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She’s vogued for 40 years and now she’s ready to reflect on a back catalogue teeming with smashers. Madonna has announced The Celebration Tour for 2023, a greatest hits celebration of her career. 

If you’ve always wanted to see ‘Material Girl’, ‘Like A Virgin’ and ‘Ray Of Light’ performed on the largest stage imaginable, now’s your chance. Read on to find out when Madonna tickets go on sale, what pre-sales are available and the latest Madge-centric gossip. Scroll to the bottom of this article to sign up for an email alert which will pop you a notification an hour before tickets go on sale. 

Where and when is Madonna touring?

Madonna announced The Celebration Tour this week, celebrating 40 years of pop megahits from her back catalogue. It’s a global tour, but so far only has one UK date at London’s O2 arena on Saturday 14 October. This is, however, a near-guaranteed sell out so don’t be surprised if extra UK dates are added throughout the year. Update: as predicted Madonna had added a second date in London on Sunday 15 October, Second update: two more dates have been announced on Tuesday 17 October and Wednesday 18 October. 

Here’s the UK tour schedule so far. We’ll update it if anything changes: 

Saturday 14 October – The O2, London 
Sunday 15 October – The O2, London (NEW DATE)
Tuesday 17 October – The O2, London (NEW DATE)
Wednesday 18 October – The O2, London (NEW DATE)

When do tickets for Madonna’s London show go on sale? 

Tickets for Madonna’s London show go on sale at 10am on Friday 20 January. 

Where can I buy tickets for Madonna’s show?

Tickets for Madonna’s London show are available from Ticketmaster, AXS and Live Nation. 

What presales are available for Madonna’s London show?

A host of presales are available for Madonna’s London show. Alas, one of the perils of surprise announcements like this is that many of these presales will have been and gone by the time this article goes live, but we’ll update this if any other presales pop up.

Anyway, O2 has a presale beginning at 11am on Wednesday 18 January and ending at 6pm on Thursday 19 January. 

Live Nation has a presale beginning at 9am on Thursday 19 January and ending at 5pm on Thursday 19 January. 

Members of Madonna’s Legacy club can enjoy a fan presale beginning at 9am on Wednesday 18 January and finishing 6pm on Wednesday 18 January. 

How much will tickets for Madonna’s show cost?

Prices are yet to be confirmed for Madonna’s show but we’ll update this section as soon as we know more. According to an article from MyLondon, ‘Belgian venue Sportpaleis in Antwerp has revealed prices start from 45.50 euros for the cheapest seats, rising to 90.30 euros, then 135.10 euros, 196.70 euros, 274.70 euros and then 324.70 euros for the most expensive seats. That works out at around £40 for the cheapest seats in Pound Sterling.’

Whether prices for her shows in Belgium are an accurate reflection of her London show remains to be seen, but £40 for the cheap seats seems more than fair for an artist of Madonna’s calibre. 

Who’ll be supporting Madonna?

Support for every date of Madonna’s Celebration tour comes from Bob The Drag Queen, a drag queen, comedian, actor, activist, musician, and reality TV star. Bob’s probably most famous for winning the eighth season of Rupaul’s Drag Race, but he’s gone on to co-host the HBO show We’re Here and has released a handful of pop singles. 

To give you a better idea of what you might expect from Bob’s act, here’s his viral single ‘BLACK’:

How did Madonna promote the tour?

Madonna doesn’t really need to do anything to announce a tour beyond dropping a press release and watching the media go wild. But her announcement of The Celebration Tour finds her re-establishing her party girl roots with a video in which she plays a game of truth or dare with a handful of A-list celebs. 

Featured in the video are Diplo, Judd Apatow, Jack Black, Lil Wayne, Bob The Drag Queen, Kate Berlant, Larry Owens, Meg Stalter, Eric Andre and Amy Schumer. After some bacchanalian fun, Schumer dares Madonna to go on tour and perform 40 years of her greatest hits. Contrived? Yes. Eye-catching? Definitely. 

Watch the video below: 

What else has Madonna been up to? 

Beyond announcing The Celebration Tour, all’s been quiet with Madonna since the release of her 2019 album Madame X. It’s a strange turn of events to have an artist as forward-looking and modish as Madonna hit a nostalgic phase in her career, although not an unwelcome one. Perhaps, like all of us, successive lockdowns during the coronavirus led the queen of pop into a period of reflection. 

The most interesting piece of news regarding ol’ Madge came on the same day as the tour announcement, when it was revealed that the French city of Amiens are requesting a painting from her collection be returned to their city as part of its bid to become European capital of culture in 2028. 

According to the Guardian, ‘The oil painting, commissioned by Louis XVIII to hang in the Salon of Diane at the Palace of Versailles and completed in 1822, was acquired by the French republic in 1873. It was exhibited at the Musée des Beaux-Arts – now the Musée de Picardie – in Amiens from 1878 but was thought to have been destroyed when the city was bombed in 1918.

‘A recent article in Le Figaro newspaper suggested the painting, or one almost identical to it but without Langlois’s signature or any date, reappeared in 1989 in a New York auction where Madonna paid $1.3m for it, more than three times its estimated price.’

An odd story, and one we hope has a happy ending. Good luck, Amiens. 

How can I guarantee that I’ll get tickets? 

While there are no 100% guarantees when it comes to nabbing tickets for a high profile act like Madonna, a few of these strategies will serve you well. 

First, try every presale that we’ve mentioned in this article (take a look at the ‘What presales are available for Madonna’s tour?’ section). 

Second, sign up to your preferred ticketing provider in advance, whether that’s Ticketmaster, AXS, or Live Nation. 

When on-sale day finally does come around, log onto your ticketing provider, enter the queue and remember not to refresh the page.

Tickets for Madonna’s 2023 UK tour dates go on sale at 10am on Friday 20 January.