Christina Aguilera Confirms Vegas Residency Starting in May
By Chris Willman
LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Christina Aguilera is the latest star to hang her shingle on the Las Vegas Strip, announcing today that she’ll be settling into the Zappos Theater at Planet Hollywood for 16 shows, starting May 31 and continuing in intervals through October 5.
The show is titled “The Xperience” and is set for a venue that is currently playing host to alternating residencies by the Backstreet Boys (who wrap their run on April 27) and Gwen Stefani (who has dates booked into November).
Aguilera toured the U.S. this past fall with her first American tour in 10 years, supporting the album “Liberation.” She’s promising her stay in Vegas will be a completely different, “mind-blowing theatrical experience.”
She made the announcement on Tuesday’s edition of “Ellen.” “It’s been in talks for quite a few years now,” Aguilera told the talk-show host, saying a residency will “be a little easier with the kids… I still want to see my fans all over and in Europe and everything. But how much easier for everyone to just come to one place and fill the venue with fantasy and love and excitement, and put on a show that I’ve been actually accumulating for years these amazing ideas and and taking people on this amazing ride and trip and using the imagination. I’ve been culminating this for a long time.” A tweet further described the show as “a multisensory escape to a world of magic and total freedom.”
She’ll take a long summer vacation in the middle of the Zappos run; dates are scheduled for May 31-June 16 and then again from Sept. 20-Oct. 5, with Stefani retaking the stage while she’s gone.
The venue, known until last year as the AXIS, usually operates with a capacity of 4,600, but a normally curtained off balcony occasionally opened up for high demand shows expands the capacity to 7,000. A preliminary seating chart on Ticketmaster indicates the full theater will be opened up for the Aguilera shows.
Ticket prices have not been not announced. General admission tickets go on sale Friday. An American Express presale begins Wednesday, while tickets available via an “Ellen” password go up Thursday.
