Pink Friday 2 World Tour
The Pink Friday 2 World Tour was a concert tour headlined by American rapper Nicki Minaj to promote her fifth studio album, Pink Friday 2 (2023).[1] It began on March 1, 2024, at the Oakland Arena in Oakland, California, and concluded on October 11, 2024, encompassing 70 shows primarily across North America with select European dates.[2] The production featured elaborate stage designs, high-energy performances of tracks from the album alongside Minaj's career-spanning hits, and guest appearances by artists such as Monica.[3] The tour achieved commercial success, grossing $67 million from 439,000 tickets sold in its initial North American leg, marking it as the highest-grossing rap tour by a female artist at that point.[4] Subsequent reports placed the total revenue at $108.8 million across all dates, securing its position as the highest-grossing tour by a female rapper and among the top hip-hop tours overall.[5] This milestone underscored Minaj's enduring draw in live performances, with multiple shows selling out and averaging high per-show earnings.[4] Despite its triumphs, the tour faced logistical challenges, including several cancellations attributed to travel issues and personal circumstances, such as a reported incident in the Netherlands that led to fan dissatisfaction.[6] Additional scrutiny arose from allegations of choreography appropriation by a dancer, though these did not derail the overall production.[7] Critics noted the tour's spectacle and Minaj's commanding stage presence, contributing to its historical significance in hip-hop touring.[4]Background
Announcement and album tie-in
Nicki Minaj first announced the Pink Friday 2 World Tour on November 17, 2023, via social media, revealing an initial roster of cities across the United States, Canada, and Europe, and directing fans to RSVP on her official tour website for updates.[8] The high volume of traffic caused the site to crash shortly after launch.[9] Full tour dates were disclosed on December 11, 2023, with the North American leg scheduled to begin on March 1, 2024, at the Oakland Arena in Oakland, California, followed by European dates in May 2024.[10] The tour directly supports Minaj's fifth studio album, Pink Friday 2, released on December 8, 2023, as a sequel to her 2010 debut album Pink Friday.[10] Titled to align with the album's branding, the production incorporates themes and tracks from Pink Friday 2, positioning it as the primary live showcase for the record's material, including singles like "Super Freaky Girl" and "Red Ruby da Sleeze."[10] This marked Minaj's first major arena tour in five years, building anticipation amid the album's rollout delays and promotional singles.[10]Planning and delays in touring history
The Pink Friday 2 World Tour was initially conceptualized in mid-2023, with Nicki Minaj stating in June that performances would commence in the first quarter of 2024 to align with promotion for her forthcoming album.[11] Full tour dates were announced on November 17, 2023, encompassing an initial 40-date itinerary across arenas in the United States, Canada, and Europe, beginning March 1, 2024, at Oakland Arena in California.[12] This planning positioned the outing as Minaj's most expansive to date, emphasizing high-production arena spectacles without reported pre-launch postponements, though the schedule followed closely after the album's own release delays to December 8, 2023.[13] Minaj's broader touring history reflects patterns of interruptions and rescheduling, contributing to extended gaps between major outings. Her 2012 Pink Friday Tour and 2015–2016 Pinkprint Tour proceeded largely as scheduled, though the latter encountered operational hiccups, such as a two-hour delay at the 2015 Wireless Festival in London due to traffic congestion.[14] More significantly, the 2018 NickiHndrxx Tour—co-headlined with Future—saw its North American leg indefinitely postponed in August 2018, attributed by Minaj to insufficient rehearsal time and production reevaluation, with the dates shifted to 2019 without Future amid claims of scheduling conflicts.[15] Live Nation confirmed some venues had sold fewer than 10% of tickets, fueling speculation of weak demand as a causal factor, though Minaj denied this and blamed album delays for impacting promotion.[16] This led to a revised Nicki Wrld Tour in 2019, but no subsequent full-scale world tour until Pink Friday 2, marking a five-year interval. Such precedents underscore logistical and market challenges in Minaj's career, yet the 2024 tour launched on schedule, extending to over 70 dates including a second North American leg announced in May 2024.[1]Production
Stage design and visuals
