It feels dramatic now, but I vividly recall standing in the middle of London’s Hyde Park in July 2022, surrounded by 65,000 people and thinking: “I didn’t think I would do this again.”
I was at an Adele concert, the first major event I attended (and crowd I joined) following the peak of Covid-19 and the two years of health crises, disrupted travel and cancelled events that had been part and parcel of the pandemic.
Little did I know that the Adele gig would start something of an annual tradition for me: planning my trips back to the UK around concerts and tickets.
We have all read about the rush to buy the “must-have” tickets of the year. Somehow I have been blessed with a friend competitive enough to sit in a digital queue of hundreds of thousands to procure tickets for her nearest and dearest. She is also extremely organised and has an innate understanding of Ticketmaster’s pre-sale logistics and time-zone calculations.
Thanks to this friend, I have subsequently worked annual holidays around Harry Styles at Wembley Arena in 2023 and Taylor Swift's Eras Tour at Murrayfield in 2024, and returned to Wembley for Oasis last summer. This approach to travel didn’t begin post-Covid, but it has certainly flourished since. In July 2020, I had plans to see Celine Dion in Beirut. The universe had other plans.
Until last week, 2026 was wide open for me, in terms of travel commitments. I had pondered a trip to Paris to see Olivia Dean. Lily Allen’s West End Girl tour caught my eye – a visit to Denmark in July to see her perform Madeline at Roskilde Festival is still top of my wish list. But Harry Styles's tour announcement is now governing my plans for this year, so it looks like I'll be in London in June.
It seems that, when it comes to travelling for music, I am a textbook millennial. But that will come as no surprise – you’ve seen my taste in music.
According to a 2024 survey by the American Automobile Association, 58 per cent of millennials said they had travelled in the past 12 months to attend an event more than 80km from their home, or plan to travel to one in the next 12 months.
This is compared with 43 per cent of Gen X and 27 per cent of baby boomers. And this is not limited to the US, or millennials. A January survey by Airbnb revealed that 62 per cent of Gen Z in India are planning music-led trips in 2026. More broadly, 75 per cent of the Gen Z travellers surveyed said they had travelled to attend a specific concert or festival.
In a November interview with CNA Asia, Benjamin Cassim, a senior lecturer in tourism at Temasek Polytechnic's School of Business in Singapore, put the trend down to “pent-up demand for experiences that support emotional and physical well-being”.
“This translated into greater leisure travel and higher participation in live entertainment events,” he added.
We’re feeling the effect of gig tourism here in the UAE. Last January, Coldplay fever took over Abu Dhabi. Hotels were widely sold out and room rates surged – a sure sign that thousands had travelled in to watch the band on their four-night stint at Zayed Sports City Stadium.
Before the concerts, James Craven, president of Live Nation Entertainment Mena, told The National: “Musical tourism in the UAE has experienced remarkable growth in recent years, with fans travelling from across the world to see their favourite artists live.
“The UAE, with its strategic location and reputation as a tourism destination, has become a hotspot for live entertainment.”
I see it in my own circle. Friends and colleagues travel for festivals, concerts and performances with increasing frequency. One friend makes an annual pilgrimage to a festival in Spain; my brother and sister-in-law flew from the US to London to join us for Oasis; and a colleague recently told me her sister is coming to Abu Dhabi in a few weeks and is fitting in the Christina Aguilera concert at Etihad Arena.
I don’t plan to change this approach to travel any time soon. If anything, I'll make sure next year’s concert plans take me even further afield.
