VEGAS MUSIC ROUNDUP: New Keith Urban Residency, Lovers & Friends Breaks Hearts

Posted on: May 6, 2024, 10:43h. 

Last updated on: May 6, 2024, 12:23h.

Corey Levitan Read More

Expertise: Commercial Gaming, Entertainment, Expert Insight, Las Vegas, Restaurants, Las Vegas Myths.

Keith Urban is changing his tune. The country superstar announced on Monday that he will headline a residency at the Fontainebleau Las Vegas beginning this fall.

Urban was previously a Caesars Entertainment company man, having headlined a residency at Planet Hollywood from March through July of 2023, and launched a tour at Caesars Palace the year before that.

“Keith Urban’s HIGH in Vegas” will consist of 10 shows at the BleauLive Theater, representing the casino resort’s first proper residency. Until now, it has booked only slices of concert tours.

Urban’s residency is split into two halves as follows:

• October 2024: 4, 5, 9, 11, 12
• February 2025: 14, 15, 19, 21, 22

Tickets go on sale to the public on Friday, May 10 at 10 a.m. via Ticketmaster.com/KeithUrbanVegas.

A presale for Urban’s fan club, Ville, begins Tuesday, May 7 at 10 a.m. Citi card members will have access starting Tuesday, May 7 at noon, and Live Nation, Ticketmaster, Vibee, and SiriusXM customers will have access to a presale on Wednesday, May 8 at 10 a.m.

Fair-Weather ‘Friends’

Some artists scheduled to headline the Lovers & Friends festival on Saturday did their best to soothe fan disappointment and anger over its last-minute cancellation. Organizers scotched the sold-out concert due to predicted high winds less than a day before it was scheduled to start.

More than 65K fans who paid up to $700 per person to attend were devastated.

Snoop Dogg and T-Pain played an impromptu free set at the Ayu Dayclub at Resorts World on Saturday afternoon. And though Usher, the show’s co-founder and biggest star, is being credited with performing a consolation show at the Jewel Nightclub at Aria only three hours after the festival’s cancelation, that show was already preplanned.

Most of the canceled festival’s major headliners, including Alicia Keys and Janet Jackson, made no attempts to ease their fans’ crushing disappointment larger than empathetic social media statements. (Jackson posted on Instagram that she was “heartbroken we won’t be able to see you tonight.”)

Fans who purchased tickets directly through Front Gate Tickets were told they would receive refunds within 30 days. Those who purchased tickets elsewhere may be SOL.

More Musical Disappointment

Nasty weather wasn’t even the only SNAFU disappointing heavily invested Las Vegas concertgoers this weekend. According to Vegas 411 reporter Sam Novak, approximately 35 people, who paid in the neighborhood of $1,000 per seat to see Kylie Minogue’s residency at the Voltaire at the Venetian on Friday night, its second to last, “arrived to discover their seats had been canceled due to a glitch” that resulted in an “ugly situation” at the box office.

However you spin it, Las Vegas is the worst possible place for an event to be canceled at the last minute. That’s because most fans have already spent thousands of nonrefundable dollars on flights and hotels, and rearranged their schedules, just to attend. So a refund on just event tickets comes woefully short of actually compensating them.