Given the level of celebrity of multi-Grammy Award winner Keith Urban, the country star (and husband to actress Nicole Kidman) typically plays some pretty massive venues when he tours.
But, a surprise show at a landmark independent venue in Toronto this week gave local fans the rare opportunity to see the Australian-American singer-songwriter far closer than they ever thought they’d get to in their lifetime.
As Urban revealed to his millions of Instagram followers via his IG stories on Friday, he would be playing T.O.’s very own Horseshoe Tavern, which has served as an anchor of Queen Street West since 1947, just three days later.
Tickets for the new gig were made available that same day, priced at a very reasonable $55. But, given that the venue can only hold a few hundred people, they sold out at lightning speed to those in the know, leading to exorbitant resale prices leading up to the big night.
On Monday afternoon, only a few tickets could be sourced via Stubhub and Vivid Seats for around $1,000 apiece — a more than 1700 per cent markup from face value.
As the 6:30 p.m. door time came and went, only a couple were left on the former resale site, dropped down to $465-$557 each. The platform showed that others listed for more than double — as much as $1,202 — had indeed successfully sold to some high-paying bidders.
A screenshot from Stubhub shows that as of around 7 p.m. Monday, technically after doors already opened for the small show, there were still three remaining tickets up for grabs at a huge markup. Tickets for even more, as much as $1,202 compared to the $55 face value, had already sold earlier that day.
Staff at the venue told blogTO earlier Monday that the show was booked through Live Nation, and that they were “all thrilled to have him in the building tonight.”
Instagram stories from the event show attendees able to comfortably get within feet of Urban on what may be the smallest stage he’s played in a while.
A spokesperson for Universal Music Canada told blogTO that day that the night was set to “be a very special show for fans,” as it surely was for anyone who did manage (or will manage) to nab admission to the “growing list” of unexpected performances added in the lead-up to Urban’s forthcoming 2025 High and Alive World Tour.
The handful of last-minute dates, purposely organized for intimate and atypical venues, also include the Nashville International Airport, a Buc-ees parking lot in Alabama, a 200-person club in Chicago called Carol’s Pub, and the famous Lower Broadway strip, also in Nashville.
For anyone who missed it, Urban will be back in Toronto this summer — the High and Alive Tour, with opening acts like Alana Springsteen, kicks off next month, and the Canadian dates were just announced yesterday.
He’ll be hitting Budweiser Stage on June 21, and will be back north of the border in September to play shows at Vancouver’s Rogers Arena, Calgary’s Scotiabank Saddledome, Regina’s Brandt Centre, Saskatoon’s SaskTel Centre, Winnipeg’s Canada Life Centre, Montreal’s Bell Center and Ottawa’s Canadian Tire Centre.
