MSG Called Macklemore 'Not an Arena Level Act' — His Benefit Shows Sold Out Arenas in Three Countries

Madison Square Garden's answer to Macklemore arrived as a single sentence. "We have some of the busiest venues in the world with extremely limited availability and he's not an arena level act," a spokesperson for MSG said in a statement quoted by Deadline. The sentence was the venue's response to a public accusation: that nine of America's biggest arenas had offered Macklemore dates for his benefit shows, then pulled them when they learned what the shows were for.

Deadline reported that Macklemore, in a statement posted on November 6, laid out the plan first. "From the beginning, our plan was to bring this tour home to the U.S.," he wrote. "But after weeks of reaching out, nine major American arenas have turned us down." The nine he named: Madison Square Garden, the Prudential Center, Barclays Center, UBS Arena, the Intuit Dome, the Kia Forum, Crypto.com Arena, the Chase Center and Climate Pledge Arena. By his account, his team had received available dates from the venues by mid-September. "But once they found out these were my benefit shows for Palestine, those dates were suddenly off the table," he said. "The doors were closed. The conversations were all different, but the result was the same. The shows were not going to be allowed to happen in these venues." He added: "In over twenty years of touring, I've never experienced anything like this."

The shows in question are his Free Palestine Tour, announced on September 24 — benefit concerts whose proceeds go to Palestinian relief organizations, twelve of them, USA Today reported: groups providing medical care, humanitarian assistance, education, advocacy and community programs. The tour has played three dates so far, all of them in Europe in October: Dublin, Paris and London. All three sold out, in arenas, Billboard reported. The American leg is the one the nine venues turned down, by his account.

The run opened at Dublin's 3Arena on October 26, then moved to Paris and London — three arena rooms in three countries, all sold out, for a benefit tour announced weeks after the Sheeran removal closed the stadium door on him.

MSG is the only one of the nine to answer in any detail, and its answer is the availability line above — a statement Deadline reported, and one the venue also gave to TMZ, TheWrap and USA Today. The other eight venues have offered no detailed public explanation. None of the nine has confirmed Macklemore's account of the withdrawn dates; beyond MSG's statement, none has publicly disputed it either. Macklemore, for his part, put his own position in the same statement: "I'd rather lose every opportunity in this industry than spend another day protecting people who value their business relationships with Israel more than they value Palestinian human life."

The dispute did not start in November. In September, Billboard and Deadline reported, Macklemore was removed as the support act from Ed Sheeran's Loop Tour after stadium operators objected to his onstage remarks during his MetLife Stadium sets, where he spoke about Gaza and the West Bank and performed his protest song "Hind's Hall." Consequence reported the objections were led by New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, whose Gillette Stadium was among the tour's stops; the promoter, Messina Touring Group, said venues on the remaining dates would not allow the shows to go ahead with him on the bill. The Free Palestine Tour was announced in the aftermath of that removal.

The same day Macklemore's statement landed, U2 weighed in. In a BBC News interview reported by Billboard, the Edge said, "We totally support Macklemore's right as an artist to say what he wanted to say," and added that Sheeran should not be vilified for the removal. Drummer Larry Mullen Jr. went further. "Artists can choose whether they want to be politically active or not — it's a human right," he said, and the band would fight for the right to speak your mind as long as it doesn't incite violence. "No billionaire, no promoter, no owner has the right to censor anybody." They would not be censored themselves, he added — ever.

Macklemore closed his statement with a promise rather than a plan. "We will build our own stages," he wrote. "They may own the arenas. But they do not own the people who fill them." No U.S. dates for the tour have been announced.