INQUISITR.COM / Entertainment

Rihanna Anti Tour: Sabotaged By Beyoncé’s Formation Concert?

By Maurice Cassidy
Published on: 13:17 PST, Feb 20, 2016

Rihanna’s fans are said to be fuming over Beyoncé’s decision to embark on a world tour that seemingly happens to clash with the 28-year-old’s Anti concerts.

Since her infamous decision to pull out of the Grammys on Monday morning, Rihanna has canceled a further eight shows from her tour’s lineup. And while her team claims it’s solely down to production issues, sources say the shows were scrapped and postponed because they had not been selling as well as expected, causing serious problems with her management.

While she’s still expected to perform at this year’s Brit Awards out in London, producers are fearing that Rihanna will bail on them again, having also canceled at the last minute back in 2015. With the lack of promotion and the cancellation of events that may have benefited the 28-year-old’s album campaign, Beyoncé’s Formation tour announcement couldn’t have come at a worse time.

Following her performance during the Super Bowl halftime show, Beyoncé made it known that she would be heading out on a world tour this April, which evidently placed a nail in the coffin for Rihanna, who had already been struggling with ticket sales prior to the news.

According to reports, following Beyoncé’s announcement, thousands of fans demanded a refund from Rihanna’s Anti tour just so that they can go and catch a Formation show instead. Furthermore, while this has yet to be confirmed, Rihanna’s team is allegedly shuffling from stadiums (holding up to 70,000 people) to arenas with a capacity of 20,000. Beyoncé, on the other hand, is looking at stadiums that surpass more than 90,000 fans in size, having already added several new dates to her tour.

While the 34-year-old “Upgrade U” singer has remained silent on any upcoming album plans, during a recent taping of Watch What Happens Live, Beyoncé’s stylist, Ty Hunter, revealed that the record was already completed, sharing that the new music material is “amazing.”

With this in mind, if Beyoncé is finding little to no trouble in selling out stadiums worldwide, the release of her forthcoming record is just going to add further demand in the tour, which will presumably lead to more dates being added later this year.

Having enjoyed an astoundingly successful career since 2005, it goes without saying that Rihanna has really confused a lot of people with the release of Anti. Her label marketed the album with a tiring album campaign linked in with Samsung, the record was then put out to the masses for free via Tidal, yet still received a platinum plaque for “surpassing sales of more than 1 million records.”

Sources would later uncover that Rihanna had actually signed a $25 million deal with Samsung, which stated that they would purchase the seven-figure amount in albums and release them on the music streaming service as a tie-in with their new mobile phones. Furthermore, the tech company is also said to be sponsoring the Bajan beauty’s tour, covering the majority of the bills and equipment that would’ve seen Rihanna spend millions on.

But then again, what is a tour without people showing up to experience it? Considering the fact that Rihanna is Jay-Z’s protégé, for Beyoncé to suddenly go on tour the same time as her supposed musical pal seems rather odd to their fans.

Beyoncé’s move to “sabotage” Rihanna’s tour comes just months after an unauthorized biography on the singer’s life claimed Bey separated from her husband, Jay-Z, for a year after she learned about his alleged secret affair with the “Umbrella” star.

Can Rihanna save the Anti album and touring campaign or has Beyoncé officially taken over 2016?

[Photo by Jamie McCarthy and Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images]

Share this article: Rihanna Anti Tour: Sabotaged By Beyoncé’s Formation Concert?
rihanna beyonce
More from Inquisitr