Kanye West to lose $27.3m after tour cancellation, but will insurance kick in?

Kanye West will lose US$27.3 million after cancelling the second leg of his Saint Pablo US tour on Monday (US time). It means refunding 300,000 tickets from 21 shows, suggests Billboard.

Two days before, the controversial rapper went into a 15-minute rant at Sacramento’s Golden 1 Center about Beyoncé, Jay Z, Hillary Clinton, DJ Khaled, Mark Zuckerberg, Taylor Swift and Lebron James.

He then stormed off the stage and later taken to UCLA Medical Center for psychiatric evaluation. He was, according to West’s team, suffering “exhaustion” and “sleep deprivation.”

Reports are that West had taken out tour insurance that would cover an accident or illness which prevented the performing from continuing to do shows.

This has to be verified by an independent medical practitioner approved by the insurer. It’s a moot point whether West’s team can prove exhaustion is covered in the policy. Additionally, questions could be asked if it was a pre-condition, and what lifestyle issues caused the exhaustion.

Normally, a cancellation means the artist is liable for the cost of hiring the venue. But if it’s a last minute termination, they could also face having to compensate for security and ticketing staff, advertising and local vendors hired for the night.

According to Billboard’s tour data, the rapper’s 23 performances over nine weeks generated $25 million, making it the second highest grossing tour of 2016.

The biggest touring dates were at New York City’s Madison Square Gardens on November 23 and 24. It earned $3 million from sales of 28,919 tickets and a further $780,000 worth of merchandise sales.

Forbes estimated the West tour averaged a gross of $1.5 million per show on the tour, of which the rapper would have received about a third of the gross.