When Lady Gaga announced the Joanne World Tour, it felt like a massive pivot. No more meat dresses. No more giant eggs. Instead, we got a pink cowboy hat and a stripped-back, vulnerable aesthetic that honestly caught some fans off guard. But don’t let the acoustic guitars fool you—the lady gaga joanne tour schedule was one of the most ambitious and, ultimately, physically taxing runs of her entire career.
If you look at the raw data, it was a beast. We’re talking about a tour that grossed roughly $95 million and sold over 840,000 tickets across 49 shows. It wasn't just a concert; it was a high-stakes endurance test that pushed Gaga to her absolute limit.
The Grind of the North American Run
The tour kicked off on August 1, 2017, at Rogers Arena in Vancouver. From the jump, the schedule was relentless. Gaga spent August zig-zagging across Western Canada and the U.S. West Coast. She hit Edmonton, Tacoma, and Los Angeles (The Forum) before moving into massive stadium territory.
Stadium shows are a different kind of monster.
On August 13, she was at AT&T Park in San Francisco. Then came the big ones: Wrigley Field in Chicago and a massive two-night stand at Citi Field in New York. If you were at those New York shows on August 28 and 29, you saw her pull in over $9.5 million in just 48 hours. It was peak Gaga.
But the schedule was also weirdly fragmented.
After a September stint in Boston, Montreal, and Toronto, things started to get complicated. The tour was supposed to head to South America for Rock in Rio on September 15. It didn't happen. Severe body pain caused by fibromyalgia forced her to cancel that appearance, which was the first major sign that the lady gaga joanne tour schedule was becoming a health hazard.
Why the European Leg Was a Mess
Europe was supposed to start in late September 2017. Fans in Barcelona, Milan, and Paris were ready. Instead, they got a press release.
👉 See also: Where to Watch The Bad Guys: A Very Bad Holiday and Why It’s Not on Every Platform
On September 18, 2017, Live Nation announced that the entire 18-date European leg was being pushed back to 2018. Basically, her body just quit on her. She needed time to recover from the chronic pain that has shadowed her for years.
When the tour finally resumed in November 2017, she headed back to North America. She hit places like:
- Indianapolis (Bankers Life Fieldhouse)
- Detroit (Little Caesars Arena)
- Uncasville (Mohegan Sun Arena)
- Washington, D.C. (Capital One Arena)
She kept this pace up through December, closing out the year with a return to The Forum in Inglewood on December 18. It seemed like she was back. But the "Joanne" era was never meant to be easy.
The 2018 Rescheduling and Final Collapse
The postponed European dates finally began on January 14, 2018, in Barcelona. Gaga played two nights there, then moved through Milan, Amsterdam, and Hamburg. The setlist was a marathon: "Diamond Heart," "A-Yo," "Poker Face," and "Perfect Illusion" right at the start.
The stage design was insane. It featured three moving platforms that acted as bridges, allowing her to reach fans in the back of the arena. It was beautiful, but it required a lot of movement.
By the time she reached Birmingham, England, in late January, the wheels were coming off again. She performed at the Genting Arena on January 31 and February 1.
Those ended up being the final shows of the tour.
✨ Don't miss: Consider Yourself With Lyrics: Why This Oliver\! Classic Still Hits Different
On February 3, 2018, the bombshell dropped: the final 10 dates of the lady gaga joanne tour schedule were officially cancelled. London, Manchester, Zurich, Berlin—all gone. She was devastated. In a statement, she told fans that her medical team supported the decision to "recover at home." She simply couldn't stand by the meaning of her music if she was performing in agony.
A Closer Look at the Logistics
It's easy to forget how much goes into a tour like this.
You've got the setlist, which stayed mostly consistent except for the stadium shows. At venues like Fenway Park or Citi Field, Act V—which included "Bloody Mary," "Dancin' in Circles," and "Paparazzi"—was cut entirely. Why? Mostly because the outdoor stage setup couldn't accommodate the specific technical requirements for those songs.
Opening acts were also sparse. DJ White Shadow handled some of the stadium dates, but for many arena shows, there wasn't a traditional opener. Gaga just went straight into the 2-hour extravaganza.
The financial side was equally complex. While $95 million sounds like a lot, the overhead for a stage that features "flying" bridges and high-definition video interludes is astronomical. The cancellation of those last 10 European shows meant millions in lost revenue and massive refund logistics for Ticketmaster and Live Nation.
What We Learned from the Joanne Schedule
Looking back, the Joanne World Tour was a turning point. It proved Gaga could dominate the charts and the stage with a "smaller" sound, but it also highlighted the unsustainable nature of global pop tours for artists dealing with chronic illness.
She hasn't toured at that frequency since.
If you're looking at the lady gaga joanne tour schedule today, it serves as a roadmap of a very specific moment in pop culture. It was the bridge between the avant-garde "Artpop" era and the cinematic success of A Star Is Born.
Actionable Takeaways for Fans and Collectors
If you're still obsessed with this era, there are a few things you can do to keep the memory alive:
- Hunt for Venue-Specific Merch: Because of the cancellations and postponements, some "Joanne" tour merch with the original 2017 European dates is incredibly rare. Check sites like Depop or Grailed for these "error" items.
- Watch 'Five Foot Two': If you want to see the behind-the-scenes reality of the pain that led to the schedule changes, the Netflix documentary is essential viewing. It literally shows the doctor appointments and the physical therapy sessions that happened between shows.
- Study the Setlist Transitions: For aspiring performers, the way Gaga transitioned from the high-energy "John Wayne" into the acoustic "Joanne" is a masterclass in pacing.
- Archive Your Digital Tickets: Many people lost their digital records when the 2018 dates were cancelled. If you have an original 2017 PDF for a show that never happened, save it—it’s a piece of pop history.
The schedule might have been broken, but the impact of the tour remains. It was a raw, gritty, and ultimately human look at a superstar who was trying to keep her world together while her body was pulling apart.