In Canada: Backstreet Boys Set New Touring Record; Vans Warped Tour Not Returning

Backstreet Boys have set a new touring record in Canada, and passed two major heavyweights to do it.

Earlier this week, the boy band — Nick Carter, Howie Dorough, AJ McLean, Brian Littrell and Kevin Richardson — who gained notoriety in the ‘90s and 2000s, announced they were heading to Toronto’s Rogers Centre in February 2027 to play a four-night residency at the Toronto stadium — Into the Millennium – Homecoming: Live in Canada.

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Following demand, co-presenters Rogers and Live Nation promptly added another two dates, and just added three more dates, bringing them to a total of nine nights. The Toronto Blue Jays home stadium (not to be confused with Rogers Stadium) can hold up to 55,000 people (though the baseball capacity is now 40,000 after recent renovations), and if all nine shows sell out, that’s almost half a million tickets sold.

The shows are said to be the band’s only North American stadium shows. The tour kicks off on Feb. 12 and will continue through the 13, 14, 19, 20, 21, 26, 27 and 28.

“Fans from around the world are excited to see this iconic group live, so we jumped at the opportunity to bring the Backstreet Boys to Canada,” Terrie Tweddle, chief brand and communications officer at Rogers, tells Billboard Canada. “For more than three decades, the Backstreet Boys have built a passionate fan base and sold-out arenas around the world, and we’re excited to create unforgettable opportunities for fans and our customers.”

With nine shows, the band sets a new record for the most concerts played at the major concert venue, one of the biggest in the city. Backstreet Boys surpass both The Weeknd and Taylor Swift, who respectively played six shows at Rogers Centre on their most recent headlining tours.

The Weeknd still holds the record for the most shows played by a Canadian artist at the venue with his After Hours Til Dawn Tour. The trek included two dates in 2022 and four dates in 2025. Swift played three shows over back-to-back weekends in November 2024 on her acclaimed Eras Tour. It was a major event, bringing in an estimated $39.7 million in direct and indirect spending, according to the City of Toronto.

For the Backstreet Boys, it’s a full-circle moment for them to play the Rogers Centre. Back in 1998, the group played one of their first major shows in Toronto at the venue, formerly known as the SkyDome. Almost 30 years later, they’ll be performing at the same venue, playing to even bigger audiences across nine shows.

The shows follow their major success on the Into the Millennium Sphere shows in Las Vegas, which has increased demand for the long-running boy band and paved the way for this milestone. They’re currently on a 10-show stadium residency in Düsseldorf, Germany, where they also made history in the late ’90s. Launching the tour earlier this week, Backstreet Boys recreated their 1999 tour entrance by dropping into the venue on hoverboards.

Read more here. — Heather Taylor-Singh

Vans Warped Tour Will Not Return to Canada in 2027

Vans Warped Tour is skipping Canada in 2027.

The touring punk rock music festival has begun unveiling its cities and dates for the upcoming year, including Washington, D.C. in June and Long Beach, California in July, and Montreal is noticeably missing from the list.

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This year, the festival returned to the Canadian city for the first time in 12 years, teaming up with local promoter Evenko to host the first Canadian edition since 2018. However, the Montreal edition will not return next year

“We have decided to focus on a potential return in 2028,” Vans Warped Tour founder Kevin Lyman tells Billboard Canada.

When asked if the festival will potentially come to any other Canadian cities, Lyman says no, the plan is to focus on “the other four shows we do” in the U.S. and Mexico.

Evenko declined to comment to Billboard Canada as Lyman had already shared the news, but confirms that both parties will continue discussions for a possible 2028 Montreal edition.

Vans Warped Tour rounded out Evenko’s stacked festival season at Montreal’s Parc Jean-Drapeau, which also hosted Osheaga, ÎLESONIQ and LASSO during back-to-back weekends in August. Warped Tour followed all three festivals, meaning the outdoor venue hosted festivals on four consecutive weekends.

The Montreal 2026 edition welcomed 51,000 festival-goers across its two dates with a bill featuring Jimmy Eat World, All Time Low, and hometown heroes Simple Plan, who played Warped Tour for a 12th time. 

Vans Warped Tour was revived in 2025 to celebrate its 30th anniversary, ending a hiatus that began in 2019. The travelling festival is known for its headliner-free lineups, which are focused on the broader mix of rock, alternative and punk music names spanning different generations.

Read more here. — Stefano Rebuli

Chris Brown & Usher, Bruno Mars Contribute to 40% Uptick in Noise Complaints at Toronto’s Rogers Stadium in 2026

Rogers Stadium was all the noise this year.

The Toronto stadium’s second season saw a higher number of concerts by blockbuster stars, but also a 40% uptick in noise complaints. According to The Toronto Star and CTV News, the Downsview Toronto outdoor venue received a total of 272 noise complaints via phone call between May and September 2026, up from 192 complaints logged in 2025.

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Bruno Mars‘ season-opening Romantic tour show (May 31) and Chris Brown & Usher‘s second night of their R&B tour (Aug. 12) contributed to over 30% of complaints, with the latter receiving 60 calls and Mars receiving 50, according to the report. While the R&B stars played two shows as part of their joint trek, Mars played a record-setting total of five nights at Rogers Stadium, the most by an artist in the venue’s two-year history.

In addition to the original sound-proofing that was installed around the venue in 2025, the stadium added vinyl cladding this year to try to control the noise, although its effectiveness has waned during concerts with more booming sound. “It is quite good when it comes to acoustic or a regular guitar, but when it’s a heavy bass, it doesn’t work as well,” Toronto city councillor James Pasternak tells CTV.

Since opening in 2025, the venue and the city of Toronto have been in an ongoing back-and-forth in terms of compliance requests and implementing adjustments. In June, Pasternak filed a motion for Live Nation to pay for sound monitoring across the venue, with the goal of lowering sound emissions past the venue. While Live Nation said that all of its concerts were below the maximum decibel level, the allowed level has still been disruptive for surrounding residents.

The vinyl cladding was destroyed along with some of Rogers Stadium’s seating structures, which collapsed following a “100-year storm” that swept through Toronto at the beginning of September. The damage sustained by the 50,000-capacity venue put an early end to the 2026 concert season, as AC/DC’s Toronto show was subsequently cancelled. The cladding is included in the required repairs, which began earlier this week on Oct. 1.

Five shows have been announced for 2027 so far, with four nights by Harry Styles in May and a Slipknot show on July 23.