“You’re Joking, Right?“: Ticketek Says Harry Styles’ Aus Arena Tour Will Happen In November

Ticketek is still selling tickets for Harry Styles’ Australian and New Zealand tour scheduled to kick off this November, despite the obvious fact that the 13,000 to 21,000 capacity venues are well and truly beyond current COVID-19 capacity restrictions.

In a Tweet responding to messages from Styles fans wondering if the concerts would go ahead, on Saturday Ticketek confirmed that the tour “is proceeding as planned”.

“We are excited to welcome everyone to the events in November and December,” they wrote. “In the event of a cancellation, exchanges and refunds will be processed according to AU/NZ consumer law.”

Styles is scheduled to play eight nights across arenas in Melbourne, Sydney, Perth, Brisbane and Auckland. Government restrictions on public events in all cities, including Auckland, are laughably below each venue’s capacity.

Of the five cities, only Perth is currently allowing arena concerts to take place. Even then, events at Styles’ venue, the RAC, can be held at 50 percent capacity. Given the cost of touring, it’s unlikely Styles would come to Australia just for the Perth show, even before the reduced capacity.

With this in mind, ticket holders are pissed that the shows haven’t been rescheduled yet — a quick look at quote tweets show a lot of people going off at Ticketek for promoting the event, with many simply writing something to the effect of “are you fucking serious?” and demanding a refund.

The idea that the Melbourne concerts, in particular, will go ahead is generating a lot of criticism.

While Victoria’s current road map out of their lockdown technically could allow for a reduced capacity version of the concert, it seems quite unlikely Melbourne will move from a nightly curfew to an arena tour within two months.

In response to the backlash, Ticketek has clarified that it is not in charge of cancelling tours, and that they’ve requested an update from promoters Live Nation.

“Ticketek takes its instruction on any news on this tour from the promoter, Live Nation Australia,” they wrote. “We are urgently seeking clarification from the promoter and will be back to fans as soon as we have further information from them.”

Music Junkee has reached out to Live Nation Australia, who say they are ‘aware’ of the discussion but have “nothing to comment at this stage”. We’ll keep you updated.

Last month, Styles released a ‘lost tour visual’ for sophomore solo album Fine Line single ‘Watermelon Sugar’. Find it below.