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Boxoffice Insider: Christina Aguilera ‘Xcites’ With Las Vegas Debut
Denise Truscello – Christina Aguilera
Christina Aguilera joined the ranks of superstar resident artists in Las Vegas when she debuted her new production, “The Xperience,” at Zappos Theater at Planet Hollywood in late May. The show, which features hits from the pop diva’s two-decade career, is produced by Live Nation with two-week runs booked in both the spring and fall.
The opening engagement kicked off May 31 and continued through June 16, grossing a total of $3.9 million, according to Pollstar Boxoffice reports. From eight performances, the overall sold ticket count from the first group of shows reached 24,988.
The Las Vegas residency was Aguilera’s first string of appearances this year and part of her return to concert stages that began last fall following the release of her eighth studio album, Liberation, in June 2018. The opening stretch of North American dates that ran from Sept. 25 through Nov. 13 marked her first touring effort since her 2006-07 “Back to Basics” trek, which covered four continents and spanned more than eight months.
Aguilera’s 2018 fall trek was named the “Liberation” tour and played 19 venues in American cities including the Chicago Theatre and New York City’s Radio City Music Hall, which each hosted the artist for two nights. From 21 concerts, the tour earned $8.7 million from 77,854 sold tickets. It was staged primarily in theater-sized venues along with a handful of smaller indoor arenas such as Hard Rock Live in Hollywood, Fla., where the tour debuted. The fall trek also included a Las Vegas appearance prior to this year’s residency, an Oct. 27 sellout at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace where Aguilera grossed $496,595 and sold 4,100 tickets. The prior night, the tour hit its sole outdoor amphitheater, the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles, grossing $636,308 with 5,870 sold seats – another sellout – on Oct. 26.
Currently, the five-time Grammy winner is in Europe for a string of July dates – six headlining concerts and three festival appearances planned in seven countries. The summer run, dubbed the “X” tour, kicked off in Paris July 4 and wraps July 23 in Moscow, though Aguilera will return to Europe in November for six shows in the U.K. and Ireland. She’ll stage two performances at London’s SSE Arena, Wembley, and play single nights at Dublin’s 3Arena, Glasgow’s SSE Hydro, Manchester Arena and Resorts World Arena in Birmingham.
Between the two European jaunts, Aguilera will head back to Las Vegas for the second leg of “The Xperience” residency. The upcoming eight-show run begins Sept. 20, is followed by four more shows on Sept. 21, 24, 27 and 28 and concludes with three final appearances on Oct. 2, 4 and 5.