Madonna Madame X

Madonna sued over late start time at her 'Madame X' shows

Madonna is in the midst of her Madame X Tour, where she’s been spending multiple nights in each city she stops in, playing much more intimate venues than usual. She was originally scheduled to begin a run of dates at Los Angeles’ The Wiltern on Tuesday 11/12, but night one has been cancelled because of “highly specialized visual and production elements,” with the shows now starting on Wednesday 11/13. “Due to scheduling limitations,” her site reads, “we are unfortunately unable to reschedule the November 12th date. Patrons who purchased tickets for that performance will be automatically refunded. We apologize for any inconvenience.”

The first nights of Madonna’s Madame X runs in NYC and Chicago were similarly rescheduled due to production issues, and that isn’t the only ongoing problem that’s plagued this tour. Attendees have been complaining about late start times, with one Florida man actually suing Madonna and Live Nation over it. As TMZ reports, legal documents filed by Nate Hollander say that when he bought tickets to Madonna’s December 17 show in Miami Beach, FL back in August, the start time was listed at 8:30 PM. Two months later, after multiple nights of late starts, show time was pushed back to 10:30 PM, which Hollander says has the effect of “making their tickets worthless.” Furthermore, he says the tickets have “suffered an extreme loss of value” and are now “impossible” to resell (Hollander says he paid $1,024 for three tickets). After three failed attempts at getting a refund, he says he and other ticketholders “suffered actual and consequential damages including, but not limited to, loss of consideration paid and the devaluation of the ticket,” and is seeking over $15,000 in damages.

Even with a official pushed-back start time of 10:30 PM, punctuality has remains a problem for Madonna; at her Thursday night (11/7) show in Las Vegas, she didn’t take the stage until after midnight. Like Drake at Camp Flog Gnaw, she was booed in response and over 500 attendees requested refunds, an industry source told Wonderwall.com.

While not mentioning the lawsuit directly, Madonna seemed to address it in a video she tweeted of herself saying, “here’s something you all need to understand, and that is, that a queen is never late.”