The stage design for Nicki Minaj's Pink Friday 2 World Tour centered on the album's "Gag City" theme, utilizing large LED screens to create immersive environments that blurred the boundary between stage and audience, evoking a sense of entering an alternate world rather than a traditional concert setup.[17] Visual content, produced for over 30 songs, incorporated diverse motifs such as cyberpunk cities, poetic landscapes, pink-hued Gag City scenes, and sensual classical sculptures, rendered through 2D animation, motion design, 3D modeling, and editing techniques.[17] These elements were displayed on screens that mimicked building facades, enhancing spatial depth and thematic cohesion across arena venues.[17] Production design was led by Tom Sutherland and Jasmine Lesane, with creative direction from Beau Casper Smart, ensuring high-impact visuals supported by FORMATION's media server systems for real-time content delivery and backups during the tour's 70-plus shows.[18] Scenic construction by TAIT, lighting equipment from Solotech, video systems via Fuse Technical Group, and special effects including lasers from ER Productions contributed to dynamic stage transformations, featuring neon accents, Japanese pagoda-inspired structures, and classical statue projections.[18] The visuals were optimized for visibility from all seating positions, from front row to upper levels, delivering a uniform Gag City immersion through cutting-edge LED technology and intricate designs that complemented high-energy performances.[19] Additional effects such as pyrotechnics, fog jets, and elaborate lighting rigs amplified the futuristic and thematic intensity, with neon red, blue, and green illuminations highlighting dancers in stylized attire and architectural stage features.[20] Video content design by Alex Grierson and FORMATION integrated seamlessly with the production, maintaining consistency across international dates starting March 1, 2024.[21] This approach prioritized spectacle and narrative alignment with the album's aesthetic, avoiding simplistic setups in favor of layered, song-specific visual storytelling.[17]
Supporting acts and crew
The Pink Friday 2 World Tour employed varying supporting acts depending on the tour leg. For the first North American leg, which began on March 1, 2024, in Oakland, California, R&B singer Monica performed as the opening act at select dates, including the Las Vegas show on March 29, 2024.[3][22] The second North American leg, starting September 4, 2024, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, featured rappers BIA, Tyga, and dancehall artist Skillibeng as supporting acts, as announced by Nicki Minaj on August 16, 2024.[23][24][25] Specific supporting acts for the European and United Kingdom dates, which ran from May to June 2024, were not publicly detailed in official announcements.[26] Limited information is available on the tour's production crew, though Nicki Minaj shared credits for the opening performance's dancers via Instagram on March 3, 2024, listing Maggie C. Adams, Scarleta Viram, Amadia Kilah, Charlize Glass, Addie Heck, Bella Bhungary, and Jenna Duff, with Allyssa as swing.[27] A subsequent post on March 4, 2024, highlighted additional dancers including Patience Aquart, Jortay, and others for specific segments.[28]Set list
Standard songs and structure
The standard setlist for the Pink Friday 2 World Tour comprises around 33 songs, blending tracks from the 2023 album Pink Friday 2 with selections from Minaj's prior discography, including hits from Pink Friday (2010), The Pinkprint (2014), and standalone singles. Performed during the tour's opening North American leg on April 1, 2024, at Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C., the sequence prioritizes new material in the opening segment before integrating career-spanning anthems, creating a progression that highlights thematic continuity across her work, such as empowerment and bravado motifs.[29] The structure unfolds as a continuous performance without formal intermissions or distinct acts, relying on seamless transitions, costume changes, and visual cues to delineate eras; it opens energetically with album leads, builds through mid-set medleys of older tracks, and climaxes with high-energy closers to sustain audience engagement over roughly two hours.[29] This format, consistent across reported shows like the October 5, 2024, performance at Amalie Arena in Tampa, emphasizes Pink Friday 2 tracks (about 40% of the set) while allocating space for proven crowd-pleasers to balance promotion with nostalgia.[30] A representative setlist order is as follows:- "I'm the Best"
- "Barbie Dangerous"
- "FTCU"
- "Hard White" (interpolating elements from prior works)
- "Win Again"
- "We Go Up"
- "Big Difference"
- "Beep Beep"
- "Pink Birthday"
- "Feeling Myself" (with J. Cole)
- "Favorite"
- "Cowgirl"
- "High School" (with Schoolboy Q)
- "Needle" (with Mario)
- "Chun-Li"
- "Red Ruby Da Sleeze"
- "Barbie World" (with Ice Spice)
- "Roman's Revenge" (with Eminem)
- "Monster" (Kanye West featuring Nicki Minaj)
- "Fallin 4 U"
- "Right Thru Me"
- "Save Me"
- "Here I Am"
- "Let Me Calm Down" (with J. Cole)
- "Nicki Hendrix"
- "Super Freaky Girl"
- "Anaconda"
- "Pink Friday Girls"
- "Super Bass"
- "The Night Is Still Young"
- "Moment 4 Life" (with Drake)
- "Starships"
- "Everybody"