Our Touring Radar series looks at newly announced tours and live events that stand out not simply because they can generate headlines, but because they offer a glimpse at where live music may be heading.
These are five newly announced tours we're excited about.
1. Radiohead Turns a Continental Tour Into Four Residencies
Radiohead’s entire 2027 live calendar consists of 21 arena shows in just four markets: four nights in Perth, six each in Melbourne and Sydney, and five in Saitama, Japan. The band explicitly says no additional 2027 dates will be announced. (We'll see.)
But that's not what we're tracking. This is a condensed version of the new residency-routing trend: fewer cities, longer stays, less constant transportation and enough scarcity to make fans travel. The ticketing is equally interesting, which involves mandatory registration, four-ticket limits, fixed prices without dynamic pricing, and face-value resale only.
2. Miley's Comeback Does Not Require an Entire Tour
Miley (now dropping “Cyrus” professionally) announced two Hollywood Bowl concerts on October 16 and 18 surrounding her new album, Bass Persuades. These will be rare major headline appearances from an artist who has not mounted a conventional headlining tour since 2015. (!!!).
This is another kind of story about condensation. It's not really a residency, instead it's a high-profile two-night stand in a powerful, amplifying media market, that concentrates "attention" and meaning to accompany her return with the new name change. Almost like, "larger than life scarcity;" designed to fit the comfort level of the performer while guaranteeing the word gets out.
3. Angèle Shows That Global Success Does Not Scale Evenly
Belgian pop star Angèle announced a 23-date international tour spanning Europe and North America. The venue choices tell an unusually clear story about geography and language. She is playing three nights at Paris’ Accor Arena, two at Brussels’ ING Arena and Montreal’s Bell Centre. In New York and Los Angeles, however, she will perform at the considerably smaller Brooklyn Paramount and The Wiltern.
That is not a weakness — it is a smart acknowledgment that an artist’s appropriate venue size can change dramatically between linguistic markets. Angèle can be an arena artist in the Francophone world while deliberately developing her audience elsewhere.
4. Jack Blocker’s Messy-Looking Tour Is What Artist Development Actually Looks Like
Jack Blocker’s expanded Big Jefe Tour moves between festivals, opening slots and his own headline dates. He will appear at AMERICANAFEST and the Whitefish Songwriter Festival, support Briscoe and Molly Tuttle, and headline venues ranging from Texas dance halls to The Bitter End and the Middle East Upstairs.
It lacks the neat visual progression of a traditional headline tour, but every booking serves a different purpose: industry exposure, audience acquisition, regional credibility or proof that he can carry a room himself.
5. Kany García Takes Intimate Songwriting Into Bigger Rooms
Puerto Rican singer-songwriter Kany García begins the North American leg of her Puerta Abierta Tour this week as part of an ambitious 76-date global itinerary — her largest tour yet. García is also expanding the performance itself, playing more instruments and incorporating regional Mexican musicians while preserving the personal storytelling at the center of her work.
That creates a challenge faced by many singer-songwriters as their audiences grow: how do you enlarge the production without making the music feel emotionally smaller? García’s tour is a test of whether scale and intimacy have to be opposites. Bigger rooms can become an opportunity to reveal more of the musical world surrounding the songs.
The One We'll Be Watching: Radiohead
Every Touring Radar edition ends with one artist who represents a larger industry question. This week, it’s Radiohead, easily.
Radiohead is testing whether major tours can travel less by asking audiences to travel more. Their announcement gathers the most Touring Radar ideas into one experiment: concentrated residency routing, extreme scarcity, reduced travel, fixed ticket prices, anti-bot registration and face-value resale. Can a tour reach fewer places without feeling smaller, or will fans resent being expected to travel?
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