Inside Shakira’s Record-Setting Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran Tour

After finishing the last of seven concerts at GNP Seguros Stadium in Mexico City March 30 as part of her Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran tour, Shakira announced she would return to Mexico in August. Her encore will bring her total shows played in the country to 22, a record for a single tour. Shakira initially played 11 stadium shows in Mexico, selling them all out, and eventually announced additional shows for August and September, including one more stop at GNP Seguros Stadium. Her eight performances there will be a record.

It’s the latest success in a string of them for the Colombian star. Last week, Billboard reported that, for the month of February, Shakira topped the monthly Top Tours chart for the first time, earning $32.9 million from 282,000 tickets sold that month, according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore.

Shakira follows Bad Bunny, Los Bukis and RBD among Latin artists who have topped the monthly ranking, making her the first solo Latin woman to hit No. 1. This also marks the first time Shakira ever tops the chart, which launched in 2019, after she finished her previous outing, 2018’s El Dorado World Tour.

All those tickets sold are particularly sweet success for Shakira, who not only hadn’t toured in six years, but hadn’t had this level of success with her recorded music, either. Since 2019, as is by now very well known, the global superstar split up with her longtime partner, Gerard Pique, moved from Barcelona to Miami, turned her heartbreak into chart-topping songs, and now, at 47 years old and as the mother of two children, is in the midst of what will be the biggest tour of her career.

At her side is manager Nadine Eliya, who after working with Shakira in different capacities for years, took over management in 2023 after the Colombian star moved to Miami and started releasing new music. While that was a project in and of itself, Shakira’s new tour, a massive endeavor that kicked off last month in Brazil, is the Colombia’s star most ambitious move yet. Originally slated to be an arena tour, Shakira scrapped those plans last fall, following reaction to her new album Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran (Sony Music Latin), and announced she was doing stadiums instead. And while she had to cancel three South American dates —two for production issues and one due to illness — her Mexico run has more than made up for lost time.

Given the extraordinary resurgence of Shakira, spotlighted by her No. 1 spot on Top Tours for February, Eliya is Billboard’s Executive of the Week. Here, she speaks about crafting Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran, and its impact on the touring market. 

You’ve had many Shakira highlights in the past year, but these Mexico concerts feel particularly significant. Is that the case?

These Mexico concerts were so rewarding in so many ways. It’s nice to see a Latin American city leading on a global scale as a concert city market, and only reinforces the massive growth we’ve been seeing in the Latin market over the last 10 years. To be breaking such significant records 30-plus years into your career is a testament to Shakira’s longevity and the care we’ve taken to keep creating music that draws new fans while deepening the connection with the ones who have accompanied her all along the way.

Shakira went from having a much-publicized split with her longtime partner two years ago to now leading Billboard’s tour recap for the month. What was the biggest challenge in achieving this?

The biggest challenge, I think, was being able to channel the pain into productivity, into growth, into a tool for connection. I think her music last year has struck a chord with so many women who felt like she gave a voice to their same feelings and frustrations and made them feel seen. 

I think people may think, it’s Shakira, she’s a global star, this is easy…

Ha! Every new leg of a stadium tour brings its own challenges, and every achievement only brings ideas for new goals we want to reach. It’s a misconception that when you get to the top, you relax. It only makes the stakes higher. And I’m bad at relaxing.

What has been the biggest challenge in putting together this stadium tour?

The biggest challenges were bringing a production of this size to Latin America, which had never been done before in many of the markets we visited. Also,  thinking big picture about where we want to be at the end of it, the milestones we want to hit, and how we plan to get there.

What can you tell us about the concept of the tour?

It’s all about female archetypes, connection and empowerment. If you notice, many of the interludes, that are a CGI-animated Shakira — an industry-wide first — center around an archetype: the warrior, the mother, the primal she-wolf. The idea was to take the fans on this journey with her and to walk out feeling uplifted and empowered. And I think she delivered beyond anyone’s expectations, including her own.

What were your expectations when you started to plan, and what are they now?

I think we expected to surprise fans with a big show but we didn’t expect how emotional the reaction would be and what a movement it’s become, this experience of attending her concert.

A couple of weeks ago, Shakira also released the music video to “Ultima,” a very melancholy ballad that looks back at her relationship. Why now?

We filmed that video a while back, but we wanted to release it at a time that had meaning to it. It felt like a beautiful bookend to a year after the release of such a personal album and sharing it from a very different place than when the song was written, after the live [version] of the song has connected with so many on tour. It was a gift for the fans who offered so much support through a difficult time.