„The Moscow Times“ reported on August 24 that the performances were supposed to take place on October 10–11 at the Gazprom Arena stadium, with the event organized by the Moscow-based Say Agency. However, the arena stated that no rental agreement was signed with the organizers, so it cannot host the event, writes united24media.com.
According to the publication and the Fontanka portal, the decision to cancel the concert was made after a “call from above” in Moscow. It is reported that the organizers had not received all the necessary permits from institutions, including the St. Petersburg Committee for Culture, before starting to sell tickets.
One of Fontanka’s sources said that K. West was supposed to receive a fee of 1.5 billion rubles for these performances.
In turn, the Telegram channel VChK-OGPU, citing an unnamed source, claims that businessmen Mikhail and Yuri Kovalchuk – longtime associates of Russian leader Vladimir Putin – contributed to efforts to prevent the concert. According to the source, Russian director Nikita Mikhalkov also opposed K. West’s performance in St. Petersburg.
The concert was canceled just a week after it was publicly announced. On August 17, The Moscow Times reported that Ye was to be the main star of two shows at the Gazprom Arena stadium, which holds about 80,000 spectators. Tickets had already started selling, with prices ranging from about 106 USD to 1,880 USD for VIP boxes. The Say Agency, which organized the event, has previously hosted performances by international artists such as Lil Pump, Flo Rida, Akon, and Jason Derulo.
The performances in St. Petersburg were supposed to continue a series of massive Ye events in the region: previously, his concerts in Istanbul (Turkey) attracted 118,000, and in Tbilisi (Georgia) 70,000 spectators; a show was also planned in Almaty (Kazakhstan) in August.
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