Hottest Tickets: Your Guide To The Biggest Shows In August 2026
Thursday, 06 August 2026
Written by Stereoboard
Hi there! Gather round for latest edition of Stereoboard’s monthly gig guide, where we crunch the numbers to give you the inside track on where to be and who to see thanks to our ever-changing Hottest 100 tickets list, which determines its standings by comparing face value ticket prices from more than 50 agents and resellers over a 24 hour period.
Who are August’s headline acts?
This summer has been hot, weird and kinda scary, so it makes sense that The Weeknd is about to touch down in the UK and Ireland for some more mega-shows. Abel Tesfaye’s After Hours Til Dawn Stadium Tour has already raked in more than a billion dollars and, in 2026 alone, shifted more than three million tickets, making it the biggest by a male solo artist in history. And he’s not done yet. Having already seen two shows at Manchester’s Etihad Stadium go down a storm in June, there are five nights at Wembley Stadium and two gigs at Dublin’s Croke Park to come this month.
Fresh from the release of her new album ‘Petal’, Ariana Grande’s ongoing Eternal Sunshine Tour will take in 10 nights at the O2 Arena in London. The shows will precede the pop megastar taking what she recently described as “a step back from visibility” at the conclusion of the run. “The announcement that was made yesterday was not a reactive or impulsive thing,” she told an audience in Chicago. “It is something that I had decided to plan, quietly, a long time ago.” If you want to see these songs live, the time is now.
Who’s ruling the Hottest 100 Tickets list?
Unsurprisingly, it’s Ari who’s at the summit this month. Her O2 residency was always going to be a big deal and given it’ll represent her last shows in the UK for some time it’s not a surprise that people want in. Hot on her heels are KATSEYE, who will put out their new EP ‘Wild’ on August 14. The girl group’s WILDWORLD TOUR will take them to Dublin and Manchester early in September, either side of a brace of shows at London’s O2 Arena.
It’s also been a very solid month for rock legends Bon Jovi, who continue to prove a major draw following their recent comeback residency at Madison Square Garden in New York, their first shows since Jon Bon Jovi’s enforced layoff due to vocal surgery. Their return to stages in the UK and Ireland will hardly be low-key, with their Edinburgh date at Murrayfield followed in short order by one at Croke Park in Dublin and three at Wembley Stadium in London. Shout out also to Olivia Rodrigo, who’s in the mix at the top of the chart despite her 11-date run at the O2 Arena in London, as part of her Unraveled Tour, still being months away. Expect to see her name in future editions of the rundown. A lot.
Who’s on the rise?
Slotted neatly into the top 20 on the Hottest 100 list is Jacob Collier. The genre-defying multi-instrumentalist has done plenty of big things in his career — from assembling ginormous choirs to winning Grammys and collaborating with solid-gold A-listers — but the buzz around him right now is for something much smaller in scale. The Light For Days Tour is centred around a solo performance, with rooms selected in order to bring out the intimacy of the staging. Alongside a string of mainland European shows, Collier will head home for two dates at London’s Union Chapel and another at Queen’s Hall in Edinburgh.
Grassroots heroes
Described in our recent review as “a rallying cry for artistic disorder”, YHWH Nailgun’s new record ‘Magazine’ is a confounding, often thrilling thing. It’s certainly got enough energy, dynamism and unpredictability about it to inspire some wild shows, which the Philly/New York band will doubtless plan on bringing kicking and screaming to fruition on their upcoming UK tour. Following festival appearances later this month at Rally in London and Forwards in Bristol, they’ll play headline shows at Nottingham’s Bodega, Newcastle’s Cluny and Clwb Ifor Bach in Cardiff before heading off to End of the Road near Salisbury.
Deals, steals and highlight reels
Before we sign off for this month, we wanted to let you know that here at Stereoboard we’ve always got one eye on a steal. That’s why you’ll always find our Ticket Deals page stocked with shows going at face value or below, from AFI to Wilco.
NOTE FROM THE EDITOR
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