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UPI
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- UPI
'Descendants' star Kylie Cantrall awaits Madison Square Garden debut
LOS ANGELES, Aug. 7 (UPI) -- Kylie Cantrall says she fulfilled a dream by performing at Arena in Los Angeles as part of Disney's Descendants/Zombies: Worlds Collide tour in June. Now, she's anticipating the tour's Aug. 21 date at Madison Square Garden in New York. In a phone interview with UPI during the tour's stop in Kansas City, Mo., Cantrall, 20, said she expects to create the memories of a lifetime at the famed New York venue. The tour performs in the Midwest through August. "Madison Square Garden is the most iconic venue ever," Cantrall said. "Legends of legends have played there, so I'm just excited to set foot and add that to the list of most incredible places I've ever played at. It's going to be a cool story to tell my kids one day." Just being on tour fulfills a dream for Cantrall, who played Red in the 2024 Disney Channel film Descendants: The Rise of Red, the fourth film in the series based on children of Disney villains and princesses. "I've been manifesting to go on tour for a really long time so it feels like it was kind of kismet," she said. Cantrall performs the film's title song, "Red," on stage, backed up by dancers wearing red helmets and carrying red shields. Crowds have been singing along and chanting to "Red." "I feel like there's nothing that gets you used to that," Cantrall said. "Every time I hear them chanting it and chanting all the words, it's so special." The stage choreography differs from the movie. On film, Red could run around the kingdom, so choreographer Scotty Nguyen adapted the moves for a finite stage. "There's a lift and this moment where I interact with the screen behind me and I'm graffitiing my heartbreak logo on the screen," Cantrall said. "It just feels really big and it feels like exactly what you would think the stage version of 'Red' would be like." Rise of Red costars Dara Reneé, Malia Baker and Joshua Colley are also part of the Worlds Collide tour. They collide with Zombies 4 cast members Freya Skye, Malachi Barton and Mekonnen Knife, who represent that franchise. The group also performs songs from the first three Descendants and Zombies films. Cantrall said she used to sing "Rotten to the Core," "Ways to be Wicked, "Set It Off" and other songs in her bedroom before joining the franchise. "I pretty much already knew all the songs since I was such a giant Descendants fan growing up," Cantrall said. "When I started learning songs I was like wait, I actually know all these lyrics. I feel like subconsciously I knew the songs so well already just from watching the movies so much as a kid." Cantrall released her first single, "Truth is for Suckers," on her YouTube Channel when she was 10. Having practiced singing and dancing all her life, Cantrall feels she has put in the 10,000 hours of practice author Malcolm Gladwell suggests are necessary for mastery. "I started dancing when I was two years old so I feel like that aspect is just muscle memory," Cantrall said. "It feels like second nature picking up choreography. My mom was a dance choreographer as well so I feel like that's helped me a lot for this." Ten shows into the tour at the time of this interview, Cantrall said the choreography is familiar enough that the performers play games on stage within their dance steps. Future audiences can try to spot them. "We play tag on stage," Cantrall said. "The dancers are in on it too so whenever we get the chance to pass by someone on stage we'll tag them." Worlds Collide also allowed Cantrall an opportunity to perform a medley of original songs she released on her May EP, titled B.O.Y. "I created them with the intention of performing them live one day," she said. "When you play the EP from top to bottom, it feels like you're front row at the Kylie concert. It has that hype, energy that it would in an arena. So the fact that I actually get to play the songs in an arena, it feels like the perfect place for them to be heard." After the tour concludes Sept. 16, Cantrall has plans to create an entire album of music. "I already have a couple songs that are kind of the bones of the album so far," she said. "I already have a concept for the album and a title. I can't say it just yet but it is in the works." Prior to the concert, Cantrall also filmed Descendants 5. Disney will release Descendants: Wicked Wonderland next year. "Red has a sister now," Cantrall previewed. "Her name is Pink." Red is the daughter of the Queen of Hearts (Rita Ora), the villain in Disney's Alice in Wonderland. Cantrall said the new film includes more of Lewis Carroll's Wonderland mythology. "We take a lot of inspiration from the original Alice in Wonderland with some of the magical creatures and the White Rabbit and Cheshire Cat," Cantrall said. " The dance numbers feel very nostalgic to the original three Descendants."
