The fear of not selling out your big arena show must be one that haunts all manner of big-name artists, and Lorde has just confirmed that, when you do end up playing to a half-full hall, it does indeed feel pretty lousy.
Speaking to the Therapuss with Jake Shane podcast, the star discussed her 2017/2018 Melodrama arena tour which, while critically acclaimed, didn’t always have the most lively ticket sales.
Discussing the undersubscribed gigs, Lorde admitted that looking out and seeing “massive drapes” covering rows of empty seats hit her hard.
“For Melodrama, I booked an arena tour. And a lot of those shows were, like, half full,” she says. “We had made this beautiful production. And there were some nights where I was like, ‘This is awkward’, and people were kind of, like, writing about a time that was so vulnerable for me.”
Such was the negative impact of this experience that Lorde says she’s held off from playing such big shows until now – her full-scale Ultrasound Tour kicks off in September in support of upcoming fourth album, Virgin – for fear of suffering a repeat.
“This is my first arena show since then, because I had such damage from that feeling,” she confirms. “People don’t think about the fact that the person on stage, whose name is on the banner, is looking at someone walking out, some seat not being full. It’s so vulnerable.”
Happily for Lorde, it looks like most of her 2025 shows are already sold out, so she can relax in the knowledge that she’ll be playing to packed-out audiences. But she does have some words of encouragement for anyone who finds themselves in the same position she was seven years ago.
“You have to just be like, ‘Oh my God, it’s insane how many people are here,’” she advises. “It’s incredible. People paying money. And they love it, and they don’t ever think you did a bad job. They love it; you couldn’t do a bad job.”
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