Billie Eilish’s ‘Where Do We Go? World Tour’ Sells Out: ‘500K Tickets In First Hour’

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Billiemania: Billie Eilish performing at The Anthem on June 20, 2019. (Photo: Matty Vogel/Courtesy of Billie Eilish)

There is likely no hotter, more in-demand artist on the planet right now than Billie Eilish, whose team just announced that her “Where Do We Go? World Tour” sold out clean within days of its Oct. 4 onsale. “500k tickets sold across North America, South America and Europe in the first hour of the onsale,” said Sara Bollwinkel, Eilish’s co-agent at Paradigm. Eilish’s 42-date tour is her biggest and most ambitious tour yet and begins March 9, 2020 in Miami before heading to Mexico and South America in May and then continuing to Europe in June and July.

When asked if in her wildest dreams she ever thought Eilish would sell out arenas so quickly,  Bollwinkel says yes, actually. “This was the next step in the touring progression for Billie and was all part of the team’s strategy. It’s impossible to know how quickly a tour will sell out, but Billie has sold out every tour in the last four years in under a minute. The build was gradual into these arenas and she is very ready for them.”

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Indeed Eilish’s current tour, which played mostly theaters and winds down this week with an Austin City Limits appearance on Oct. 12, often seemed like an underplay with consistently packed houses filled to the brim with her incredibly rabid fans and a massive demand on the secondary market. But, as Bollwinkel explained, her theater tour was part of a patient, long-game strategy that’s now paying off. “Every Billie Eilish tour is an underplay!” she exclaimed when asked if even arenas are now too small for Eilish’s stadium-sized demand.

“There is a lot that goes into the decision of what venue she is going to play, What she can sell is only a portion of this decision. The truth is whatever amount of tickets are available, will get sold. She probably could have played MSG two years ago…but it doesn’t make sense to put a 15-year-old on a stage that big without the right experience under her belt and frankly that is just a lot to put on a kid,” Bollwinkel said. “We decided to take our time and build her up to it. This was absolutely the right thing to do. Since then, she has played a lot of shows and has grown to be an unstoppable performer. Sprained ankle or not, she will be on stage bringing it.” (Eilish sprained her ankle last month while performing “Bad Guy” at Italy’s Milano Rocks festival.)

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“The connection is authentic,” says Bollwinkel.  “Billie’s fans are some of the most passionate human beings I have ever seen. This is exactly the kind of music fan Billie is too. She is of this generation of fans and can relate to how they are feeling when they show her love. Both Bill and Finn [her brother and music collaborator Finneas] have grown up alongside these fans, and it’s amazing to watch.”

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The result has yielded tremendous road success. On May 31, she sold 12,364 tickets and grossed $659,427 at Moda Center, in Portland, Ore., and on June 19, she sold 5,941 tickets and grossed $411,070 at New York’s Radio City Music Hall. Her upcoming tour, produced by Live Nation, includes 22 North American arenas (including Madison Square Garden, the Forum and Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena); seven South American dates (including a night at São Paulo’s 55,000-seat Allianz Parque stadium); and thirteen European dates concluding with two consecutive O2 Arena nights that close out the tour in July 2020.

All of which begs the question, what was the onsale like? “Very brief,” her agent says. “It took us longer to refresh the ticket count emails!”

“Where Do We Go? World Tour” Dates:
North America:
March 9 – AmericanAirlines Arena – Miami, FL
March 10 – Amway Center – Orlando, FL
March 12 – PNC Arena – Raleigh, NC
March 13 – Wells Fargo Center – Philadelphia, PA
March 15 – Madison Square Garden – New York, NY
March 16 – Prudential Center – Newark, NJ
March 18 – Capital One Center – Washington, DC
March 19 – TD Garden – Boston, MA
March 20 – Barclays Center – Brooklyn, NY
March 23 – Little Caesars Arena – Detroit, MI
March 24 – United Center – Chicago, IL
March 25 – Bankers Life Fieldhouse – Indianapolis, IN
March 27 – Bridgestone Arena – Nashville, TN
March 28 – Enterprise Center – St. Louis, MO
March 29 – CHI Health Center Omaha – Omaha, NE
April 1 – Pepsi Center – Denver, CO
April 4 – The Forum – Los Angeles, CA
April 5 – The Forum – Los Angeles, CA
April 7 – Chase Center – San Francisco, CA
April 8 – Golden 1 Center – Sacramento, CA
April 10 – Tacoma Dome – Seattle, WA
April 11 – Pepsi Live at Rogers Arena – Vancouver, BC

Latin America:
May 25 – Arena VFG – Guadalajara, Mexico
May 27 – Palacio de los Deportes – Mexico City, Mexico
May 30 – Allianz Parque – Sao Paulo, Brazil
May 31 – Jeunesse Arena – Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
June 2 – DirecTV Arena – Buenos Aires, Argentina
June 5 – Movistar Arena – Santiago, Chile
June 7 – Movistar Arena – Bogota, Colombia

Europe and United Kingdom:
July 9 – TBA – TBA, Spain
July 10 – NOS Alive (festival) – Lisbon, Portugal
July 13 – Ziggo Dome – Amsterdam, Netherlands
July 14 – Mercedes-Benz Arena – Berlin, Germany
July 15 – Lanxess Arena – Cologne, Germany
July 17 – MIND (Area Expo) (festival) – Milano, Italy
July 18 – Lollapalooza (festival) – Paris, France
July 19 – Werchter Boutique (festival) – Werchter, Belgium
July 21 – Manchester Arena – Manchester, UK
July 22 – Manchester Arena – Manchester, UK
July 24 – Arena Birmingham – Birmingham, UK
July 26 – O2 Arena – London, UK
July 27 – O2 Arena – London, UK