Adele Turns Down Sponsors, Concerned About Throat Ahead Of Tour
From the archive: published Dec 27, 2015, 10 years ago. Details may have changed since.
Adele exploded back onto the music scene after being gone for over three years. Rolling Stone reports that even though she came onto the scene so late in the year, she still blew past the competition and owns 2015. She first introduced her new single, “Hello,” with a teaser commercial that aired during the U.K.’s X Factor. The commercial began the words, “Hello, it’s me,” in white on a black screen with Adele singing.
Adele also tweeted an open letter to fans about the hiatus she took and why, making it clear that things in her life had changed, that she had changed.
— Adele (@Adele) October 21, 2015
Since the release of “Hello,” there have been covers, remixes, and parodies. The single has blown the music world out of the water, as have the sales of her new album, 25, which sold 3.38 million copies in its first week.
Rolling Stone has revealed that Adele has announced she will be doing a U.S. tour in 2016. Ten million people tried to purchase a mere 750,000 tickets across six shows. Tickets for the tour sold out within an hour of going on sale, leaving millions of fans without the chance to see Adele live. Many of these fans were upset with Ticketmaster, whose website slowed down during the sale of the tickets, but in a memo that Billboard obtained, Ticketmaster president Jared Smith insists the website did not crash.
“I know it must be frustrating to read or see in the news that we crashed during Adele’s onsale and that fans are upset with Tm because they couldn’t get tickets. I want you all to know that [Live Nation CEO] Michael [Rapino] and I, and more importantly our partners, know just how well the systems (and you all) performed yesterday. Thanks to your efforts – even with what I’m told was easily an all-time record of 10 million + fans rushing to our site – we delivered a good experience for as many fans as possible. Unfortunately, when there is such a exceptional artist with unprecedented demand against short supply, there are inevitably going to be disappointed fans.”
Adele goes after scalpers after millions grab for tour tickets https://t.co/G78Apyloyg pic.twitter.com/OeYyYcUOy8
— Digital Trends (@DigitalTrends) December 23, 2015
Naturally, it’s not just Adele fans that are trying to take advantage of the singer’s tour this coming year, but also sponsors, who are no doubt trying to gain that prestigious position of sponsoring Adele’s tour. However, the New York Post reports that thus far there has been no announcement of a tour sponsor, which has left many to wonder if Adele isn’t interested in having one.
It is well known that Adele is not interested in brand endorsements. Adele told the Guardian in November that she has turned down so many endorsement offers.
“What have I said no to? Everything you can imagine. Literally every-f***ing-thing. Books, clothes, food ranges, drink ranges, fitness ranges… That’s probably the funniest. They wanted me to be the face of a car. Toys. Apps. Candles. It’s, like, I don’t want to endorse a line of nail varnishes, but thanks for asking.”
Kudos to Adele for sticking with her principles in a world that wants big celebrities to sell out. Fans just have to hope that Adele’s throat holds out, because as she divulged to Rolling Stone in November, she has stage fright.
“If my throat goes, then I’ll never be able to do a tour again. I’ll be able to get my throat fixed again and do studio work, but do I want to do something and then fail at it and be too scared to ever try it again?”
Fans sure hope your throat stays healthy, Adele!