Hottest Tickets: Lady Gaga, Lewis Capaldi, Olivia Dean and the Different Stages of Arena Stardom
Wednesday, 03 September 2025
Written by Stereoboard
Arena stardom is a difficult proposition all around — it’s difficult to achieve in the first place, but it’s perhaps equally difficult to maintain. It’s also a serious challenge to reinvent yourself artistically once you’ve reached that level of popularity and fan buy-in.
If you have taken a quick glance at Stereoboard’s Hottest 100 list, a ranking based on ticket click stats over a 24 hour period, in the past few weeks, though, you’ll have seen a trio of artists at each of those points in their career, with Olivia Dean making the step up, Lewis Capaldi plotting his comeback and Lady Gaga out to cement another successful live transformation in a career littered with them. As they eye their next milestones as performers, we take a look at where they’ve been and, crucially, what they plan to do next with the stages that await them.
New kid: everything you need to know about Olivia Dean’s rise to arenas
Where’s she been? Olivia Dean’s rise to this level has been gradual and organic, building from the Brit School to a gig as a backing singer with Rudimental and then a solo career that began with a string of singles and EPs, her writing evolving drip by drip as she built towards the release of her debut LP. In 2023, ‘Messy’ delivered on this promise, locating the London neo-soul star’s personality and a distinctive melodic approach within the confines of a classic sound. Nominated for the Mercury Prize, its accompanying tour of Academy-sized venues was crowned with a multi-night stand at the Eventim Apollo in her hometown, which formed the backbone of a 2024 live album.
Where’s she going? With anticipation building towards the September 26 release of her second album ‘The Art Of Loving’, Olivia Dean has announced a UK and Ireland arena tour beginning next spring that’s rapidly becoming one of the hottest tickets around. Using a run of smaller dates throughout this month as a launch pad, she will tackle two nights apiece at Glasgow’s OVO Hydro, Manchester’s Co-op Live and Dublin’s Fairview Park either side of a four night stand at The O2 in London. Dean has been selling places out for a few years now — her first London headline show at KOKO had to be accompanied by another at the Roundhouse to meet demand in 2023 — but this is another step up. It’ll require some of the chops honed last summer while opening for Sam Fender and Sabrina Carpenter, as there will be eyes on her from the very back of some very big rooms.
What are those dates again? Between April 22 and May 2, 2026, Olivia Dean will play Glasgow’s OVO Hydro and Manchester’s Co-op Live before four dates at The O2 in London. After that, plans are inked in to hit mainland Europe for shows in Brussels, Amsterdam, Dusseldorf, Berlin, Copenhagen, Oslo, Stockholm, Zurich, Milan and Paris between May 8 and June 17. Things will wrap up with two gigs at Dublin’s Fairview Park on June 20 and 21. Click here to find tickets for Olivia Dean’s The Art Of Loving Tour through Stereoboard.
Comeback kid: everything you need to know about Lewis Capaldi’s return to arenas
Where’s he been? Lewis Capaldi’s early career is something like a modern day blueprint for pop stardom. Back in 2017 his debut single Bruises became a surprise streaming behemoth, racking up tens of millions of streams almost out of nowhere. The Scottish pop singer followed it with some canny support tours with artists such as Sam Smith, Niall Horan and, eventually, Ed Sheeran, building brick by brick towards his blockbuster first album ‘Divinely Uninspired to a Hellish Extent’ with a series of EPs. His sound — big hooks matched with even bigger emotions, epitomised by the record-breaking monster single Someone You Loved — caught on in a big way and the LP was the biggest selling in the UK for two years straight in 2019 and 2020. The accompanying tour catapulted him into arenas for the first time and also clattered headlong into the early stages of the pandemic, which he spent working on songs for what would become his second record, ‘Broken by Desire to Be Heavenly Sent’. Released in 2023, the record was another major success on the commercial front, but elsewhere Capaldi was struggling. At that summer’s Glastonbury, the crowd helped him to the end of his set after he was unable to continue. Soon after, he took an indefinite hiatus from music to focus on his mental health and living with Tourette syndrome.
Where’s he going? Two years after that Glastonbury set, Lewis Capaldi made an emotional return to Worthy Farm. His surprise appearance at the 2025 festival was rapturously received, emotionally potent and accompanied by new music, with the single Survive arriving simultaneously and skipping all the way to the top of the charts. Its lyrics spoke of intestinal fortitude and gratitude, its hook arrived primed for belting to the rafters — it was 100% proof Capaldi. Immediately in its wake, he confirmed his return to live performance with a blockbuster run of arena shows, which get underway very, very soon.
What are those dates again? Between September 7 and 29, Lewis Capaldi will headline arenas in Sheffield, Aberdeen, Glasgow, Manchester, Birmingham, Nottingham, Cardiff, and Dublin, with two nights at the O2 sitting right at the heart of his plans. Skye Newman will open most of the shows (aside from the September 18 London show and the one in Nottingham) while Aaron Rowe, an Irish troubadour discovered by Capaldi while playing a set in a Dublin pub, is along for the whole ride. Click here to find tickets for Lewis Capaldi’s UK and Ireland tour through Stereoboard.
The veteran: everything you need to know about Lady Gaga’s arena-sized reinvention
Where’s she been? One of modern music’s true iconoclasts, Lady Gaga has spent most of the past two decades proving that her mastery of pop tropes extends beyond melody and firmly into the realm of chameleons such as David Bowie and Madonna. Emerging with ‘The Fame’ in 2008 and its glitzy do-over ‘The Fame Monster’ the following year, Gaga has always moved to the beat of her own drum, whether that looks like a DayGlo rave on 2013’s ‘Artpop’ or a country-fried reinvention on its follow-up ‘Joanne’. At each juncture, her live shows have reflected her desire for performances that take a seed from her music before growing into something different, which is how you end up with the New York club-glam of the Monster Ball Tour morphing into the Born This Way Ball’s high camp gothic aesthetic, complete with on-stage castle. Following a spell in Hollywood, her most recent album ‘MAYHEM’ was a reassertion of power, dialling up the sort of industrial-strength synth-pop that made her name.
Where’s she going? The last time Gaga was in the UK it was for stadium engagements at the home of Tottenham Hotspur as part of The Chromatica Ball Tour. If ‘MAYHEM’ can broadly be viewed as a return to her roots then the accompanying arena tour — The MAYHEM Ball Tour, naturally — will follow suit by leaning heavily on a thematic through line and a setlist that branches out from her eye-popping headline set at Coachella 2025. Early glimpses of its staging have been spectacular, moving between Grand Guignol theatricality on one hand and a performance of Paparazzi that is part Marlene Dietrich, part Andy Warhol, all Gaga. She could have elected to return to stadiums, but has opted instead for a string of arena dates on these shores, beginning at the end of September following a marathon North American run. The subtext there is that she’s got designs on something more close-up and detailed, bringing about another chance to break new ground while still on top.
What are those dates again? The UK leg of the The MAYHEM Ball Tour will take place over four nights at the O2 Arena in London before two more at Manchester’s Co-Op Live. The tour is currently leaving a trail of glitter and tears across North America while there’s a wider European segment to come in the autumn before Australian dates in December. Click here to find tickets for Lady Gaga’s MAYHEM Ball Tour through Stereoboard.
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