Having well and truly rocked North America with 25 giant shows across the summer which drew universally ecstatic reviews and played to sold out audiences totalling close to 400,000 spectators, Queen + Adam Lambert have finally announced that they will bring their brand new, hugely anticipated “Rhapsody” concert experience to UK and Europe audiences next year.

In what will be their first European dates since the worldwide box office sensation that was the Bohemian Rhapsody film, Queen + Adam Lambert today reveal that they will perform 16 shows in England and Europe in spring 2020.

The announcement comes on the eve of one of the biggest North American concerts in Queen's illustrious history. They will take to the stage as headliners this Saturday, September 28, for this year's annual Global Citizen Festival on the Great Lawn of New York’s Central Park, playing to an expected audience of 60,000.

The all-star event has been staged each year since 2012 by the Global Poverty Project, which has set the goal of ending extreme poverty by 2030. Queen + Adam Lambert will star alongside artists such as Pharrell Williams, Alicia Keys, One Republic and Carole King.

The all-new “Rhapsody” show, already hailed as “a marvel of technical advances,” will kick off the new year of 2020 with 17 giant arena and stadium shows across South Korea, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. The extravaganza will then arrive in the UK and Europe in late spring, as Queen original band members Brian May and Roger Taylor team up once more with longtime front man Adam Lambert on lead vocals to perform 16 shows across eight countries from late May into early July.

The European tour will launch in Italy on May 24, with its final stop in Denmark on July 1. Along the way, it will play in the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Germany and Switzerland, as well as the UK, where dates will centre around five London shows at the O2 Arena beginning on June 2.

The only UK show outside of the capital is set for Manchester Arena on June 11. These are the only confirmed UK performances for Queen + Adam Lambert at this point. The full tour schedule is below.

Tickets for the UK dates on the “Rhapsody” tour go on sale to the general public today, September 25. There are no pre-sales. Tickets (maximum of six tickets per booking) are priced from £45.00 and available from ticketmaster.co.uk.

Over the six weeks of this leg on the “Rhapsody” tour, European audiences will at last have the chance to see the epic new show which has drawn awe and acclaim all through its North American run, and became Rock’s hottest ticket of the year in the USA. Ever the masters of extravagant performance and sumptuous visuals, Queen + Adam Lambert’s newest production is again the work of Stufish Entertainment Architects’ set designer Ric Lipson and lighting designer Rob Sinclair who both have a long-term association with Queen including the most recent eye-popping “News Of The World” touring show.

Lipson describes the two-and-a-half-hour production as “A new chapter in the history of the band. Once again for them expanding the parameters of what a live music experience can be, this new show delivers the band’s most spectacular yet, an innovative and interactive celebration of the continued power of Queen’s music.”

 The tour comes at a time Queen when continue to ride high on the momentum of their box-office-busting, Oscar-winning Bohemian Rhapsody biopic, which has introduced their music to new audiences with record-breaking results. Apart from becoming the highest- grossing music biopic of all time, in the UK it is also No. 1 biggest-selling film of 2019 on home release.

Queen’s original soundtrack to the film has remained high in the UK album chart ever since its November 2018 debut; in the US, it became the band's highest-charting album in 38 years, and Queen sold more albums in North America than any artist in the first half of 2019. The timeless and groundbreaking “Bohemian Rhapsody'"video has reached a historic one billion views on YouTube making it the most viewed music clip of the 20th Century. In addition YouTube views of “Don’t Stop Me Now” have just passed the 500 million mark.

Revealing the news long awaited by the band’s UK and Europe fans, Queen’s Roger Taylor stated: "We're back and we're hot.”

An enthused Brian May said: “This is a fearsome new production taking the Queen legacy to a new place. I’m well proud.”

Adam Lambert joined in saying: “I can’t wait to get back to the UK and Europe, we had a blast on our last tour, and I am so excited to bring this new show over there!”

Their story is now the subject of the major, new two-hour TV documentary The Show Must Go On: The Queen + Adam Lambert Story, which premiered in US primetime on ABC TV, drawing one of the biggest viewing audiences of the night. With rare concert footage and exclusive, revealing portraits of the band members off stage, “The Show Must Go On” chronicles Queen and Lambert’s incredible journey since American Idol.

Documenting his humble beginnings and meteoric rise on reality TV to his current place centre stage as frontman of Queen + Adam Lambert, the film features brand new interviews with Lambert, his parents Leila and Eber and Queen founding members Brian May and Roger Taylor. Also featured are Rami Malek, the Golden Globe and Oscar winner for Best Actor in Bohemian Rhapsody, and Foo Fighters’ Taylor Hawkins. The documentary will premiere in the UK Friday, October 11 at 10 PM on Sky Arts.

Tour dates:

May
24 - Bologna, Italy - Unipol Arena
26 - Paris, France - AccorHotels Arena
27 - Antwerp Belgium - Sportspalais
29 - Amsterdam, Netherlands - Ziggo Dome
30 - Amsterdam, Netherlands - Ziggo Dome

June
2 - London, UK - O2
3 - London, UK - O2
5 - London, UK - O2
6 - London, UK - O2
9 - London, UK - O2
11 - Manchester, UK - Manchester Arena
12 - Manchester, UK - Manchester Arena
24 - Berlin, German - Mercedes-Benz Arena
26 - Cologne, Germany - Lanxess Arena
28 - Zurich, Switzerland - Hallenstadion
29 - Munich, Germany - Olympiahalle

July
1 - Copenhagen, Denmark - Royal Arena

Once again completing the tour line-up will be the band's long-term on-stage collaborator Spike Edney on keyboards, Neil Fairclough on bass and Tyler Warren on percussion.

Twickets Partnership: For the upcoming UK & Germany shows Queen + Adam Lambert have once again teamed up with Twickets, the global fan-to-fan ticket marketplace, as a safe and secure place for fans to buy or sell spare tickets. Twickets enables fans to ethically resell event tickets they can no longer use to other fans for no more than the face value of the original ticket, helping to combat the secondary ticketing market. To resell spare tickets or buy a fan-to-fan ticket, please visit ueenandadamlambert.twickets.live

(Band photo - Bojan Hohnjec © Miracle Productions LLP)