Organizers say more than 100,000 people bought tickets to see Kanye West (Ye) in St. Petersburg. The stadium says it never agreed to host him.

Source: Gazprom Arena

Update. Say Agency, the company organizing the concerts, told the St. Petersburg news outlet Fontanka that the shows will go ahead and that it plans to sign a contract for them on August 27.

The Gazprom Arena stadium in St. Petersburg said on August 24 that the venue had not signed any rental agreement for concerts by the rapper Kanye West, also known as Ye, and that the event would not take place as a result.

“Gazprom Arena was not and is not the organizer of this event,” the stadium said in a post on its Telegram channel. “That was handled by the Moscow concert agency Say Agency. Gazprom Arena has not signed any agreement to rent the stadium for the event. No such agreement exists. Accordingly, the concert cannot take place at our venue.”

West had been expected to perform at Gazprom Arena on October 10 and 11. The organizers said they had sold more than 100,000 tickets. Gazprom Arena and the soccer club Zenit had previously posted announcements of the concerts on their social media accounts.

A government source told the St. Petersburg news outlet Rotonda that the concerts had not been cleared with senior officials. Fontanka’s sources said that the shows had not been approved by the authorities and that they had been canceled after “a call from above” in Moscow.

At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.

If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at reports@meduza.io.

To read Meduza’s exclusive content in English, please subscribe to our newsletter.

Why is it
important
to support
Meduza
now?Read here

Organizers say more than 100,000 people bought tickets to see Kanye West (Ye) in St. Petersburg. The stadium says it never agreed to host him.

{{ header_title }}

{{ title }} {{ second_title }}

{{ title }} {{ second_title }}

{{ title }} {{ second_title }}

{{ title }} {{ second_title }}

{{ title }} {{ second_title }}

{{ title }} {{ second_title }}

{{ title }} {{ second_title }}

{{ title }} {{ second_title }}

{{ title }} {{ second_title }}

{{ title }} {{ second_title }}

{{ title }} {{ second_title }}

{{ title }} {{ second_title }}

{{ title }}

{{ title }}

{{ title }} {{ second_title }}

{{ title }} {{ second_title }}

{{ title }}

{{ second_title }}

Organizers say more than 100,000 people bought tickets to see Kanye West (Ye) in St. Petersburg. The stadium says it never agreed to host him.

{{{ alt }}}

{{ title }} {{ second_title }}

{{ title }} {{ second_title }}

{{ title }} {{ second_title }}

{{ title }} {{ second_title }}

{{ title }} {{ second_title }}

{{ title }} {{ second_title }}

{{ title }} {{ second_title }}

{{ title }} {{ second_title }}

{{ title }} {{ second_title }}

{{ title }} {{ second_title }}

{{ title }} {{ second_title }}

{{ title }} {{ second_title }}

{{ title }}

{{ title }}

{{ title }} {{ second_title }}

{{ title }} {{ second_title }}

{{ title }}

{{ second_title }}