Ye performed his first-ever concert in Georgia on June 12, 2026, drawing roughly 70,000 fans to a sold-out Boris Paichadze Dinamo Arena in Tbilisi and closing the night with a roughly nine-minute rendition of “Runaway” that spread across social media within hours.

• What: Ye’s (Kanye West) first-ever concert in Georgia, part of the LIVE CONCERT TOUR 2O26
• Who: Ye, with production by Live Nation’s Israel/Central Asia team under the government-backed “Starring Georgia” initiative
• When: Friday, June 12, 2026; the show began around 9:45 p.m. local time
• Where: Boris Paichadze Dinamo Arena, Tbilisi, Georgia
• Why it matters: First Ye show ever staged in Georgia; all 70,000 tickets sold out within a day; it landed while Ye remained barred from several European countries

What happened at the Ye concert in Georgia?

Ye sold out the 70,000-capacity Dinamo Arena, and thousands more fans gathered in the streets around the venue after missing out on tickets. Fans began lining up from midday, hours before the gates opened.

Authorities closed several roads around the stadium to vehicle and pedestrian traffic and rolled out heavy security to manage the crowds. The set was also streamed live on Ye’s official YouTube channel, though many remote viewers reported severe lag on the broadcast.

The crowd mixed local Georgian concertgoers with international visitors who traveled in specifically for the date — part of a wave of tour-following fans that had already turned out for Ye’s recent stadium shows elsewhere on the run.

Why was the Tbilisi show such a big deal?

The Georgia concert mattered because Ye has been blocked from performing in a string of European countries, making Tbilisi one of the few places on the continent willing to host him. The United Kingdom, Poland, Switzerland, France and Italy had all moved to bar him from entering or performing, with Italy’s cancellation citing public-order concerns and objections from the local Jewish community over Ye’s past antisemitic remarks.

The Tbilisi date was booked through “Starring Georgia,” a partially government-funded initiative created to bring high-demand international artists who have never played the country before. When tickets went on sale, the full 70,000-seat allocation sold out within a day.

The show also continued a hot streak on Ye’s 2026 tour. Less than two weeks earlier, he drew a reported 118,000 fans to Istanbul’s Ataturk Olympic Stadium — widely reported as a record-setting stadium attendance — in what was billed as his first European appearance in more than a decade.

What songs did Ye perform in Tbilisi?

Ye played a 37-song set that spanned nearly his entire catalog, opening with a cover of Ray Charles’ “Georgia on My Mind” — sung as he walked onto the stage, a clear nod to the host country. From there he ran through career-defining records and a heavy block of new BULLY material on the same rotating, globe-shaped stage first unveiled at his Los Angeles show.

The night drew from across his discography, with multiple cuts from Graduation, Yeezus, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and his 2026 album BULLY, plus collaborations and covers.

The clear centerpiece was the closer. On “Runaway,” Ye stretched the track out by repeatedly looping its “Look at ya” sample and the song’s signature piano keys, dragging the finale to roughly nine minutes — the moment that fans immediately clipped and shared.

What did fans and visitors say about the Ye concert in Georgia?

In-person reaction skewed euphoric, with the extended “Runaway” closer becoming the night’s defining talking point. One widely shared post marveled at Ye performing “Runaway” for around nine minutes straight, and clips of the lone-figure-under-a-spotlight staging circulated quickly after the show.

The globe stage drew the loudest praise. Fans who traveled in for Georgia’s first Ye show repeatedly singled out the planet-shaped production — the same setup fans had labeled one of the wildest live designs of the year — as the highlight that justified the trip.

Not everything landed cleanly, and some attendees flagged the rough edges. The show started late, around 9:45 p.m.; a technical hiccup forced “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” to be replayed after an issue with an on-stage iMac; and several tracks — including “Say You Will,” “PUNCH DRUNK,” “FourFiveSeconds” and “Gold Digger” — were cut after only a few seconds before Ye moved on. Remote viewers on the YouTube stream had the worst of it, complaining about heavy lag for most of the broadcast.

Even with the friction, the overall verdict from the floor was that the spectacle delivered. For a country hosting Ye for the first time — and for the fans locked out who watched from the surrounding streets — the scale of the night was the story.

What’s next for Ye after Georgia?

Ye’s tour next heads to the United States, with two shows scheduled at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida, on June 26 and June 28, 2026. Those dates follow the European and Eurasian leg that ran through the Netherlands, Türkiye and Georgia.

With the BULLY rollout still active and the globe-stage production now a tour signature, expect the U.S. run to keep the same format. Fans should watch for additional dates and any further changes tied to Ye’s ongoing entry restrictions in parts of Europe.

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