Famous pop singer and 3-time Grammy Award winner, Olivia Rodrigo, has jumped back onto the train and is performing another headlining tour. This tour, named the Guts World Tour, is an ongoing 7-month-long event, second to the singer’s first Sour Tour, which only lasted 4 months in 2022. Guts is not only Rodrigo’s second tour, but also her second debut album, introducing many hit songs including fan favorites Bad Idea, Right? and Vampire. Ty Ervin, a Junior at Casa, stated, “I don’t really like her, but her songs are that bad.”
The tour kicked off on Friday, February 23 in Palm Springs, California. As of February 28, the singer was in Austin, Texas, and she is currently preparing for upcoming shows in Saint Paul, Minnesota on the 15th, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin on the 16th. Rodrigo will end her tour in Inglewood, California on Saturday, August 17. As of then, she will have officially toured across 25 of America’s 50 states, as well as many places in both Canada and Europe.
So far, there have been no incidents with the tour performances directly, though many have complained about the ticket process they found on Ticketmaster when buying seats. According to the website’s FAQs, Guts’s seating tickets were supposed to range from $49-$199, which was similar to prices for her prior tour. However, as fans hurried to buy spots, they noticed many flaws in the checkout process.
The first problems were Ticketmaster’s “random Verified Fan process” and the “Early Access,” which were put in prior to ticket release due to demand being higher than the supply of tickets. Both were a chance to sign up and earn a code to get certain seats, or a chance to purchase seats before tickets were ready for the public. Many fans signed up for these offers as soon as possible, though it was quickly found out Rodrigo had many more fans than was thought. As soon as tour dates and tickets were out, many of the singer’s performances set for July 2024 were sold out in September and October 2023, prompting her team to make a decision for more room. Despite 20 more dates being added to the already-long tour, tickets for each of Rodrigo’s shows, pre- and newly-set, were sold out quickly.
Not only were there more fans than available tickets, but prices for seats were also claimed to be higher than originally stated. According to 23-year-old Claudine Ronquillo’s video on TikTok, she spent “$842 before fees” for each of the two tickets she purchased, resulting in $1,970 overall. After only paying $65 for her Sour Tour seat, the Guts prices came as a surprise. Sometime later, a limited number of $20 tickets were released for the tour, with a requirement to be bought in pairs, along with a two-ticket maximum per purchase. However, these tickets were also very quickly sold out. Despite the price confusion among fans, Rodrigo’s stages remain packed for her performances.
Guts, though a very popular tour, will have one competitor during the showings this year: Taylor Swift’s ongoing Eras tour. Freshman G’annalie Alvarez gave her opinion, commenting, “Taylor’s gonna get the most fans. It’s just facts.” Swift’s tour began on March 17, 2023, and is to end on December 8, 2024. Rodrigo’s tour is cutting right in the middle, and starting a small challenge among fans of both creators. Though there is no real competition between each artist, the ‘Livies’ and ‘Swifties’ are in their own battle for their favorite singer, sparking the ultimate question among dual fans: which tour will end up number one?