Boston Globe
01-08-2025
- Sport
- Boston Globe
Boston is in for a wild ride when professional bull riding comes to TD Garden in January
After some 50 trucks dump more than 750 tons of dirt on the Garden floor, more than 100 bulls weighing well over half a ton each will try buck off a cavalry of heavily padded riders holding on for dear life, with one hand, for eight seconds. This premier rodeo event is an acquired taste. PBR believes Boston has the appetite for it. Based mostly on 25 'hugely successful' stops of its up-and-coming riders events in Worcester since 1998, PBR CEO and commissioner Sean Gleason believes Boston will turn out. Advertisement 'The dates would just never work out for us to try and get to Boston,' said Gleason by telephone from Texas this week. 'Finally they have, and we're extremely excited about the opportunity to return to Massachusetts. It's been a long time for us to bring the primary tour here.' Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up The TD Garden visit will be the third on the 18-stop 'Unleash the Beast' tour, coming three weeks after the season opener at SNHU Arena in Manchester, N.H., and a week before the league's 17th annual visit to New York's Madison Square Garden. Finding time midseason amid the Garden's primary tenants, the Celtics and Bruins, sounds like it's worth it. 'Bringing PBR to Boston is part of our commitment to diversifying the live entertainment experiences we offer our fans,' said Glen Thornborough, TD Garden president and Bruins chief operating office, in an email. 'This is a world-class, high-energy event that's expanding steadily across the East Coast and into major NHL and NBA arenas. We're proud to be part of that growth and excited to introduce something bold and new to our city's rich and exciting sports history.' Advertisement Besides Worcester and Manchester, which has hosted five 'Unleash the Beast' events, PBR's development tour also paid a sold-out visit to Bangor, Maine, this spring, Gleason said. 'We did do some homework on our fan base, and with our TV ratings and the surrounding market, because it's not just Boston proper that will attend this event,' said Gleason. 'Our fans will drive from up to 200 miles to a market to see the PBR when we're in their territory.' The love of bull riding will be the draw, rather than seeing New England riders, or bulls for that matter, compete. One rider, Daylon Swearingen, hails from Piffard, N.Y., which is roughly between Rochester and Buffalo, and another, Braidy Randolph, is from Jonestown, Pa. Other than that, unless you want to make an association between the bull known as Cy Young (87 percent buck-off rate) with the Red Sox, New England ties to bull riding are hard to find. But New Englanders will find PBR to their liking, Gleason believes. 'I think it's going to be an extremely successful event, much like some of the other first-market events we've done recently, like PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh and Arena in LA,' said Gleason. 'We bring the PBR brand of bull riding to a major market and a place where rodeo and western sports really aren't that familiar, but we always surprise and delight people.' Advertisement PBR's "Unleash the Beast" tour was well-received at Madison Square Garden in January. Andy Watson In other words, PBR not only is coming to Boston, it expects to be coming back — maybe even one day with an expansion Boston team for its Team Series league that includes the New York Mavericks. 'Pittsburgh last year was a complete sellout, and all of a sudden that became a very viable market for a PBR team. I think the same would hold true in Boston,' said Gleason. 'We've already started working with [TD Garden] on dates for the future should this event be successful, as we think it will be.' Michael Silverman can be reached at
Miami Herald
24-07-2025
- Business
- Miami Herald
This LA company builds venues for the world's biggest pop stars, sports teams and sumo wrestlers
Sports and music fans, flocking to a once-questionable corner of downtown, were the springboard for an L.A.-born multibillion-dollar empire of venues and events for screaming enthusiasts around the globe. AEG, the company behind Arena and the L.A. Live district, has turned its know-how about hosting and promoting big shows into a formula it has rolled out on five continents. It is literally setting the stages for the world's biggest pop stars, sports teams and even - most recently - sumo wrestlers. It is one of the city's lesser-known global success stories. With more than 20,000 employees and billions of dollars of projects running at any one time, AEG is one of the planet's biggest venue and event companies. L.A.'s high concentration of sports teams and musical talent forced it to develop a system that uses its spaces for up to five different events in a day. "We learned how to be nimble in moving from one to the other to really maximize," AEG Chief Executive Dan Beckerman