Andrea Bocelli postpones his Charlotte concert — at the last minute — due to laryngitis
Just hours before he was to take the stage at Spectrum Center in Charlotte, world-famous Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli postponed his Friday night concert, a show that would have been the kickoff of his annual Valentine’s Day tour.
According to a Facebook post on his official page, it is due to a case of laryngitis.
“In over 20 years of performing in the United States, this is the first time Andrea Bocelli has ever postponed a performance,” the announcement said. “We do apologize for the inconvenience caused by this necessary change.”
The performance has been rescheduled for 8 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 16, which falls during Presidents’ Day Weekend. All tickets will remain valid for the new date. For those who are unable to attend, refunds will be available at the point of purchase — provided those purchases were made through Ticketmaster or directly from the box office.
With the original concert scheduled to start at 8 p.m., the announcement went out with roughly six hours’ notice, making it one of the most last-minute postponements in recent history for an arena concert. (Perhaps most famously, in April 2014, pop star Miley Cyrus called in sick with the flu barely half an hour before a concert at the former Time Warner Cable Arena.)
News was already spreading throughout the arena by noontime Friday, with arena staff assigned to work the concert reportedly being told they were getting the night off and that they could head back home; it’s unclear why the tour waited at least two hours to officially make the announcement.
This would have been Bocelli’s first time performing live since Jan. 10, when he headlined Žalgiris Arena in Kaunas, Lithuania.
He has other Valentine’s Day-themed concerts set for next week — on Tuesday in Miami, Thursday in Atlanta, and next Friday in Tampa, Fla. — and Friday’s announcement did not indicate that those would be affected by his illness.
The 61-year-old singer, whose career dates back to 1982, made his first and most recent appearance in Charlotte in February 2018, when he sold out the arena.
Clarification: A previous version of this story said only that refunds would be available at the point of purchase, as per the press release announcing the postponement. It’s important to note that this applies only to Ticketmaster and box office purchases, not to tickets bought through third-party resellers.
This story was originally published February 7, 2020 at 2:21 PM.
