Music
Chappell Roan’s Lollapalooza Set May Have Broken A New Record
The festival had to quickly pivot to accommodate her fans.
Maybe you saw the viral TikTok — 2.1 million likes and counting — of the behemoth crowd at Chappell Roan’s Lollapalooza set on Aug. 1. Or perhaps you were one of the people in the audience, stunned by how many people were doing the “HOT TO GO!” dance around you.
Either way, you probably had a hard time grasping the true scale of how many people turned out for the gig. Fortunately, an official statement from the event helps paint a clear, staggering picture.
A spokesperson for the Chicago-based musical festival told CNN that Roan’s performance “was the biggest daytime set we’ve ever seen.” Additional sources told the outlet that it’s believed to be the biggest set in event history, period.
Roan was moved by the turnout, taking to Instagram to thank her fans for their love. “I was crying as I walked on stage at @lollapalooza because of the overwhelm of support,” she wrote in an Aug. 3 post, going on to say she’ll “remember this forever.”
She’s Got A Way... Of Drawing In A Crowd
If you’ve been following Roan on the festival circuit, her Lollapalooza milestone is thrilling, but not too surprising. A July 24 report in The New York Times highlighted the way festival organizers have had to reckon with the logistics of supporting the “Good Luck, Babe!” singer’s growing fandom.
For Lollapalooza, for example, promoter Huston Powell told the paper that he decided to put Roan on a bigger stage than originally planned, citing the enormous crowds that cheered on her Lady Liberty performance at the Governors Ball in June.
To accomplish this, he asked Kesha to swap stages with Roan. “She was gracious enough to do it,” Powell said of the “Praying” singer.
In 2023, Roan opened up to Vanity Fair about touring, and while she was still a few months away from the smash success (and record-setting crowds) that “Good Luck, Babe!” would bring, she knew even then something special happening on stage.
“I love touring. It’s my favorite part of my job, which is very rare and most people f*cking hate it and it’s so bad,” she said. “The shows are so fun for me and for the audiences and I love my band and I just have a great team and the merch is so cute. This project is really fun.”
However, the singer did acknowledge one downside to her performance schedule, saying it’s “sometimes, or most of the time, overwhelming and exhausting.”