told The Los Angeles Times. AEG is prospering by executing a fairly simple business plan, said Andrew Zimbalist, professor emeritus of economics at Smith College. Its industry is fairly straightforward - and more use of each seat means gives the company more capital to build more venues. "You have to pick your niche, have capital, have tenacity," he said. "And stick with it." Sumo wrestlers bashed bellies this month in AEG's newest venue on the grounds of a legendary castle. The recently opened IG Arena stands in the outer citadel of Nagoya Castle in Nagoya, Japan, which was built in the early 1600s, when samurai battles raged in the region. While the summer sumo tournament required a traditional ring of sand, clay and rice straw bales, the arena will be soon be transformed to host such diverse events as a basketball clinic hosted by the L.A. Lakers' Rui Hachimura, a professional boxing match and a concert by English musician Sting. In Nagoya and increasingly across East and Southeast Asia, AEG is doing what it does better than most - build arenas that can host pro sports and shows by big-name artists, with the venues often built within an ecosystem of bars, restaurants and hotels also built by the company and its partners. The company was founded in 1995 when Denver billionaire investor Philip Anschutz bought the Los Angeles Kings and in 1999 opened the downtown arena then known as the Staples Center, which was built by Anschutz and Kings co-owner Ed Roski. It was considered a risky project at the time, when the gritty blocks near the Los Angeles Convention Center were deemed undesirable by most real estate developers. AEG added the $3 billion L.A. Live complex in 2007, and other developers also moved into the South Park district, building hotels, restaurants and thousands of residential units. The popular venues have now hosted 22 Grammy Awards shows, a Democratic National Convention, two Stanley Cup championships, six NBA championships and All-Star hockey and basketball weekends. That high-profile success gave it an edge when competing to build or buy around the world. AEG has expanded to own and operate more than 100 venues serving 100 million guests annually. Among its holdings are the Los Angeles Galaxy soccer team and German pro ice hockey team Eisbären Berlin. As the second biggest event promoter in the world, it puts on large festivals including the annual Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival and American Express Presents BST Hyde Park music festival in London. It has faced slowdowns and other tough periods as well. Its London arena was the site of Michael Jackson's planned comeback announced in 2009. During a period when he was rehearsing for the physically demanding shows, Jackson died. His mother and three children sued AEG Live in 2010. The lawsuit alleged that AEG was negligent in its hiring of the physician who administered the fatal dose of propofol that led to Jackson's death. A Los Angeles jury unanimously decided that the concert promoter wasn't liable in the singer's death. "People heard of AEG because of Michael Jackson and the and the subsequent lawsuit from the family," said Randy Phillips, former manager of music promotions at AEG. "They would never have even known what it is." The company was laid low during the pandemic, when live events were canceled starting in March 2020. Venues stayed dark until well into 2021, when AEG started putting on sports events with no audiences and later with limited seating. Times changed in 2022 when revenues reached new records as fans stormed back, Beckerman said. "We were all very pleasantly surprised," he said. "I think people learned during the pandemic that there really is no substitute for live events." AEG also lost a longtime arena tenant when the Los Angeles Clippers moved to a new arena in Inglewood after the team's lease at Arena expired in 2024. Owner Steve Ballmer said he wanted the Clippers to have their own home that they didn't share with other teams. AEG's touring business lifted off with a 2001 concert with Britney Spears at Staples Center. "The Britney Spears tour is what broke the company wide open," said Phillips, who became head of music promotions for AEG after landing Spears. "That's when we became players." Big acts followed including Tom Petty, Paul McCartney, Tina Turner and Pink. AEG expanded its U.S. concert touring empire by building large multipurpose arenas in Las Vegas and Kansas City. It also is establishing a network of smaller venues such as the El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles and the Showbox in Seattle. It recently opened the Pinnacle at Nashville Yards, a concert hall that is part of a mixed-use district including housing and offices that AEG and a local partner are developing in downtown Nashville. Its highest-profile property outside of Los Angeles is in London, where the company resurrected a large dome-shaped building built to house an exhibition