UPDATED 7/18, 9:50 p.m. ET: The Kid Laroi has reportedly dropped out an opening act on Lil Baby's nationwide tour.
TMZ writes that the Australian artist has pulled the plug on his appearances "for reasons not fully explained." However, the Kid Laroi's move comes days after Lil Baby canceled a slew of upcoming shows, including in Phoenix, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, Denver, Indianapolis, Louisville, and Pittsburgh.
Following Laroi's exit, Lil Baby still has several opening acts on the docket, including GloRilla, Rylo Rodriguez, Gloss Up, and Hunxho.
See original story below.
Lil Baby's highly anticipated It's Only Us tour is scheduled to begin next week in Houston, Texas and features a stacked lineup of support acts including GloRilla, Rylo Rodriguez, Gloss Up, The Kid LAROI, and Hunxho. So why are several dates suddenly canceled without explanation?
As of the time of publishing, Phoenix, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, Denver, Indianapolis, Louisville, and Pittsburgh all got canceled this past week. Affected ticketholders will not need to do anything to receive their refunds.
While no explanation was given, fans began to theorize the reasons. The most obvious one is low ticket sales. A tweet featuring screenshots of the abundance of seats going for sky-high prices recently went viral, prompting a discussion about accessibility when it comes to concerts.
Studies have shown that ticket prices have nearly quadrupled from 1996 to 2019, with the average cheapest ticket still being nearly $100. Add in Ticketmaster's widely hated hidden fees, transportation, merchandise costs, and more, and an average night out for a music lover can run into the hundreds.
Others felt that Lil Baby was not the right fit to book an arena tour.
Lil Baby was at the center of a similar discussion in 2021 when he hit the road with Lil Durk. In an appearance on the Flagrant 2 podcast, Akademiks questioned how feasible it would be to do an arena tour. "Lil Baby’s trying to do arenas about 10,000 to 15,000,” Akademiks said. “They said his tour’s doing bad. You’ll never see him post that his tour is sold out, they said it’s not selling that much.”
For what it's worth, the tour proved to still be fairly successful, netting over $15 million in ticket sales across the 26-date tour.
Complex has reached out to Lil Baby's representatives for comment.
