Rod Stewart announces ‘The Final Encore,’ his last ever tour, opening in Dublin on April 23, 2027. Full dates and ticket details
Rod Stewart began touring in the early 1960s by crossing Europe with a harmonica and a folk singer named Wizz Jones, a trip that ended with him being deported from Spain for vagrancy. Sixty-odd years later, he is calling it. On Monday (Sept. 28), the 81-year-old announced The Final Encore, a UK and European arena run opening April 23 at Dublin’s 3Arena, and said without hedging that it will be his last.
“My dear friends, the time has come to say farewell to life on the road,” Stewart said in a statement. “After more than six decades, ‘The Final Encore’ will most definitely be my last.”
The phrase “most definitely” is doing considerable work. Farewell tours have become among the least reliable promises in live music, and Stewart himself has form here. He has not ruled out occasional one-off shows in future. What he is ending is the touring life.
Where He’s Playing
The UK and Ireland leg runs six dates, with Howard Jones supporting throughout: Dublin’s 3Arena on April 23, the SSE Arena in Belfast on April 27, the OVO Hydro in Glasgow on April 29, Utilita Arena Birmingham on May 4, Co-op Live in Manchester on May 6, and The O2 in London on May 11.
Europe takes him from late May through late July, and the routing is more interesting than a standard arena circuit. Alongside the Ziggo Dome in Amsterdam, Uber Arena in Berlin, Royal Arena in Copenhagen, Olympiahalle in Munich and O2 Arena in Prague, he plays Dalhalla in Sweden, an open-air venue carved from a limestone quarry, and the Pula Arena in Croatia, a Roman amphitheatre built in the first century. The run currently ends July 24 at ZAG Arena in Hannover.
Tickets go on general sale at 10am BST this Friday (Oct. 2). A Fanclub presale opens at the same time on Tuesday (Sept. 29), with local presales following.
Why This One Reads as Genuine
The past two years are the reason to take him at his word. Stewart’s American farewell run, One Last Time, unravelled badly. He paused a concert in Utah to use an oxygen mask after nearly fainting onstage, asking the audience whether they would mind if he sat down for one, then cancelled the remainder of the tour after undergoing a heart procedure. Dates at Red Rocks in Colorado, pulled from June over inflamed vocal cords, now sit in September 2027, after The Final Encore is scheduled to finish.
The year before brought its own attrition: cancellations for flu, Covid and strep throat, plus stretches of enforced vocal rest. His Glastonbury legends slot in June 2025 looked at risk until the last moment. He played it anyway, and reviewers noted he was in decent voice, with the years showing mainly in his struggle to hold long notes.
None of that reads like an artist stretching a goodbye for revenue. It reads like someone scheduling the ending himself, while he is still the one choosing.
He has been at this since he was 19. A two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, as a solo artist and with Faces, Stewart also spent 13 years in residency at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace, a run that reached its 200th show in 2024 before he extended it anyway, telling fans he was having too much fun to stop. That has been the shape of his late career, a long goodbye repeatedly postponed by appetite.
This time the calendar has an end on it. July 24, Hannover, after which the road closes and only the occasional night remains possible.
“I hope you’ll join me so I can thank you the best way I know how,” he said. “With the music and one hell of a show.”