celebrating the turn of the millennium in 2000. After AEG's redevelopment of the site, the O2 Arena became one of the world's busiest venues for entertainment and sports with 10 million visitors a year. In Berlin, the company built the Uber Arena, one of the highest-grossing arenas in the world and part of an entertainment district with restaurants and theaters. The Nagoya project is part of the company's pan-Asian strategy to grow its real estate empire and create more venues for artists like Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran. The United States and Europe, where AEG has long been active, are largely built-out with modern arenas for sports and entertainment, but many Asian countries are ready to upgrade their old facilities. "Japan is at the top of the list" for AEG, said Ted Fikre, head of development at the company. The country's venues are typically decades old and pale in comparison to modern multi-use arenas typically found in the U.S. and Europe. The IG Arena in Nagoya, with a capacity of 17,000, is expected to annually host 150 events for 1.4 million attendees at concerts, basketball games and other live entertainment. AEG has an even larger development in the works in Osaka. Plans call for an 18,000-seat arena that will anchor an entertainment district with hotels, offices, shops and restaurants along with housing. Valued at more than $1 billion, Fikre compared the Osaka project to its largest mixed-use districts - L.A. Live in Los Angeles and the O2 in London. The project is set to break ground in 2027. In partnership with the NBA, the company built Mercedes-Benz Arena in Shanghai in 2010. It is also involved in plans for South Korea, Singapore and Thailand. "The ambition for us is to establish a strong presence throughout the Asia region, and we've got a good head start," Fikre said. AEG opened a 4,500-capacity venue in Bangkok last year with a concert by Ed Sheeran. The company is also working with one of Thailand's largest mall operators to build an 18,000-seat arena in a sprawling regional mall just east of Bangkok, set to open in 2028. AEG's network of venues throughout Asia makes it easier to book big-name artists. "It's a bit tricky to tour in Asia because of the expense of traveling around the region," Fikre said. "It's not like you're in the U.S., where you just take a bunch of trucks" from city to city. Swift completed the international leg of her most recent tour last year that included six nights in Singapore and four nights in Tokyo to sold-out audiences booked by AEG Presents as her international promoter. Sheeran played in Bhutan, India and other Asian countries he hadn't previously visited in venues booked by AEG. The international trend now works in both directions for AEG, with K-pop acts such as BTS, Blackpink and other global stars packing AEG venues in the West. Copyright (C) 2025, Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Portions copyrighted by the respective providers.
Los Angeles Times
23-07-2025
- Business
- Los Angeles Times
This L.A. company builds venues for the world's biggest pop stars, sports teams and sumo wrestlers
Sports and music fans, flocking to a once-questionable corner of downtown, were the springboard for an L.A.-born multibillion-dollar empire of venues and events for screaming enthusiasts around the globe. AEG, the company behind Arena and the L.A. Live district, has turned its know-how about hosting and promoting big shows into a formula it has rolled out on five continents. It is literally setting the stages for the world's biggest pop stars, sports teams and even — most recently — sumo wrestlers. It is one of the city's lesser-known global success stories. With more than 20,000 employees and billions of dollars of projects running at any one time, AEG is one of the planet's biggest venue and event companies. L.A.'s high concentration of sports teams and musical talent forced it to develop a system that uses its spaces for up to five different events in a day. 'We learned how to be nimble in moving from one to the other to really maximize,' AEG Chief Executive Dan Beckerman told The Los Angeles Times. AEG is prospering by executing a fairly simple business plan, said Andrew Zimbalist, professor emeritus of economics at Smith College. Its industry is fairly straightforward — and more use of each seat means gives the company more capital to build more venues. 'You have to pick your niche, have capital, have tenacity,' he said. 