UPDATE: The concert has been postponed. CLICK HERE for all the details.
Fans with tickets to Friday's launch of The Weeknd's After Hours 'til Dawn Tour at Toronto's Rogers Centre are wondering if the Rogers network outage will impact the concert.
"How are we going to show our barcode from our tickets at The Weeknd concert tonight … if Rogers is down? The app says no screen shots will be accepted," read a tweet from Trevor Gordon. Brian Clement shared: "I’m fairly certain the card reading machines vendors have at the dome for the Weeknd concert tonight would use the Rogers network. Seems like a problem!”
Rogers services have been down since early Friday morning, impacting not only internet and mobile but disabling Interac and other services. The company has not said when the problem will be fixed.
As of 4 p.m. there had been no official word from the venue or from the promoter, Live Nation Canada. (No one from Live Nation Canada responded to a query from iHeartRadio.ca). Ticketmaster, part of Live Nation, has also not made any announcement.
The Scotiabank Arena and Budweiser Stage, who are hosting Roger Waters and Keith Urban respectively, advised fans via Twitter to add their tickets to Apple Wallet or Google Pay "while connected to Wi-Fi in advance of arriving." Both venues urged fans to arrive early due to expected delays.
The Weeknd's concert was a big deal (according to Ticketmaster, capacity for his tour kick-off at Rogers Centre is 43,357) and fans waited a long time (The Weeknd has not performed live in Canada since October 2017).
In February 2020, the singer announced his After Hours Tour would kick off at Rogers Arena in Vancouver on June 11, 2020 and include stops in Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto and Montreal.
Then, in May 2020, he shared news that the tour was being pushed forward a year due to the pandemic.
But, in February 2021, the tour was postponed again. The Weeknd was scheduled to hit Vancouver, Edmonton and Winnipeg in January 2022 and Toronto and Montreal in February – along with two additional Toronto shows in April.
Then, in October 2021, fans found out The Weeknd was pulling the plug on the After Hours Tour.
“Due to constraints of arenas and the demand for more shows I want to do something bigger and special for you which requires stadiums,” read a message on his social media.
The Weeknd teased the After Hours til Dawn stadium tour on social media for weeks but had to postpone the official announcement in February due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
In early March, the Toronto native announced the tour would kick off at his hometown Rogers Centre on July 8 and the only other Canadian show would be at Vancouver’s BC Place on Aug. 23.
Then, in May, news came that Doja Cat was pulling out as opening act, reportedly so she could recover from tonsil surgery.
The Weeknd made his live debut in Toronto on July 24, 2011 in front of a few hundred people at The Mod Club (now The Axis Club).
On Thursday, fellow T.O. superstar Drake shared a series of Instagram Stories from the driveway of the One St. Thomas Residences where he used to live and where he first heard The Weeknd's music.
"That same guy is selling out the [Rogers Centre] tomorrow," he said. (The concert is not, in fact, sold out.) "It's a great life."