Madonna’s Los Angeles Tour Stop Prompts Lawsuit

Is being disappointed by a concert legally actionable?

Madonna on the "Celebration" tour
Madonna on the "Celebration" tour in Brooklyn, 2023.
Kevin Mazur/WireImage for Live Nation

If you go to a concert and leave disappointed, you have plenty of options. You could take it in stride and hope that the next one you attend will be better; you could also vow to never see that artist in concert again. If you’re feeling particularly vindictive, you could leave a nasty online review or delve into the time-honored tradition of aggrieved posting on social media.

Or you could do what California resident Justen Lipeles did and a file a lawsuit against both Madonna and Live Nation, among others. So says The Hollywood Reporter‘s Kevin Dolak, who has a detailed look at the issues at the heart of Lipeles’s lawsuit.

Among the issues raised in the lawsuit are the late hour that Madonna took to the stage and the air conditioning being turned off in the venue; Lipeles also argued that Madonna lip-synced for parts of the concert. The lawsuit also contends that Lipeles saw “[p]ornography without warning, topless women on stage simulating sex acts.” This, in turn, raises the question of what exactly Lipeles was expecting when he bought tickets to see an artist who literally wrote a book called Sex.

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As Dolak points out, this isn’t the first time Madonna has faced a lawsuit over lateness at a concert. And while a headliner taking the stage later than expected is certainly frustrating, taking legal action feels like a somewhat extreme reaction to it. Sometimes concerts run late; sometimes venues are uncomfortable. And if you’re worried about conditions being less-than-great, there’s always another option: don’t go.

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