and social media engagement skyrocketed; CEO Andi Short, who worked in marketing prior to founding the brand, attributes this to the Blackpink fan/wardrobe accounts that shared the outfit details.

Jennie wore the Sopha bodysuit and short set a week before the brand’s Sopha capsule was released. During that week, the Melbourne store was inundated with fans hoping to get their hands on a set, Short says. “Overall sales and interest improved significantly, not only for the Sopha set as worn by Jennie, but also for our signature loungewear sets that were worn by Lisa and Jisoo at the same time,” she says. In-store, Blackpink fans asked sales associates what set each member had worn, informing their purchase decisions.

Experts agree that the value of onstage is the “iconic moment”, as Honeyman dubs it, that this can create for a brand. For such a moment, the clothes need to stand out. This isn’t guaranteed, says EB Denim designer Elena Bonvicini, who has dressed celebrities including Justin Bieber and Sza onstage. “In my experience, street style celebrity placements have a much larger impact on ROI for both social media and sales,” Bonvicini says.

When Swift wore Los Angeles-based EB Denim to the VMAs afterparty, the dress sold out in under eight hours (and last week’s restock had a 5,000-strong waitlist). Bonvicini isn’t convinced an onstage moment would have had quite the same effect. In the concert context, a consumer’s focus is spread more thin, she says.

More wearable designs also drum up engagement. Ashish Gupta, of the eponymous label, created custom sequined slogan tees for various nights of the tour, reading “We are never getting back together. Like ever” and “Who’s Taylor Swift anyway? Ew”. They’re updated versions of his Spring/Summer 2013 collection tee that Swift wore in the ‘22’ music video. Commenters are keen to get their hands on a concert T-shirt: “Would love if you sold some of these,” one said. “Please sell them, we will pay anything and buy you out in an hour,” another chimed in (in all caps).

Will Gupta oblige? “I may do versions of it in 2024.”

Taylor Swift in one of her custom Ashish sequined tees in Arlington, Texas. The original SS13 tee had the slogan: “not a lot going on at the moment”.

Taylor Swift in Roberto Cavalli.

Fausto Puglisi’s sketch for the look.

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David Koma’s sketch for another of Beyoncé’s looks.

Swift in a Nicole + Felecia gown.

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Beyonce’s ‘Renaissance’ Tour Movie: What We Know About the Release Date, Trailer, & More

T he ‘Single Ladies’ artist is reportedly receiving a similar deal as Taylor Swift’s ‘Eras’ tour movie. Here’s everything to know about the upcoming film!

Beyoncé ’s Renaissance world tour is receiving the same treatment as Taylor Swift ’s Eras tour. The “Single Ladies” artist’s 2023 worldwide performances will hit the big screen in a movie titled Renaissance: A Film By Beyoncé. Queen B’s famous tour first kicked off in Stockholm, Sweden in May and ended in Kansas City, Missouri on October 1. Now, many of the 42-year-old’s fans will be able to catch an encore of the concert in a movie theater near them. Weeks before the movie hits theaters, Bey also gave fans a preview with her worldwide trailer released on Thursday, November 9.

Keep reading to find out everything we know so far about Bey’s upcoming concert film!

What Will Beyonce’s ‘Renaissance’ World Tour Movie Include?

The film, as reported by Variety and Deadline , is expected to include moments from her 2023 live concerts and a behind-the-scenes look into the creation of the album. It was also reported that Beyoncé’s daughter, Blue Ivy Carter , could make a few cameo appearances.

The film is currently in talks to distribute to AMC Theatres. Rumors have swirled that the “Halo” singer shot scenes for the film in her hometown, Houston, Texas, at the end of September. Beyoncé confirmed that the project will hit theaters and gave a glimpse at her children, Blue Ivy, Sir and Rumi Carter in the trailer.

While Queen B released the first trailer at the start of October, she released a new global trailer on November 9. Like the original trailer, she gave looks at the concert performances with a few different samples of songs. She also had a voiceover where she showed what the tour meant to her. “In this world that is very male-dominated, I’ve had to be really tough,” she said, via  Pitchfork.  “To balance motherhood and being on this stage, it just reminds me of who I really am.”

When Will Beyonce’s ‘Renaissance’ Be Released?

The outlets initially reported that the projected released date for Renaissance: A Film By Beyoncé  is December 1 — the weekend after Thanksgiving. However, Beyonce confirmed the release date herself on October 26 and revealed that the film will indeed premiere on December 1. “RENAISSANCE: A FILM BY BEYONCÉ, in theaters worldwide 12.01,” she captioned the latest promotional poster.

Fellow singer-songwriter Taylor released her epic 2023 tour film on October 13 and later was supported by Beyonce at the premiere party in Los Angeles. The outlets report that Beyoncé is expected to sign a movie deal that is similar to the “Cruel Summer” artist’s production. Since Bey is reportedly speaking with AMC Theatres instead of a studio, she is expected to earn more than 50 percent of the box office proceeds.  

Beyoncé’s fanbase — known as the Beyhive — isn’t too shocked about the movie news since the pop star’s tour was a massive hit this year. Just like Taylor’s Eras tour, countless celebrities were spotted in the crowds throughout Queen Bey’s tour. Famous young couples such as Kylie Jenner and Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya and Tom Holland attended a few concerts. 

According to several outlets, Beyoncé’s Renaissance world tour earned over $460 million worldwide, which is now the highest-grossing world tour achieved by a female music artist. As for Taylor, she earned around $300 million. 

Since Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour wasn’t announced until late August, several films had to move their theatrical premieres to later dates. Among the most popular affected productions were Blumhouse’s highly anticipated horror The Exorcist: Believer, the Priscilla Presley biopic, Priscilla , and Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro ’s Killers of the Flower Moon . 

It is currently unclear whether or not Beyoncé’s potential movie will impact other future films.