Drake delays start of concert tour; UBS Arena dates now set for April
Drake has delayed dates for his latest tour, including two shows at UBS Arena in Elmont, without offering an explanation. Credit: Invision / AP / Paul R. Giunta
Multiplatinum hip-hop artist Drake has delayed the start of his upcoming “It's All a Blur Tour — Big as the What?,” delaying two dates at UBS Arena in Elmont in the process.
Giving no explanation for the delay, Ticketmaster on Monday, three days before the scheduled start of the tour in Denver, notified ticket holders by email that the tour will now commence Feb. 2 in Tampa, Florida. The original UBS Arena dates of March 14-15 have been pushed to April 4-5. Those UBS shows are part of a handful on the tour that do not include opening act J. Cole.
Neither Drake, 37, nor Cole, who turns 39 later this month, have stated a reason or otherwise commented publicly. Representatives for Drake and for Ticketmaster did not respond to Newsday requests for comment.
The tour is now set to end April 16 in Denver.
The upcoming UBS Arena shows mark Drake’s debut at the venue, which opened in November 2021. In the metropolitan area, the five-time Grammy Award winner most recently played Madison Square Garden and Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, both last year.
Drake — whose 13 No. 1 hits include last year’s “First Person Shooter” (featuring J. Cole) and “Slime You Out” (featuring SZA), and 2018’s Grammy-winning “God's Plan” — had played more than 50 arena shows from July through October 2023 in his original “It's All a Blur Tour.”
In additional to releasing “First Person Shooter” together, Drake and Cole have collaborated on the occasional single since 2011, and they have sometimes guest-starred in each other’s concerts. Additionally, Cole was part of Drake's multi-guest “Club Paradise Tour” in 2012.
In September 2018, Drake had blamed illness for the postponement of two concerts in Miami. “I got so ill so fast and I had never experienced anything like that in my life,” he had explained on Instagram Stories, where posts cycle out after 24 hours. He added, in part, “Unlike other show cancellations or date adjustments due to production issues this one fell on me and I just want to apologize because I hate letting down anyone who come [sic] to share these moments with us.”
