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Justin Timberlake’s O2 Opening Act: England’s World Cup Match
Amy Harris/Invision/AP – Justin Timberlake
Pilgrimage Music and Cultural Festival in Franklin, Tenn.
England is set to compete vs. Croatia in the semifinals of the World Cup tournament on Wednesday, July 11, and, rather than forcing his fans to choose between watching the game and attending his show at The O2 – London, Justin Timberlake announced he would show the game “on my big screens.”
“We’ve got another [show] coming up on Wednesday,” Timberlake said in a video tweet. “There’s also another very important thing happening on Wednesday. So here’s what we’re going to do: I spoke to the The O2 and for the first time ever, doors will open at 6:30 and we’re gonna play this England vs. Croatia match on my big screens. So come here and we’ll watch it together. I mean I want to see it, you want to see it, we all want to see it. We’re gonna watch this together. And you know what? It’s coming home.”
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” data-lang=”en”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>I heard there’s a big game on tomorrow before our show… so I had a little chat with <a href=”https://twitter.com/TheO2?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@TheO2</a>. SOUND ON. ⚽️ Doors open at 630. <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/MOTWTOUR?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#MOTWTOUR</a> <a href=”https://t.co/xH93fjYE4N”>pic.twitter.com/xH93fjYE4N</a></p>— Justin Timberlake (@jtimberlake) <a href=”https://twitter.com/jtimberlake/status/1016641874772275200?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>July 10, 2018</a></blockquote>
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Timberlake performed the first of two shows at The O2 last night, July 9, and during the night he threw his support behind the English team, proclaiming “It’s coming home,” an English soccer slogan, and downed a shot onstage.
During the video you can see Timberlake’s massive LED screen set up behind him playing clips of soccer, ready to dazzle the venue’s potential 21,000 occupants.
Pollstar spoke with Nick Whitehouse of creative/design studio Fireplay, who worked with JT on his Super Bowl performance.
Timberlake has been a force on the road in 2018, regularly appearing at the top of the Concert Pulse chart, with more than $3 million grossed per market, and he is a lock for the Top 100 Tours in the upcoming Mid-Year charts.