I enjoy Jennifer Lopez’s dogged, determined spirit. Plus I’m a gal who loves excess, so I admire the over-the-topness she was going for with releasing This Is Me… Now the album, This Is Me… Now: A Love Story the musical film, and The Greatest Love Story Never Told documentary. Only the album hasn’t done that well in the charts or sales, and as we all now know, Jennifer personally funded the $20 million it cost to make these projects. But J.Lo also has a This Is Me… Now Tour later this year, where she can deliver a great live show. Except now, one month on from announcing the tour, several dates have been canceled without much of an explanation
Some Jennifer Lopez fans will have to wait a little longer to be introduced to the woman J.Lo is now.
According to a message on Ticketmaster’s website, the pop star and actress has canceled concert dates on her upcoming This Is Me… Now tour dates, including planned stops in Nashville, Tenn., Raleigh, N.C., Atlanta, Ga., Tampa, Fla., and New Orleans, La.
The canceled dates were all planned to take place across a consecutive eight-day stretch from Aug. 22-30. EW has learned that a logistical issue through the promoter forced the last several dates to be canceled, but that there’s potential to work something out for the affected cities in the future.
EW has reached out to representatives for Lopez and tour company Live Nation for comment on the cancellation, as Ticketmaster’s note indicates only that, “Unfortunately, the Event Organizer has had to cancel your event.”
The cancellations follow the high-profile release of Lopez’s accompanying cameo-filled, self-funded streaming movie project and its parent album This Is Me… Now, a sequel to her 2002 album This Is Me… Then that, like its predecessor, chronicles Lopez’s love life — particularly her marriage to actor Ben Affleck.
While the streaming film (and a subsequent documentary about its creation) made headlines and courted viewer eyeballs according to Amazon streaming lists, This Is Me… Now the album marked one of Lopez’s least successful outings to date. It debuted and peaked at No. 38 on the Billboard 200 albums chart, and fell off the ranking entirely the following week, though it did reach No. 1 on the Top Album Sales chart.
On the one hand I’m really impressed with Jennifer sticking to her guns for the trifecta projects. It takes equal parts confidence, delusion, and chutzpah to say YES! when absolutely everyone else in your life advises NO! The thing is, though, you kind of have to be right in order to pull off this maneuver and, well… yeah. By the time Jane Fonda weighed in with her doubts, that’s at least where I would’ve taken a pause. As for these cancellations, it could be something or it could be nothing. I think it’s too early to tell. But it certainly gives the vibes of an inauspicious start. I had a dorky idea, though: if AARP can sponsor the latest Rolling Stones tour, do you think Ben Affleck is on the phone with Dunkin’ to broker a deal? This Is Me… Caffeinated!
Photos credit: BauerGriffin/INSTARimages, IMAGO/mpi099 / Avalon, Jeffrey Mayer / Avalon, Xavier Collin / Image Press Agency / Avalon
I’m on one of the tour stops she canceled. I’m guessing lackluster ticket sales? We were actually talking about going but didn’t get tix when they went on sale. Probably too big a venue?
Like with many live shows of late, tickets prices were really high. My friend crew and I go to a ton of concerts ever year and when the price of this one came up, the universal response was no, or as one friend put it, “I’m not paying Beyonce prices.”
She might have trouble moving tickets.
She’s ambitious, and thinks it’s talent. She has a huge ego, it must be difficult to live with her.
The tours are the real money makers and ticket prices are bonkers. Who is jlo’s market? Millenials? Gen X? Latino market? I’m not attached enough to pay to go see her. I prefer her in movies and I am not really into her music.
She is someone that I would like to see live, based on the sB appearance a few years ago – she seems like she would put on a spectacle of a show, and I mean that in a good way.
But I dont go to many concerts anymore, and in general I’m not paying insane ticket fees.
Yes!
The $20M she paid for the projects does she get a chance to make that back?
it was purchased by amazon!
The prices were obscenely high and most people are not going to drop that kind of money to listen to a mediocre singer.
The music is not that good, especially If she’s focusing on her latest (let’s face it, crappy, music). Albeit I would pay for an Eras type tour (Swift or Madonna) full of bangers.
Like many have said, she would be better off with a Vegas residency. You have a set population of people ready and willing to drop a lot of money – and be entertained. I’ll agree she’s a polished, choreographed entertainer, but she is no Tina Turner (RIP) or even Mariah Carey and no where even in the same room as Beyoncé.
Yes, a Vegas residency is a great idea. That’s what she should be doing, and it’s crazy to charge Beyoncé or Taylor prices; there’s no way people will pay that for JLo.
I think for her career a Vegas residency would make a lot of sense but I seriously doubt she’d do it while married to Ben.
I kinda feel bad for her. She’s seems lonely.
For all her success & wealth, she just seems a little lost to me, needy & looking to others to fill it.
As for her concerts, I echo the residency idea. Seems to me she’d be a lot more satisfied knowing people came to here she was, rather than her traveling around.
