Harry Styles announced his fourth studio album “Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally.” via Instagram on Jan. 15. Subsequently, he announced “Together, Together”, a global concert tour to support the new album, which will begin on May 16 and go on until Dec. 13.
This news was originally thrilling for fans considering Styles has been on a musical hiatus since 2022. However, details about the “Together, Together” tour have quickly sparked controversy.
Styles is only performing in seven different cities worldwide: Amsterdam, Netherlands; London, England; São Paulo, Brazil; Mexico City, Mexico; New York City, United States; Melbourne and Sydney, Australia.
Many fans are upset that Styles is not diversifying his tour stops, especially in a large country like the U.S. Instead of going to multiple states, Styles is performing at the same venue (Madison Square Garden, New York City) 30 times.
Here in Jupiter, Fla., fans would need to travel over 1,000 miles to attend the closest concert in New York City.
On top of high traveling costs due to limited venues, high ticket prices have become another hot topic, with some ticket costs exceeding $1000.
Even Styles’ former “One Direction” bandmate, Zayn Malik, seemingly made a sly reference to his ticket price controversy while on his own tour.
“Hopefully the ticket prices weren’t too high,” Malik said to his crowd.
Though many are calling Styles greedy, others argue he is not at fault for high ticket pricing.
“I honestly don’t think he was involved in picking the prices that people are complaining about; It’s all the resales on Ticketmaster,” Ved Nair, freshman and Harry Styles fan, said.
However, other artists have made efforts to help fans after ticket criticism, such as Olivia Dean.
Following controversy about unfair pricing of resale tickets for Dean’s upcoming tour, she spoke out against Ticketmaster’s practices and urged them to do better.
Shortly after her comments, Ticketmaster announced they would cap the price for future resales and refund fans for any markup they already paid to resellers.
Styles fans are disappointed he isn’t doing the same, hoping change will happen soon.
Considering “Together, Together” is facing backlash before even starting, there is already a lot of controversy surrounding it. In order to save its reputation, the tour needs adjustments behind the scenes and an impressive performance when it does hit the stage.
