When Chelsea Smith heard the Backstreet Boys were coming to Toronto, she had a simple message for the five men who soundtracked her childhood.
asserted
who → hear → childhood
“Here’s my credit card, take all my money.”
asserted
card → ’ → money
The 35-year-old Vancouver fan wasn’t bluffing.
asserted
fan → bluff → ?
Having already travelled to Las Vegas to see her teenybopper crushes, she’s now preparing to fly across the country for two Toronto concerts, spending roughly $600 on tickets alone.
asserted
she → travel → tickets
And she’s hardly the only millennial willing to pay a tidy sum to party like it’s 1999.
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it → ’ → sum
Nearly three decades after their commercial peak, the Backstreet Boys have booked a staggering 12 shows at Toronto’s Rogers Centre in 2027, citing “overwhelming demand.”
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Boys → book → demand
The run doubles the venue’s previous record of six shows, set by Taylor Swift during her Eras Tour in 2024.
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run → double → 2024
While some current major artists are cancelling tours amid sluggish ticket sales, the once-baggy-jeaned quintet is proving nostalgia is a hell of a drug.
asserted
nostalgia → cancel → drug
“I haven’t seen a Top 40 artist in so many years,” says Smith, a self-described “Y2K-era girlie” who made two trips to the Backstreet Boys’ Las Vegas Sphere residency last year.
asserted
who → see → residency
She suspects millennials are seeking comfort in the past.
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millennials → suspect → past
“I feel like during COVID we all retreated back to our nostalgia,” says the customer support professional.
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professional → feel → nostalgia
You’re going back to when it was simpler and just living in that moment.”
asserted
it → go → moment
WHEN QUEEN STREET WENT BACKSTREET
Bill Welychka remembers when the Backstreet Boys could bring downtown Toronto to a standstill.
uncertain
Boys → go → standstill
At the height of the boy-band craze in the late ‘90s, the former MuchMusic VJ watched thousands of screaming teenagers descend on the channel’s Queen Street West headquarters, hoping to glimpse the five American heartthrobs.
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thousands → watch → heartthrobs
“There were certain bands where we knew we’d have to hire security, where we would have to close the street down.
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we → be → street
The Backstreet Boys were certainly one of those bands,” he recalls.
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he → recall → bands
“I think they fed off of that energy and the applause and the screams and the tears.”
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they → think → energy
The Toronto residency is dubbed “Into the Millennium — Homecoming: Live in Canada,” fittingly so: Canada was the first North American market to embrace the group.
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Canada → dub → group
Welychka remembers the frenzy spreading from Europe to Quebec, then across Canada, with MuchMusic putting their videos into heavy rotation.
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MuchMusic → remember → rotation
“We latched on to them very, very early on,” he says.
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he → latch → them
But the boy-band bubble eventually burst.
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bubble → burst → ?
As tastes shifted in the 2000s, the Backstreet Boys faded from the charts, trading stadium-scale hysteria for more theatres and casinos.
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Boys → shift → theatres
Now, with their original fans approaching middle age, Welychka reckons they’re yearning for a time when their biggest responsibility was keeping a Tamagotchi alive.
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responsibility → approach → Tamagotchi
“It’s a different day and age now.
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It → ’ → ?
It’s a lot more frustrating,” says Welychka, citing unemployment and the cost-of-living crisis.
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Welychka → ’ → living
“A lot of people want to get those feelings back you once had.
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you → want → feelings
If you’re a 45-year-old woman and screaming and crying, nothing wrong with that.”
SAME CRUSHES, BIGGER ALLOWANCES
Eleni Papamichelakis knows the feeling.
asserted
Papamichelakis → ’re → feeling
The 39-year-old Durham Region mother drifted away from the Backstreet Boys as adulthood took over, only to rediscover her teenage obsession when she caught their Sphere residency last year.
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she → drift → residency
Now she’s taking her 11-year-old daughter to see the group, just as she did at that age in 1998.
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she → take → 1998
Part of the appeal is revisiting a pre-smartphone era, when having fun just required a CD and some friends to dance with.
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having → revisit → CD
“The world and, like, life has changed and it’s become so digital and sometimes a little bit impersonal,” says the mortgage agent.
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agent → change → ?
“We lived in such a fun era where we had to kind of entertain ourselves.”
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we → live → ourselves
A grown-up bank account helps, though: “We have the money to go and see these concerts in a better seat than when we were younger.”
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we → grow → seat
Not every artist is benefiting from that spending power.
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artist → benefit → power
The concert industry has been grappling with so-called “blue dot fever,” named for the unsold seats dotting Ticketmaster seating charts.
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industry → grapple → charts
This year, Meghan Trainor scrapped her tour, Zayn Malik cancelled his U.S. dates and Post Malone scaled back his stadium run.
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Malone → scrap → run
Though the artists cited varying reasons, the cancellations have fuelled speculation about sluggish ticket sales.
asserted
cancellations → cite → sales
Their Toronto residency could draw nearly half a million concertgoers, with tickets ranging from around $100 to well over $1,000 for VIP packages.
uncertain
residency → draw → packages
Nostalgia has always sold concert tickets.
asserted
Nostalgia → sell → tickets
But Scott Henderson, a professor of popular culture at Trent University, says it’s becoming an increasingly vital draw for major venues amid an uncertain touring market.
asserted
it → say → market
…and 12 more, not listed.
The Aporia