I really enjoyed the documentary and seeing the process of everyone working together behind the scenes (performers, tech folks, logistics and Jennifer working on her performances and also calling celebrities personally to invite them to join in and also getting turned down). I also really liked seeing her interactions with Ben and the moments where she talked about her doubts about the project coming together.
It gave me a greater appreciation for the visual album and I will likely watch some of it again. But most of the music just isn’t compelling enough for me to listen to it repeatedly.
The only song (or line) that has stuck in my head from the whole album is her warbling “This is me NAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOW!”
Before all of the collaborative simul-drops for this album, I appreciated Jennifer’s hustle and how you can build a whole career by getting people to believe in what you’re creating and that sentiment is unchanged. I hope the personal transformation that she was trying to create with this has happened for her.
I loved the music video movie. I watched it twice. Loved it. I really enjoyed the documentary also. I did love the Ben scenes in it, and there were some really cute moments between them.
I thought her new music went beautifully with the movie. Several songs have stuck in my head because of the choreography. I even went back to it a third time and skipped to all of the choreography parts and watched them again. So I call her venture a success in that she should be proud of it. The reviews were good for the movie. Between selling it to Amazon and I’m sure product placement in it, she at least made her money back on it.
Very few 54-year-olds are selling music and making money. It is so hard to do nowadays unless you are young with the rabid younger fans in teens, 20s and even early 30s to give you a broad base. It’s a different age category for her. That’s fine. At age 54, to put out a decent album with some songs on there she could really be proud of, I call that success if that is your profession and you still care. As others have said, touring is where the money is at. They came in too high on the ticket prices, which is the problem.
I admire her drive.
Cancelling dates usually means that you were unable to sell enough tickets to make it worthwhile. A Vegas residency would be great for her.
@Ameerah
I dunno. I have a relative who works at the Bellagio (not saying that’s where she would perform) and she says that Vegas promoters are really good at reading the room and if she’s not doing this well now, I think they would be hesitant. Especially if she’s asking for Adele kind of money.
🤷
Gotta be lackluster ticket sales. No one would pay Beyonce pricès to see a woman not sing and just dance and pretend to sing…
With her ego, the lack of ticket sales and album sales likely hurts. She seems the type to cancel a show and save her ego rather than admit people don’t really care to pay and see you perform. I admire her hustle but damn, woman, read the room!
Tried to watch her new movie because I like her as an actress and performer but it was so bad, I turned it off after 15 minutes. She basically made a weak musical about herself and new music that isn’t very good – no wonder so many people told her not to invest in this weird ego project! If the music was at least good, I could suffer through but it was bad on so many levels!
Someone above says she seems sad and lonely, trying to fill a void and I echo that sentiment. She should stick to acting…
Really? I don’t own any of her music, and I loved the movie. I watched it more than once. The reviews were pretty good on it, which is what led me to watch it, but I get some may not like it. It’s definitely bonkers at times, which I liked. But something like her movie isn’t for everybody. I’m surprised by how much I enjoyed it.
She received a Rotten Tomatoes score of 75 percent from critics. That’s a decent score on RT. On there, it received an audience score of 81 percent.
I hear you and was surprised how much I absolutely hated the movie! I do enjoy her acting and dancing so really thought I’d like it. I thought it was awful!
Might try the documentary instead.
Shouldn’t toot your own horn! Sorry! And I hate to say it but I feel sorry for Ben. I guess it’s good to love yourself! Must hurt to find out others could care less! .
I’m in an area where a stop was cancelled. Trust me, there is not a wellspring of J-Lo fandom in the south. Yes, there are fans, but not enough to fill the venue she had scheduled by any stretch of the imagination and definitely not at the prices she was asking. I imagine her ego (and maybe an OTT stage show?) will not let her settle for one of the smaller venues here that would have been more appropriate.
There’s a good explainer by Live Nation on price formation, artists’ decisions on prices, and concerts as a revenue stream vs record sales. I thought it was instructive and useful to understand what may have happened here: https://www.livenationentertainment.com/2024/03/the-truth-about-ticket-prices/#:~:text=If%20your%20money%20is%20at,as%20Live%20Nation%20or%20AEG.
That was a fascinating read – thanks!
I went to concert in Chicago with Marc Anthony and her when she was pregnant (and hadn’t announced it yet) she came on after Marc Anthony. As soon as Marc left the stage, so did half the audience. She was not a big draw back then.
She certainly thinks she’s something all right.
Apparently she’s the only one.
I also think it’s low sales for some of these cities.
She’s playing in my city with a capacity of 17,700 seats for a concert. Three lower sections are almost sold out but otherwise it’s a sea of blue unavailable seats, especially in the upper area where ticket prices are like $63. I checked Miami’s stop and it’s roughly only 40% sold out
She needs to let the music go now and focus on the acting. Sorry, Ben.