It has been several years since Ariana Grande last hit the road, with her most recent tour, “The Sweetener World Tour,” concluding in 2019. Since then, fans have eagerly awaited any updates on potential live performances or a return to touring. Grande, however, has shared why she hasn’t returned to the touring stage, citing one of the main reasons as her shift in focus towards acting.
Since 2019, Grande has achieved many milestones that have redefined her career path. In 2020, she released her sixth studio album, Positions, with the COVID-19 pandemic shutting down live events. Her focus turned toward studio work, collaborations, and at-home projects rather than touring.
Her long-awaited musical theater dreams became reality in 2021 when she was cast as Glinda in the Wicked film adaptation. Given the demanding film preparation, including extensive vocal training, rehearsals, dialect coaching, and physical training, touring was impossible during this time.
The following year, 2022, remained just as busy. Grande continued her commitment to Wicked while launching and expanding her beauty brand, r.e.m. beauty. Touring, again, was not in consideration, as her tight filming schedule and lack of music releases since Positions prevented her from touring. This continued into 2023, as filming for both Wicked movies wrapped, keeping Grande fully immersed in the project.
In 2024, fans became hopeful when Grande released eternal sunshine, her first album in four years. Fans felt that Grande remembered her musical roots and her place in the music industry. Despite the album’s release, she expressed that she wasn’t prepared for a world tour; instead, she hinted at smaller-scale shows.
Grande kept her word about intimate performances when she announced “The eternal sunshine Tour” in 2025, featuring 41 shows in total. The excitement within her fanbase was unmatched, demonstrated by the overwhelming demand during both presale and general ticket sales.
Unfortunately, a majority of fans walked away without tickets due to the large number of resellers and bots in the Ticketmaster queue. In response to fans’ complaints of scalpers and resellers, Grande posted a public message saying she was “on the phone every second” trying to find a solution and “hoping we will be able to get more of these tickets into your hands instead of theirs.” Ticketmaster then reviewed all ticket purchases and flagged any suspicious orders, resulting in the cancellation of many tickets.
However, a problem arose when some fans reported that, even though they were genuine buyers and dedicated Grande fans, their accounts were mistakenly flagged as bots, leading to the cancellation of their tickets. Fans were advised to contact Ticketmaster if this occurred to them.
The ticket sale debacle underscored how eager fans were to attend Grande’s tour. During an interview on the Good Hand With Amy Poehler podcast, she explained that “The eternal sunshine Tour” might be her last tour for a while.
During the podcast, Grande became candid about her feelings toward her upcoming tour and her vision for her music career. “I’m going to do a small stint of shows next year, because that is something that sounded authentically good to me,” she said. “I don’t want to say any definitive things. I do know that I’m very excited to do this small tour, but I think it might not happen again for a long, long, long, long time.”
She referred to the tour as a final chapter, or a “last hurrah, for now.” Reflecting on her career so far, she admitted that being a full-time pop star has “sort of taken over” her life. She said she now wants to leave space for other forms of creativity, such as acting, that feel right in the moment.
The upcoming tour is internationally smaller for a reason, allowing Grande to manage her mental health more easily than her past global tours. Seeing this tour as a closing chapter, she plans to give it her all in case she does not tour again.
The upcoming tour is a rare chance for fans to see Grande perform live, as there may not be another one for many years. Because she is presenting it as her “last hurrah,” the show carries a greater emotional weight for the singer and her audience.