Madison Square Garden Responds to Macklemore: ‘He’s Not an Arena Level Act’
Macklemore performs at the Rolling Stone Future of Music Showcase at TEST Folder during the SXSW Conference & Festivals held at the Alamo Draft House on March 12, 2026, in Austin, Texas. Benedict Jones/SXSW Conference & Festivals
A spokesperson for Madison Square Garden has responded after Macklemore called out the arena for allegedly blocking him from performing there on his Free Palestine Tour.
In a statement shared with Billboard, the spokesperson simply said Friday (Nov. 6), “We have some of the busiest venues in the world with extremely limited availability and he’s not an arena level act.”
Billboard has reached out to Macklemore’s reps for comment.
Earlier in the day, the rapper had named MSG and eight other arenas — Prudential Center, Barclays Center, UBS Arena, Intuit Dome, Kia Forum, Crypto.com Arena, Chase Center and Climate Pledge Arena — in a statement claiming he was not welcome at the venues due to his tour’s message and purpose. “From the beginning, our plan was to bring this tour home to the U.S,” he wrote following his Free Palestine shows in Dublin, Paris and London. “But after weeks of reaching out, nine major American arenas have turned us down.”
“By mid-September, we received available dates at these arenas through the end of the year,” he continued. “But once they found out these were my benefit shows for Palestine, those dates were suddenly off the table. The doors were closed. The conversations were all different, but the result was the same. The shows were not going to be allowed to happen in these venues.”
He added that he’d “rather lose every opportunity in this industry than spend another day protecting people who value their business relationships with Israel more than they value Palestinian human life.”
Despite the MSG spokesperson’s claim, Macklemore’s previous three Free Palestine shows all took place in arenas: 3Arena in Dublin, Accor Arena in Paris and the OVO Arena Wembley in London. Each performance sold out immediately, according to the musician, and each drew thousands of fans and featured guest performances from Hozier, Kneecap and AURORA. On Nov. 14, 2013, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis headlined a show at Madison Square Garden at the height of the duo’s commercial powers.
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