Lily Allen has explained why several venues were downsized on her North America tour.
The singer has been performing her acclaimed 2025 album ‘West End Girl‘ in full at the accompanying tour over the last year. The theatrical shows see her appearing on stage alone, singing to backing tracks and not speaking to the crowd.
Earlier this month she kicked off the US leg of the tour with a giant show at Madison Square Garden. The rest of the tour was initially also supposed to take place in several arenas across the country, but in July, she moved several shows to smaller venues and cancelled a planned Montreal date.
Some dates went ahead as usual with no venue changes, however the show in Chicago – originally set for the 23,500-capacity United Center – was instead held at the 3,500-capacity Chicago Theatre. Other shows in Los Angeles and San Francisco were also downsized.
Now, Allen has opened up about the decision to switch the venues. Speaking in a new interview with The Cut, the singer explained: “The ticket sales weren’t there.”
She went on to say: “I think people sometimes have a misconception about artist greed. And, you know, maybe there are artists who are greedy, but let me tell you a little bit about the mechanics of how these things work: I don’t call up MSG and all of these other venues and say, ‘I’d like to book these dates, please. Thank you very much. I think I can fill these arenas.’ The company’s own promoters have data machines that tell them whether they’re going to be able to sell these tickets.
“And they offer artists a certain amount of money and tell them, ‘We would like to put on these events, and we think that we can sell out tickets. And would you like to oblige?’” she continued.
Allen added that she felt “uneasy” about the tour from the beginning. “I said to my manager, ‘Are you sure? This seems like a stretch.’ And he was like, ‘This is what they’re telling me.’ So we accepted it,” she added.
“As time went on, it just looked like it wasn’t gonna happen. And we could’ve cancelled all of the shows. But I have a crew of about 50 people who all thought they’d be working through October. And I didn’t want to tell them all that they weren’t going to have work,” she continued. “Our other option was to ask the promoters if there were any other available venues that were more suited to the demand.”
Allen then explained: “I think the live industry is a minefield, and I don’t know how it works. I’ve gotten messages from people on the day of a ‘sold out’ gig saying, ‘I got a ticket for $22 today.’ So obviously a bunch of tickets are released last minute, but on our end, we’re told those tickets were sold out the day they went on sale. I don’t know what the fuck is going on. Someone knows, but it ain’t the artist.”
NME caught the tour at the London Palladium in March, writing a three-star review that noted the deliberate lack of conventional concert dynamics. “Noticeably devoid of a live band (with Allen singing to a backing track for the entire show), backing dancers or any interaction with the crowd, this feels like a chance to better understand ‘West End Girl’ than a night out,” it read.
Allen has also not been playing any of her previous music, with a string section called the Dallas Minor Trio reimagining some of her classic tunes in the support slot.
She has previously hit back at criticism of the tour, saying she was “extremely proud of it” and the format was her “artistic choice”, arguing that the “fourth wall helps with the storytelling”.
‘West End Girl’ was inspired by the breakdown of Allen’s marriage to Stranger Things star David Harbour, although she has described the record as “autofictional” and a mixture of fact and fiction. NME gave it four stars, hailing it as “a vicious, vulnerable and victorious comeback”.
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