September 12, 2026

by Isabella Gomez Sarmiento

This week, NPR Music reporter Isabella Gomez Sarmiento, sitting in for Ann Powers, considers the state of live music after catching up with fans who paid handsomely for late summer's hottest ticket: the Harry Styles residency at Madison Square Garden.

Photo of Harry Styles at Madison Square Garden

Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images

Hello music enjoyers,

When was the last time you went to a sold out arena show, packed with screaming fans and incandescent strobe lights? A blockbuster pop tour where the music was so loud that you could feel the bass thumping in your chest and could barely make out the performer’s voice over a chorus of concertgoers belting out every word?

In New York City, Harry Styles is serving up that experience for 30 nights: a dance party extravaganza bringing his newest album, Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally, to its fullest magnitude. Styles’ takeover of Madison Square Garden started in August and runs through the end of October. The residency, which sold out almost as soon as it was announced, were his only shows in the U.S. this year (and the longest stop of a seven-city tour).

Outside the venue on opening night, I spoke to people who traveled from California, Colorado, Florida and Nevada to see Styles perform. Some spent $1,200 on tickets alone, and hundreds if not thousands more on travel and lodging. That effort and sacrifice did not seem to be lost on the 32-year-old singer. Later that night, as he strutted down a massive, oval runway onstage in a David Byrne-esque suit, Styles stopped for a moment to thank his fans.

“I hope that you look around this room and remember that this does not belong to me, and it’s so much bigger than me. It’s so much bigger than any musician you like or music you enjoy listening to,” Styles said. “It is yours, and when this song is over, when this show is over, when this tour is over, it remains what you have built together. The way you treat each other, this environment you have made together — it remains long past any song or tour. It is yours, it is not mine.”

Nearly 20,000 people roared back at him at the top of their lungs. That theme of unity and solidarity rang out throughout the concert. During the string-driven ballad “Coming Up Roses,” scores of young women in the pit held hands and skipped in circles together, conjuring an image that was equal parts Matisse painting and “Ring Around the Rosie” playground innocence. As the show came to a close, Styles launched into the club-inspired “Aperture” and ended on a high note of communal energy: “We belong together.”

But there was an inescapable irony — or at least tension — to Styles’ message. In the months leading up to the Together, Together tour, many fans took to social media to rant about the inaccessibility of the NYC residency. With nosebleed seats selling in the three-digit range and Ticketmaster queues stressful to navigate, many said they could barely conceive of getting their hands on concert tickets, let alone everything else required to get there.

These complaints aren’t unique to Styles or his fans. Residencies are not new, but in recent years, they have become more appealing for A-list acts. Last year, Bad Bunny delivered on Debí Tirar Más Fotos, his anthemic homage to Puerto Rico, by playing 31 nights in San Juan (and injecting millions of dollars into the local economy). In Las Vegas, the high-tech opulence of the Sphere has drawn younger acts not typically associated with the Strip, ranging from Backstreet Boys to No Doubt. Across the Atlantic, Shakira will soon perform a 12-night run in Madrid that seems to be part residency, part festival; it will include a custom-built venue, immersive fashion and literary experiences and a long list of special guests. (Her highly-publicized partnership with Live Nation Spain for these shows makes me think we will soon see other artists taking this kind of approach.)

At a moment when touring has become increasingly expensive (not to mention physically and mentally draining) for artists, residencies seem to present an opportunity for lower production costs and less taxing performances. In the ever-growing demands and obligations of the spotlight, residencies give pop stars a chance to have some sense of normalcy and routine with their loved ones, while still getting to play shows. (Is it so wrong for Styles, who has been performing in arenas around the world since he was 18, to want a different kind of touring experience?)

And yet those costs, both literal and figurative, don’t disappear. They’re transferred to the fans, who are likely already spending more than ever before on concert tickets. Outside of Madison Square Garden, David Uible of Jacksonville, Fla. summed it up: “It seems like [the residency] would be cheaper for him, so the tickets would possibly be lower. But they weren’t.”

Styles announced just this week that he’d go on tour again in 2027, with stops in five American cities including Los Angeles and Dallas. But while residencies are supposed to provide a chance to deliver a better show at a better price, right now they also reveal the cracks in an increasingly volatile live music industry.

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