Last August when Ariana Grande announced she would be embarking on a tour to commence in 2026, fans went ballistic. The tour is called The Eternal Sunshine Tour, the name coming from her album, Eternal Sunshine that was released in March of 2024.
The last time Grande toured was on her Sweetener World Tour, which ran from March 18th 2019 through December 22nd 2019. She performed 97 shows across both North America and Europe. This means that The Eternal Sunshine Tour is Grande’s first tour in seven years.
The Eternal Sunshine Tour will take place in both North America and London, with Grande performing for 36 nights in total. The tour will kick off in Oakland, California from June sixth through tenth, and will wrap up in London from August 15th through 23rd. Grande is even performing here in Chicago at the United Center for three nights; August third, August fifth and August sixth.
Saying that ticket demand for the tour was high would be an understatement. It was ginormous. This was especially true after fans heard Grande describe the The Eternal Sunshine Tour as a potential “one last hurrah” for the foreseeable future. Grande has spent 15 years in the pop music spotlight, which may have contributed to her expressing her interest in exploring other art forms.
Now fans were faced with the biggest challenge of all though. Actually getting tickets. Ticketmaster is notoriously known for being the place to get tickets to any game, show, concert, or event. However, their reputation is not the best. Fans often have to wait in queues for hours only to finally be admitted in and see there are no tickets left. This is a common occurrence for almost every major artist that releases their tickets through Ticketmaster.
In Grande’s case however, the situation was especially horrendous. Fans waited hours in queues and waiting rooms attempting to secure tickets. These tickets sold out immediately, prompting Ariana’s team to add nine more shows. The additional shows sold out just as quickly though.
The worst part was most of the people that got tickets were resellers or bots. Tickets that were originally sold for $150 can be seen being resold for over $1000. Fans were outraged when news broke that tickets were snatched from the hands of real fans by individuals looking to make a quick profit.
Grande was extremely upset by this outcome and took to social media to assure her fans that she was “on the phone every second of my free time fighting for a solution”. In October though, Ticketmaster canceled a “small portion” of tickets identified as violating their terms of purchase. These cancellations were targeted towards bots and scalpers, which therefore affected a number of real fans who bought tickets through secondary resale sites.
Consequently, Ticketmaster announced in January of this year that these tickets would be resold through a lottery/request system, with priority being given to fans who were victims of their tickets being cancelled. Finally, ticket requests were made available earlier this month and fans were advised to check their emails by February 19th to see if they received ticket fulfillment.
Either way, fans can expect Grande to put on an amazing show no matter what. Tickets are still available to purchase, although only on resale sites for outrageous prices. All fans can hope for is that in the future Ticketmaster will find a way to get tickets into real fans hands only.