'And stick with it.' Sumo wrestlers bashed bellies this month in AEG's newest venue on the grounds of a legendary castle. The recently opened IG Arena stands in the outer citadel of Nagoya Castle in Nagoya, Japan, which was built in the early 1600s, when samurai battles raged in the region. While the summer sumo tournament required a traditional ring of sand, clay and rice straw bales, the arena will be soon be transformed to host such diverse events as a basketball clinic hosted by the L.A. Lakers' Rui Hachimura, a professional boxing match and a concert by English musician Sting. In Nagoya and increasingly across East and Southeast Asia, AEG is doing what it does better than most — build arenas that can host pro sports and shows by big-name artists, with the venues often built within an ecosystem of bars, restaurants and hotels also built by the company and its partners. The company was founded in 1995 when Denver billionaire investor Philip Anschutz bought the Los Angeles Kings and in 1999 opened the downtown arena then known as the Staples Center, which was built by Anschutz and Kings co-owner Ed Roski. It was considered a risky project at the time, when the gritty blocks near the Los Angeles Convention Center were deemed undesirable by most real estate developers. AEG added the $3 billion L.A. Live complex in 2007, and other developers also moved into the South Park district, building hotels, restaurants and thousands of residential units. The popular venues have now hosted 22 Grammy Awards shows, a Democratic National Convention, two Stanley Cup championships, six NBA championships and All-Star hockey and basketball weekends. That high-profile success gave it an edge when competing to build or buy around the world. AEG has expanded to own and operate more than 100 venues serving 100 million guests annually. Among its holdings are the Los Angeles Galaxy soccer team and German pro ice hockey team Eisbären Berlin. As the second biggest event promoter in the world, it puts on large festivals including the annual Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival and American Express Presents BST Hyde Park music festival in London. It has faced slowdowns and other tough periods as well. Its London arena was the site of Michael Jackson's planned comeback announced in 2009. During a period when he was rehearsing for the physically demanding shows, Jackson died. His mother and three children sued AEG Live in 2010. The lawsuit alleged that AEG was negligent in its hiring of the physician who administered the fatal dose of propofol that led to Jackson's death. A Los Angeles jury unanimously decided that the concert promoter wasn't liable in the singer's death. 'People heard of AEG because of Michael Jackson and the and the subsequent lawsuit from the family,' said Randy Phillips, former manager of music promotions at AEG. 'They would never have even known what it is.' The company was laid low during the pandemic, when live events were canceled starting in March 2020. Venues stayed dark until well into 2021, when AEG started putting on sports events with no audiences and later with limited seating. Times changed in 2022 when revenues reached new records as fans stormed back, Beckerman said. 'We were all very pleasantly surprised,' he said. 'I think people learned during the pandemic that there really is no substitute for live events.' AEG also lost a longtime arena tenant when the Los Angeles Clippers moved to a new arena in Inglewood after the team's lease at Arena expired in 2024. Owner Steve Ballmer said he wanted the Clippers to have their own home that they didn't share with other teams. AEG's touring business lifted off with a 2001 concert with Britney Spears at Staples Center. 'The Britney Spears tour is what broke the company wide open,' said Phillips, who became head of music promotions for AEG after landing Spears. 'That's when we became players.' Big acts followed including Tom Petty, Paul McCartney, Tina Turner and Pink. AEG expanded its U.S. concert touring empire by building large multipurpose arenas in Las Vegas and Kansas City. It also is establishing a network of smaller venues such as the El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles and the Showbox in Seattle. It recently opened the Pinnacle at Nashville Yards, a concert hall that is part of a mixed-use district including housing and offices that AEG and a local partner are developing in downtown Nashville. Its highest-profile property outside of Los Angeles is in London, where the company resurrected a large dome-shaped building built to house an exhibition celebrating the turn of the millennium in 2000. After AEG's redevelopment of the site, the O2 Arena became one of the world's busiest venues for entertainment and sports with 10 million visitors a year. In Berlin, the company built the Uber Arena, one of the highest-grossing arenas in the world and part of an entertainment district with restaurants and theaters. The Nagoya project is part of the company's pan-Asian strategy to grow its real estate empire and create more venues for artists like Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran. The United States and Europe, where AEG has long been active, are largely built-out with modern arenas for sports and entertainment, but many Asian countries are ready to upgrade their old facilities. 