Lorde and promoter Frontier Touring announced on Tuesday (Nov. 9) that the singer’s planned New Zealand/Australia tour dates have pushed to 2023 due to uncertainty over border restrictions. The tour, originally slated to hit Lorde’s home country and neighboring Australia, was pushed from February and March 2022 to early 2023 because of a recent COVID-19 outbreak in NZ created questions about travel and possible last-minute lockdowns.
“I am beyond devastated to be postponing these shows. Starting the tour in New Zealand was always really important to me, and would have been a huge high,” the singer said in a statement about her first tour of her native land in five years. “I fought this decision for a long time, but the truth is that touring internationally through a COVID outbreak has a ton of unforeseen moving parts, and I’d much rather play for you when we’re all confident it will go smoothly. I want to apologise wholeheartedly to the fans. I’m so gutted to let you down, but so grateful for your understanding. We’ll rage next year.”
The tour in support of her Solar Power album is now slated to kick off on March 7, 2023 with a newly booked show in a two-night stand at Riverstage in Brisbane, followed by two gigs in Perth, and five in New Zealand, according to Ticketmaster.
“We have been faced with the difficult decision to move the tour to February-March 2023 so we can proceed with some surety and fully deliver the shows without risk of last-minute lockdowns,” read an email statement from Frontier, which noted that the company needs both country’s borders to be open to citizens and non-citizens in order to go forward with the original dates because the touring band and crew are not all citizens.
“No-one could have predicted the current outbreak, and while we understand that systems are moving in the right direction and could well be permissive of an international tour in February, any doubt means that we, unfortunately, cannot proceed in good faith,” the statement continued, noting that Frontier has to ensure that there would be a limited or no quarantine policy in place on arrival in order to proceed with confidence. A spokesperson for Lorde could not be reached for additional comment at press time.
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