Mariah Carey sets ‘Christmastime’ 2026 shows in Birmingham, London, Manchester and Malta. Dates, venues and ticket details here
Mariah Carey is taking the most lucrative seasonal franchise in pop back across the Atlantic. The singer announced on Monday (Sept. 21) that her Christmastime tour will play three UK arenas this winter, opening at Birmingham’s Utilita Arena on Nov. 27, moving to London’s The O2 on Nov. 30 and closing the British leg at Manchester’s Co-op Live on Dec. 2. A one-off date at the MFCC in Ta’ Qali, Attard, Malta follows on Dec. 8, making this her first dedicated holiday run in Britain since her 2018 All I Want for Christmas Is You tour swept through the UK and Europe.
“My Christmastime tour is coming to the UK & Malta! I can’t wait to celebrate with you all!” Carey wrote on social media. Pre-sales open Wednesday (Sept. 23) and Thursday (Sept. 24), with general sale starting at 10 a.m. BST on Friday (Sept. 25).
A Holiday Brand Built for Arenas
The venue selection says plenty about demand. Co-op Live, which opened in 2024, is the UK’s largest indoor arena, and The O2 remains the country’s marquee room. Booking both inside a single week, with Birmingham as the launch point, signals a promoter bet that Carey’s December audience is not niche nostalgia but a mass-market event.
The European dates extend a run that began stateside. Carey’s Christmas Time concert series launched in November 2024, and last year it settled into a ten-show Las Vegas residency. In May, she announced the franchise’s first international stops, a pair of November shows in Brazil, her first holiday performances outside North America since 2018. The UK and Malta leg pushes that expansion further, turning a seasonal residency into a genuinely global touring property.
The Chart Math Behind the Tour
The engine, of course, is “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” The 1994 single took a quarter century to reach No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, finally getting there in 2019, and topped the UK chart a year later. Last December, 31 years after its release, it extended Carey’s record for most total weeks at No. 1 on the Hot 100 to 22. “22!!!! Truly grateful for this Christmas gift,” she posted on X at the time.
Few catalog songs behave like that. Every fourth quarter, the track climbs back up global streaming charts with the reliability of a fiscal calendar, and each return strengthens the case for putting Carey in front of arena crowds exactly when the song peaks. The tour is timed to the window when her commercial gravity is at its highest.
It also caps a busy 2026. Carey, 57, performed at the Winter Olympics opening ceremony earlier this year and has carried momentum from her 16th studio album, Here for It All, released last year. That 11-track set featured Kehlani, Anderson .Paak, Shenseea and The Clark Sisters and gave her another top 10 entry on the Billboard 200.
Fans responded on cue. Under Carey’s Instagram announcement, one follower wrote, “Screaming crying throwing up, I’ll be there,” a preview of the ticketing scramble the London date is likely to spark.
Not every recent headline has gone her way. Carey was nominated for the 2026 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame but did not make the final class of inductees. She did prevail in court late last year, however, when a judge dismissed a lawsuit over “All I Want for Christmas Is You” and awarded her $92,000.
For the UK, the takeaway is simpler. After nearly a decade away, the self-styled Queen of Christmas is coming back to claim the season in person.
