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It must have been high touring costs.
Roxette, the Swedish pop-rock duo that rose to worldwide fame in the late 80s’/early 90s’ for hits such as “It Must Have Been Love” and “Listen to Your Heart,” is the latest music group to be rattled by “blue dot fever” — a term that’s spread on social media about the growing phenomenon of artists canceling arena tours due to poor ticket sales.
The term is coined from the blue dots indicating available seats on Ticketmaster online seating charts.
The group — which was originally comprised of singer Marie Frederickson and songwriter/guitarist Per Gessle until Frederickson’s death from cancer in 2019, and has featured Swedish singer Lena Philipsson as lead vocalist as of late 2024 — was set to perform a North American 40th anniversary tour, including an October 5 stop at LA’s Greek Theatre, but had all its US and Canada dates canceled by Live Nation US this past Friday.
The Swedish stars had been scheduled to perform the celebratory tour, which would have kicked off on September 10 at Pine Knob Music Theatre in Clarkstown, Michigan and ended on October 9 at White River Amphitheatre in Washington, with the show bill also including 80s’ faves Taylor Dayne and Nick Lowe.
According to Variety, ticketholders received notice of the cancellation, along with notice that their tickets would be refunded — a small consolation prize for some international fans who had already purchased non-refundable flights to see the European act in person.
Roxette’s initial social media announcement of the change, which was posted Saturday on Instagram, pointed to a postponement, rather than a strict cancellation. The original post reads, “Due to logistics and hugely increased touring costs, Live Nation US has decided to postpone the Northamerican tour. Hope to see you some other time down the road. / team Rox.”
However, this was shortly followed up by another clarifying, more personal post from co-frontman Gessle.
“Lena, I and the band are of course disappointed,” posted Gessle. “We were really looking forward to this northamerican tour and US is by far our biggest streaming market. This decision was made by Live Nation USA, which they probably based on their own calculations. I hope we can play for our fab fans in the USA and Canada at some point in the near future. / P.”
This is not the first case of the tour-obliterating “blue dot fever” plaguing musical artists and their adoring fans.
In early May, Post Malone canceled the first few weeks of his Live Nation-produced “Big Ass Stadium” tour with Jelly Roll, pinning his reason for nixing six early-on shows on a desire to finish recording his coming 40-track double album “The Eternal Buzz.”
However, a Page Six industry source told the outlet that they believed the canceled dates stemmed from the dreaded fever, which they saw as spreading.
“It’s contagious,” they told Page Six.
A local news segment from El Paso, Texas, had reported a similar reasoning for Malone’s canceled Sun Bowl show, citing that, “Ticketmaster showed a majority of tickets not sold” and displayed the seating chart of the 50K-seat venue with blue dots galore.
Meghan Trainor also appears to have been potentially afflicted by the industry bug.
Though the pop start cited craving a better work-life balance after welcoming her third child in January as her reasoning for the “Get in Girl” tour cancellation, also produced by Live Nation, some online reports alleged that subpar ticket sales were partially to blame.
Zayne Malik was yet another star to be affected by the troubling trend. Though he pointed towards health struggles as the reason behind halting his own Live Nation tour, Variety had reported that ticket sales had been “soft.”
However, Live Nation has shot back against accusations of any sort of “blue dot fever” striking its artists.
After the concept went viral, Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino began posting about the phenomenon — or lack thereof — on social media, issuing a scathing address to an X account called Ticketshelp1 that criticized Live Nation’s earnings call and lack of ticket affordability.
“The focus is also geared towards more fans who are willing to spend more money on premium stuff instead of focusing on cheaper prices,” the account had posted.
Rapino fired, “Not our focus? We just sold millions of amp tickets at $30 – making a summer concert very affordable.”
Rapino also re-posted a LinkedIn story on with the caption, “Blue Dot Fever is a scalper narrative” — and reposted a piece by music writer Dave Brooks called, “Shut up about Blue Dot Fever already.”
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