performing "Rocket Man" during his 2023 Glastonbury show On 24 January 2018, it was announced that Elton John would be retiring from touring and would soon embark on a three-year tour. The first concert was announced to take place at the PPL Center in Allentown, Pennsylvania on 8 September 2018 followed by an extensive tour of the United States and Canada before moving on to Europe. John cited spending time with his children along with
David Furnish as the reason for his retirement. Tickets went on sale on 24 February and within hours tickets for the first 60 shows were sold out. Further North American tour dates were announced on 26 September 2018. John's official website stated: "Salt Lake City, Tacoma, Memphis, Charlotte and Western Canada as well as return dates in Toronto, Philadelphia, Nashville, Cleveland and more". Thirteen days later, concerts were revealed for Lille, Paris, Bordeaux and Nîmes, taking place in Summer 2019. A Winter 2020 tour taking place in the United Kingdom and Ireland was announced on 8 November 2018. The original announcement detailed sixteen concerts taking place across England, Scotland, Ireland and Northern Ireland. It was later postponed to 2021, along with the rest of the second European leg and the third North American leg, due to the
COVID-19 pandemic. On 15 September 2021, the European leg was postponed to 2023 after John sustained a hip injury. On 23 June 2021, a stadium leg was announced which was to go across
Europe,
North America and
Oceania. It should have started in
Frankfurt in the
Deutsche Bank Park, but the new stadium stage had already been used in
Oslo in the Telenor Arena. The stadium tour stopped in several major cities such as
Milan,
Paris,
Liverpool,
London,
Philadelphia,
Chicago,
Washington D.C.,
Las Vegas, in
Los Angeles with three shows at
Dodger Stadium,
Melbourne,
Sydney and
Brisbane. ,
Australia, on 18 January 2023|219x219px After it was announced in January 2022 that the tour would resume, music director
Davey Johnstone stated that the band would wear masks and have tests every two days during the tour. John's first show back took place in New Orleans, Louisiana. He had to temporarily postpone two shows in Dallas after testing positive for
COVID-19 and experiencing mild symptoms, and resumed the tour again after making a full recovery. John would go on to perform tour dates across the UK and Europe for 2022 and 2023, when the tour wrapped up. At the 27 March 2022 performance in Lincoln, Nebraska, a live hookup was established during the concert and Elton's Oscars charity benefit, which he had not missed in 30 years of hosting, but opted to perform in Lincoln on that date because of the postponements. During the 24 September 2022 performance at Washington, D.C., United States President
Joe Biden and First Lady
Jill Biden invited John to perform at the White House, where he was presented with the
National Humanities Medal. On 2 December 2022, John announced the final show of his UK Tour would be headlining
Glastonbury Festival in 2023 saying "There is no more fitting way to say goodbye to my British fans". The show was watched by 120,000 people on site and with an average of 7.3 million viewers on
BBC One, breaking the record of
Diana Ross, who held it with 3.1 million viewers, making him the most watched festival act ever. The tour ended in Stockholm, Sweden, on 8 July 2023. ==Commercial performance==