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Kanye West’s St. Petersburg Concert Canceled After “Call From Above” in Moscow
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A planned concert by American rapper Ye, formarly Kanye West, in St. Petersburg will not take place after the venue said it had not signed a rental agreement with the event organizers, despite previously promoting the shows.
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The Moscow Times reported on August 24 that the concerts had been scheduled for October 10 and 11 at Gazprom Arena, with Moscow-based Say Agency listed as the organizer. The stadium said, however, that it had not signed any venue rental agreements with the organizers and therefore could not host the event.
According to the outlet, citing Fontanka the decision to cancel the concert followed a call “from above” in Moscow.
The organizers had also failed to secure approvals from all relevant authorities, including St. Petersburg’s Culture Committee, before beginning ticket sales.
One of Fontanka’s sources said West was expected to receive a fee of 1.5 billion rubles for the performances.
Separately, Russian Telegram channel VChK-OGPU, citing an unnamed source, claimed that businessmen Mikhail and Yuri Kovalchuk, longtime associates of Russian leader Vladimir Putin, were behind efforts to prevent the concert from taking place.
The source also claimed that Russian filmmaker Nikita Mikhalkov opposed West’s planned appearance in St. Petersburg.
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The cancellation comes just a week after the concerts were publicly announced. On August 17, The Moscow Times reported that Ye was expected to headline two shows at Gazprom Arena, a stadium with a capacity of around 80,000 spectators.
Tickets had already gone on sale, with prices ranging from approximately $106 to $1,880 for VIP boxes. Say Agency, which was organizing the shows, has previously arranged appearances by international artists including Lil Pump, Flo Rida, Akon, and Jason Derulo.
The St. Petersburg dates were expected to follow several large-scale appearances by Ye in the region, including performances attended by 118,000 people in Istanbul, Türkiye, and 70,000 in Tbilisi, Georgia, as well as a scheduled August show in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
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