Madonna is facing a lawsuit after she allegedly delayed the starting time of three concerts in New York City and caused legal harm to fans who “had to get up early to go to work.”
Per Billboard, ticket buyers Michael Fellows and Jonathan Hadden filed a complaint in Brooklyn federal court on Wednesday (January 17th), claiming that Madonna had breached her contract with concertgoers and violated New York state laws by taking the stage more than two hours later than the scheduled 8:30 p.m. starting times.
The shows took place at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center in December after being rescheduled from July due to Madonna’s hospitalization for a bacterial infection in June. In addition to Madonna, the lawsuit names Live Nation and Barclays Center as defendants.
“Defendants’ actions constitute not just a breach of their contracts… but also a wanton exercise in false advertising, negligent misrepresentation, and unfair and deceptive trade practices,” the attorneys wrote.
In the complaint, the plaintiffs said they “would not have paid for their tickets” to a December 13th show “had they known that the concerts would start after 10:30 p.m.” and added that there was a failure “to provide any notice to the ticketholders that the concerts would start much later than the start time printed on the ticket and as advertised.”
As a result, concertgoers got out of the show after 1:00 a.m. and were “left stranded in the middle of the night” due to “limited public transportation” and rideshare surge pricing. The ticket buyers were allegedly caused further harm because it was a weeknight concert, which meant they “had to get up early to go to and/or take care of their family responsibilities the next day.”
The complaint also includes a claim of negligent misrepresentation, saying that organizers of the concerts “knew or should have known” the shows would start late due to Madonna’s past concert delays and warned fans in advance.
“Madonna has a long history of arriving and starting her concerts late, sometimes several hours late,” the attorneys for the plaintiffs wrote. “This history occurred throughout her 2016 Rebel Heart Tour, her 2019-2020 Madame X Tour, and prior tours, where Madonna continuously started her concerts over two hours late.”
Read our review of Madonna’s Brooklyn kick-off concert and grab tickets to upcoming dates here. The “Celebration Tour” runs through April.