As mentioned earlier, Beyoncé kicks off the Formation World Tour tonight in Miami. Tickets would have been considered a major get a few weeks ago. But now? With the release of Lemonade? Well, she knows how to drive up the interest. It’s Beyoncé. It was always planned this way, of course.
When Rihanna kept delaying the release of ANTI earlier this year, getting closer and closer to the kick off date of her own tour, I complained that I needed time to live with the music before seeing it live. Does that apply to Beyoncé? Beyoncé put out the album 5 days ahead of the tour start. She also put out the album on television, ahead of the most popular show on television, and made it a Saturday night event at 9pm. There’s no other artist right now who is must-see TV. And that’s why it didn’t matter that Lemonade came so close to the tour. We knew all the words by the next morning.
So, once again, this is about Beyoncé’s marketing revolution. She isn’t excelling by the standards of standard marketing within the process of what has always been done. She’s made it so that “marketing” is what other people do. And she? She … there’s no word for it. She just Beyoncés.
But it doesn’t mean anything if there’s nothing to sell and if the product isn’t extraordinary. And given the expectations that Beyoncé has now set for herself and for the audience, well, we’re all going into Formation waiting to be transformed. Will she deliver?
E! News is reporting that on Tuesday she was at rehearsal from 11am and stayed 14 hours, not leaving until 2am. Beyoncé’s meticulous attention to detail, by this point, is already well known. You’ve heard the stories about her reviewing tape after every single show, looking for ways to improve, and that perfectionism, right now, has to be cranked higher than it’s ever been.
Click here to see pictures of Beyoncé with Jay Z at the arena yesterday. Compare the body language. There are 100 things on her mind. He’s totally relaxed. And she’s just realised that she’s being papped. Which means we’re seeing one of the costumes. Which means… someone on her team f-cked up. Or, being that this is Beyoncé who mindf-cks us all the time, did she wants us to see?
