Macklemore says nine major US arenas refused his Free Palestine tour
Madison Square Garden and Kia Forum among venues that declined once they learned shows were Palestine benefits, no authority banned anything while Fox News panel praises venue bans as powerful example
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Robert Kraft set a ‘powerful example’ with Macklemore ban, political analyst says
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Macklemore onstage
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Macklemore stands on stage in Dublin.
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Macklemore performs on stage
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Demonstrators protest outside an Ed Sheeran concert in Philadelphia.
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Macklemore says nine of the largest arenas in the United States have refused to host his "Free Palestine" tour. In a lengthy statement posted to Instagram, the rapper — legal name Ben Haggerty — wrote that in over twenty years of touring he has never experienced anything like it, and that the venues declined "once they found out these were my benefit shows for Palestine."
The venues he named include Madison Square Garden, Barclays Center, Prudential Center, UBS Arena, Intuit Dome, Kia Forum, Crypto.com Arena, Chase Center and Climate Pledge Arena — buildings that between them host most of the country's large tours. He addressed their owners directly, writing that the words "Free Palestine" represent a threat "not because they endanger anyone, but because those words challenge the systems of power they have built their fortunes on."
No authority banned anything. No agency issued a directive, and no law was invoked. The filtering happened in booking offices, where each venue weighs one night's revenue against campaigns, boycotts and headlines — a calculation the state never had to perform on anyone's behalf. Whether the nine refusals were independent commercial judgments or responses to the same pressure is the question his statement poses without answering. His own account supplies both readings: he claims AIPAC spent $42 million trying to defeat Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan's Senate race, won days earlier on a platform that included ending the war in Gaza and halting US arms sales to Israel. On the other side of the ledger, a political analyst on Fox News Sunday praised Robert Kraft's ban of Macklemore as a "powerful example" — a national broadcast celebrating precisely the exclusion the rapper describes.
The pattern extends beyond arenas. Macklemore was dropped from Ed Sheeran's tour over his pro-Palestine stance, and demonstrators protested outside Sheeran's concert in Philadelphia in September. Macklemore writes that the intimidation, manipulation and suppression he experienced are "part of how those in power keep entertainers quiet," and that he is now three years past caring about maintaining relationships with anyone who is not "riding for a Free Palestine."
His own evidence cuts in more than one direction. He points to three sold-out arenas in Europe — tens of thousands of attendees, more than forty artists and speakers on the bill — as proof that demand exists. The same act, the same words, a different market.
Three arenas sold out in Europe. Nine said no in the United States.