The Chromatica Ball

Summary
Background
Development
Tickets & Dates
Show
Merchandise

The Chromatica Ball was the sixth headlining concert tour by Lady Gaga, in support of her sixth studio album, Chromatica (2020). It was initially planned for the summer of 2020 and after two postponements (summer 2021 and summer 2022), started on July 17, 2022. It is Gaga's first all-stadium tour and her first world tour since the Joanne World Tour (2017–2018).

Background

The tour was originally announced via Gaga's social media on March 5, 2020, as a six-date-long, limited concert series for the summer of that year. It was scheduled to begin on July 24, 2020, and conclude on August 19, 2020, going to Saint-Denis (France), London (England), Boston (USA), Toronto (Canada), Chicago, and East Rutherford (USA). The announcement was accompanied by a dual-sided graphic, one side an extreme closeup of Gaga's face, sporting the 'Chromatica symbol' on her cheek, mostly covered with a long, straightened, pink wig. The other side of the graphic featured the tour's limited itenerary surrounded by imagery from the music video and promotional campaign for "Stupid Love", the lead single from Chromatica. The tour was postponed to 2021, on June 26, 2020, due to safety concerns over the coronavirus pandemic.

On June 2, 2021, after Ticketmaster sent Gaga's Chromatica Ball tour ticket holders an email confirming that the tour had been rescheduled to 2022, EW (Entertainment Weekly) has confirmed through official channels that the performances will not take place in 2021. Lady Gaga said in a statement within the email:

"While some parts of the world are moving quickly to open up, others are not yet ready. So until we can confirm all global dates, we have to postpone The Chromatica Ball shows to the summer of 2022."

Ticketmaster has indicated that buyers should hang on to their current tickets as rescheduled dates are finalized. Refunds are currently not available (at the time of the news release, on June 2, 2021), but will be at a future date. The letter from Ticketmaster to each ticket holder also states that:

"The event organisers are working hard to arrange a new date and as soon as we get any update on this, we'll be in touch to let you know. Your tickets will be valid for this new date."

On March 7, 2022, Gaga announced rescheduled shows with additional new dates using new visuals. The once limited tour (6 shows) became a 15-date engagement advertised as "The Chromatica Ball Summer Stadium Tour". On April 14, 2022, two dates in Tokorozawa were announced, marking the singer's first show in Japan in eight years. Three additional North American shows in Hershey, Houston, and Miami were added later on May 16, bringing the tour's total number of shows to 20.

During Gaga's last tour, the Joanne World Tour (2017–2018), the singer was forced to cancel the majority of the European leg of the concert series, due to severe pain caused by fibromyalgia. Shortly before The Chromatica Ball began, Gaga admitted that there "was a time I thought I’d never be on stage again", while adding that she feels "more pain-free than I have in ages."

Promotional posters

Production

For the costume design, see this page.

7-17-22 Instagram 002 — "Welcome to my Museum of Brutaliy #chromaticaball"

On the day of the first tour date, Gaga posted a video on her Instagram account, giving an explanation behind the show:

“

The stage was inspired by brutalist architecture, materials, textures, crudity, transparency. A real savage and hard look at yourself, what you've been through. I wanted to tell a story with abstraction and art, so the show celebrates things that I have always loved like art and fashion and dance and music and technology, poetry, and the way all of those things work together." She also added that the show "documents the many different stages and sides of grief and the manic energy of grief that I feel that I've experienced in my life.

”

On Instagram, LeRoy Bennett, lighting and stage designer since The Monster Ball 2.0 in 2010, further explained their visions:

For this tour, Gaga and I took the pathway of creating a world based on Brutalist architecture. It's a very cold, harsh, yet beautiful form of architecture. As always in a Gaga's show and in her music, it's a journey of healing and understanding of who she is. She shares these evolutions with her fans to help them understand that they are not alone. They are accepted and loved as is. The Brutalist environment is relevant in a few ways. Its operatic in some sense but so rock and roll in another. It represents the space she was in writing "Chromatica" but also the world we are living in at the moment. It's the juxtaposition of where she is now and all the beauty she has discovered within herself. We live in extreme duality right now, witnessing the harshness of the world we live in everyday. "Chromatica" embraces the full spectrum range of living, from dark to light, ugly to the beautiful. The confronting brutality forces us to look deep inside and see the beauty and love that we all need in these times, through music, dance, fashion, design, art, technology, relationships. We are all human beings. We are our own unique selfs but we are also much the same. It focuses on us to be better and to come together in a unifying experience of universal love.
—LeRoy Bennett (July 2022)

For the interludes, BloodPop® and Burns provided the music while Nick Knight directed the visuals. Throughout the show, Gaga dons outfits by Gareth Pugh, Alexander McQueen, Topo Studio NY, and Vex Latex among others.