Please do not be alarmed, remain calm, and do not attempt to leave the dance floor: Beyonce’s Renaissance World Tour kicks off tonight at Friends Arena in Stockholm, Sweden.
One of the most highly-anticipated tours of 2023, the 47-date behemoth finds Beyoncé supporting her critically acclaimed Renaissance album (which The A.V. Club named the best album of 2022). Renaissance won two Grammys—including Best Dance/Electronic Album—earlier this year, making Beyoncé the most-decorated artist in Grammy history with a total of 32 awards.
As the first wave of fans lucky enough to experience the tour descends on Friends Arena, the rest of the world is getting a first glimpse at opening night details courtesy of the countless stan Twitter accounts devoted to all things Beyoncé. There’s the tour-specific menu—which features a decidedly dancing-the-night-away-unfriendly option of “Pasta a la Beyoncé” carbonara—and the bar located directly in front of “Club Renaissance” (aka the pit); there’s the glossy tour booklet filled with assorted serves and the automated merch fan complete with blinking lights reading “Fan Me Off”. First glimpses at the stage layout indicate a towering production value; as any good party should be, the set-up is centered around a spinning silver disco ball. Naturally, there has already been one full-out fan collapse.
After the opening Stockholm dates, Beyoncé will continue around Europe before embarking on the North American leg of her tour, which begins July 8 in Toronto, Ontario. Although plenty of dates along the route are not yet sold out, live music’s resident béte noire Ticketmaster warned back in February that demand for “Renaissance” tour tickets was over 800% higher than the actual supply. That’s somewhat understandable, given that this tour is Beyoncé’s first solo venture since 2016's Formation World Tour; but the fact that many members of the BeyHive have opted to travel overseas in the name of seeing Queen B on a budget goes to show America has a real problem (besides Beyoncé’s otherworldly twerking capabilities).