Macklemore claims that several arenas are refusing to book him for his ‘Free Palestine’ tour in an attempt to silence him, but MSG says he just isn’t a big enough artist.
Macklemore has called out several arenas across the country for turning down his Free Palestine Tour, alleging a concerted effort to silence him since his controversial remarks saw him ousted as the opener on Ed Sheeran’s tour.
The “Thrift Shop” rapper recently performed three benefit concerts in Dublin, Paris, and London. But he claims he has been refused across the United States at Madison Square Garden, Prudential Center, Barclays Center, UBS Arena, Intuit Dome, Kia Forum, Crypto.com Arena, Chase Center, and even Climate Pledge Arena in his hometown of Seattle.
“By mid-September, we received available dates at these arenas through the end of the year. But once they found out these were my benefit shows for Palestine, those dates were suddenly off the table,” said Macklemore on Instagram. “The doors were closed. The conversations were all different, but the result was the same. The shows were not going to be allowed to happen in these venues.”
“We live in a country that prides itself on freedom of speech. Yet we’ve reached a point where a handful of billionaires can decide what causes are acceptable,” he added. “We’ll probably just take that shit outside where it belonged in the first place.”
In response, a spokesperson for MSG Entertainment told Digital Music News: “We have some of the busiest venues in the world with extremely limited availability, and he’s not an arena-level act.”
Macklemore’s previous three shows on the tour all took place in arenas: Dublin’s 3Arena, Paris’ Accor Arena, and London’s OVO Arena Wembley. Each of those performances sold out immediately, according to the rapper’s team. Those dates featured guest performances from Irish hitmaker Hozier, Northern Ireland’s controversial hip-hop trio Kneecap, and Norwegian singer AURORA.
