Zach Bryan, 2022’s breakout country star, has made good on his strongly stated vow to avoid Ticketmaster for his next tour, as he announced a spring/summer 2023 tour that will use AXS for ticketing purposes, via a “Fair AXS” registration system.
His announcement of the “Burn Burn Burn North American Tour” Thursday prominently refers to AXS throughout — while mentioning AXS’ far bigger rival, the object of his recent ire, only in a reference to the title of his latest album, “All My Homies Hate Ticketmaster (Live at Red Rocks).”
Bryan, who complained about ticket prices and practices over a period of months on Twitter last year, seems to have had his concerns assuaged by AXS, with systems put in place designed to keep secondary ticket sellers out of the picture and even prevent individual buyers from reselling their tickets at a profit.
Registration for a shot at getting tickets is open now through Jan. 29 at 10 p.m. ET at http://www.axs.com/zachbryan. After that, the announcement says, fans will be “randomly selected to purchase tickets” and notified via email with instructions about how to proceed, starting Feb. 13. The language emphasizes that receiving the email offer after registering is not a guarantee of being able to purchase tickets, indicating just how heavy a response Bryan is expecting to get for the shows.
The tour will take place almost entirely in indoor arenas, despite the warm weather months ahead, with exceptions being made for a two-nighter at Red Rocks Amphitheatre — where he recorded the aforementioned live album just two and a half months ago, on an unexpectedly snowy night — and seven festival dates.
After a one-off date April 15 at the Two Step Inn Festival in Texas, the tour begins in earnest May 10 at the John Paul Jones Arena in Charlottesville, VA, and wraps up Aug. 30 at the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City, MO. Notable stops along the way include an evening at Los Angeles’ Crypto-com Arena near the tour’s end on Aug. 23, and a trip to New York’s Forest Hills Stadium on June 23. The Red Rocks gigs are scheduled for June 26-27.
Tickets purchased through the AXS system “cannot be transferred or resold for profit,” the announcement declares. In four cities (London, Ontario and Philadelphia, Nampa and Wichita), tickets cannot be resold, period. In all the other cities, there will be a Zach Bryan AXS Marketplace site set up where fans can sell tickets to other fans at face value only.
When Bryan surprise-released his live album on Christmas Eve with the derogatory reference to Ticketmaster in the title, he loosely laid out some plans for the new year, which didn’t take long to further develop. “Seems like there is a massive issue with fair ticket prices to live shows lately,” he said in his social media. “I have met kids at my shows who have paid upwards of four hundred bucks to be there and I’m done with it. I’ve decided to play a limited number of headline shows next year to which I’ve done all I can to make prices as cheap as possible and to prove to people tickets don’t have to cost $450 to see a good and honest show… I believe working class people should still be able to afford tickets to shows… I am so so tired of people saying things can’t be done about this massive issue while huge monopolies sit there stealing money from working class people.”
Ticket prices have not yet been revealed for the “Burn Burn Burn” tour, except for the handful of festival appearances that have already gone on sale.
The 2023 tour itinerary (with festival dates marked with an asterisk):
*Apr 15 Georgetown, TX Two Step Inn Festival
May 10 Charlottesville, VA John Paul Jones Arena
May 12 Worcester, MA DCU Center
May 13 Wilkes-Barre, PA Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza
May 15 Duluth, GA Gas South Arena
May 19 Houston, TX Toyota Center
May 20 New Orleans, LA Smoothie King Center
May 23 Jacksonville, FL VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena
May 24 N Charleston, SC North Charleston Coliseum
May 26 Albany, NY MVP Arena
May 28 London, ON Budweiser Gardens
May 31 Philadelphia, PA Wells Fargo Center
June 02 Cleveland, OH Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse
*June 03 Lexington, KY Railbird Festival
June 23 New York, NY Forest Hills Stadium
June 26 Denver, CO Red Rocks Amphitheatre
June 27 Denver, CO Red Rocks Amphitheatre
*July 07 Milwaukee, WI Summerfest
*July 13 Chicago, IL Windy City Smokeout
*July 14-16 Whitefish, MT Under The Big Sky Festival
*July 20-July 22 Cullman, AL Rock The South
*Aug 05 St. Charles, IA Hinterland Music Festival
Aug 07 Grand Rapids, MI Van Andel Arena
Aug 09 Minneapolis, MN Target Center
Aug 11 Tulsa, OK BOK Center
Aug 14 Sioux Falls, SD Denny Sanford PREMIER Center
Aug 17 Nampa, ID Ford Idaho Center
Aug 19 Las Vegas, NV T-Mobile Arena
Aug 20 Bakersfield, CA Mechanics Bank Arena
Aug 21 Oakland, CA Oakland Arena
Aug 23 Los Angeles, CA Crypto.com Arena
Aug 25 Glendale, AZ Desert Diamond Arena
Aug 27 Wichita, KS INTRUST Bank Arena
Aug 29 Lincoln, NE Pinnacle Bank Arena
Aug 30 Kansas City, MO T-Mobile Center