A Justin Bieber tour that was scheduled to begin June 2 and run through the summer has been pushed back into 2022, with an official announcement likely to come soon.
Postponement of at least some of the dates, if not the entire tour, has seemed like a fait accompli for months. It’s booked into indoor arenas, where COVID restrictions may remain more stringent than for outdoor shows in many locales for some time to come. The tour was set to open in San Diego and have some of its other initial dates in California, where it’s by no means certain that all counties will have moved into a tier allowing 100% capacity at indoor shows by the beginning of June.
The delay in announcing the postponement may be due to challenges in rescheduling the dates; a plethora of COVID-postponed tours have meant that most major venues are almost fully booked well into 2022.
The singer’s label reps did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Tickets for all shows remained on sale as of Thursday afternoon.
Bieber’s tour was already postponed once. It was originally scheduled for last year, but in July of 2020, Bieber announced that it was being pushed back to May, June, July and August of 2021 — saying, “”Looking forward to seeing you all when it is safe” — with what turned out to be an overoptimistic view of when the U.S. would be in a fully post-pandemic mode. This year’s initially announced May start had already been pushed in favor of a June 2 opening.
The tour originally included stadiums as well as arenas; the shift to a planned 2021 tour included reconfiguring the plan by dropping the stadiums and losing a few arena dates while adding 19 others. Opening acts Kehlani and Jaden Smith dropped out as the tour shifted from ’20 to ’21.
However, when the tour does happen, Bieber will have several more hits under his belt: His recent album, “Justice,” is a solid success, debuting at No. 1 on the album chart and remaining in the top five during its six weeks of release thus far.
The album has also generated a big hit single for Bieber. He released two moderately successful singles in advance of “Justice,” the plaintive “Anyone” and “Hold On,” but the one that the singer released concurrently with the album, the more party-friendly “Peaches” (featuring Daniel Caesar and Giveon), has proven to be the biggest of them, debuting at No. 1 and remaining among the top five songs throughout the last six weeks.
Bieber has been quiet about the tour status on his social media and elsewhere, although he has taken to his account in recent days to show off his new dreadlocks hair style, which fans have had quite a lot to say about.