'Japan is at the top of the list' for AEG, said Ted Fikre, head of development at the company. The country's venues are typically decades old and pale in comparison to modern multi-use arenas typically found in the U.S. and Europe. The IG Arena in Nagoya, with a capacity of 17,000, is expected to annually host 150 events for 1.4 million attendees at concerts, basketball games and other live entertainment. AEG has an even larger development in the works in Osaka. Plans call for an 18,000-seat arena that will anchor an entertainment district with hotels, offices, shops and restaurants along with housing. Valued at more than $1 billion, Fikre compared the Osaka project to its largest mixed-use districts — L.A. Live in Los Angeles and the O2 in London. The project is set to break ground in 2027. In partnership with the NBA, the company built Mercedes-Benz Arena in Shanghai in 2010. It is also involved in plans for South Korea, Singapore and Thailand. 'The ambition for us is to establish a strong presence throughout the Asia region, and we've got a good head start,' Fikre said. AEG opened a 4,500-capacity venue in Bangkok last year with a concert by Ed Sheeran. The company is also working with one of Thailand's largest mall operators to build an 18,000-seat arena in a sprawling regional mall just east of Bangkok, set to open in 2028. AEG's network of venues throughout Asia makes it easier to book big-name artists. 'It's a bit tricky to tour in Asia because of the expense of traveling around the region,' Fikre said. 'It's not like you're in the U.S., where you just take a bunch of trucks' from city to city. Swift completed the international leg of her most recent tour last year that included six nights in Singapore and four nights in Tokyo to sold-out audiences booked by AEG Presents as her international promoter. Sheeran played in Bhutan, India and other Asian countries he hadn't previously visited in venues booked by AEG. The international trend now works in both directions for AEG, with K-pop acts such as BTS, Blackpink and other global stars packing AEG venues in the West.
Forbes
15-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Billie Eilish's Debut Album Surges Half A Decade Later
Billie Eilish's When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? surges on four U.K. charts as her Hit Me ... More Hard and Soft Tour hits the country. LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - FEBRUARY 02: Billie Eilish performs onstage during the 67th Annual GRAMMY Awards at Arena on February 02, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo byfor The Recording Academy) Billie Eilish is currently in the middle of her Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour, which began in September 2024 and is set to run until almost the end of 2025. The singer started July by playing two shows in Glasgow, Scotland, before heading to London for six nights at The O2 Arena. Later this month, she'll trek to Manchester and headline four dates in that city, before flying to Dublin. From there, she'll travel to Japan and then launch another leg throughout the United States before the year is over. To celebrate Eilish's tour hitting the United Kingdom, fans in the country have been consuming all three of her albums in huge numbers. Interestingly, her debut full-length is the greatest gainer at the moment, even though her current trek focuses on the music presented on her third project, Hit Me Hard and Soft. Billie Eilish's Debut Album Returns in a Big Way When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, the project that introduced Eilish to the world more than half a decade ago, currently appears on four charts in the U.K. The bestselling effort returns to all four as streams and sales of the full-length grew considerably. When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? lands at No. 82 on the Official Albums chart, a general consumption tally, and reenters lowest at No. 92 on the Official Albums Sales list. It also appears on both the Official Physical Albums and Official Albums Streaming rosters, in positions between those two numbers. Years on the Charts for Billie Eilish's First Album In the past, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? has reached No. 1 on all four charts, but the length of time it has spent on each varies widely. Among the four tallies where Eilish's debut project can be found, it has spent the least amount of time on the Official Albums Sales list, racking up 167 frames. The full-length is now up to 265 stays on the Official Albums Streaming roster — almost exactly 100 weeks longer than on the main sales ranking. All Three of Billie Eilish's Albums Live on the Charts All three of Eilish's albums — When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, Happier Than Ever, and Hit Me Hard and Soft — appear on multiple charts in the U.K. at the moment. While the first of the bunch enjoys the greatest comeback, it also appears on the fewest tallies and ranks the lowest. Meanwhile, Hit Me Hard and Soft nears the top 10 on several.
