Heavy/ABC "American Idol" season 21 runner-up Megan Danielle
One month after being named runner-up on season 21 of “American Idol,” Megan Danielle has announced her first concert tour. The raspy-voiced country and gospel singer from Georgia will open for season 16 “Idol” winner Maddie Poppe.
In an Instagram post on June 29, 2023, Poppe wrote that she was “so excited” to have Danielle join her on her summer tour, but quickly had to address ordering issues that many excited fans were experiencing. Here’s what you need to know:
Fans Rush to Get Tickets as Megan Danielle & Maddie Poppe Team Up for Tour
Danielle, 20, is scheduled to appear on 15 of Poppe’s 21 summer tour dates, with tickets available via Poppe’s website. According to both singers’ Instagram posts, Poppe’s summer tour kicks off July 6 in Swisher, Iowa, but Danielle’s first date on the tour will be July 15 in Menomonie, Wisconsin.
Fans were thrilled by the news, excitedly commenting on both of their posts.
“Omg obsessed with this duo,” one wrote.
Another commented, “Oh my god, you two were my favorites of your seasons!!! I don’t know how to act right now!!!! I want to see y’all so bad”
However, while ordering tickets, many fans have run into a technical glitch that Poppe’s had to repeatedly address on Instagram.
“We are so excited to have Megan Danielle on tour,” she said in her Instagram Stories on June 29. “Except nobody can get tickets!”
“You know, when they invented the touchscreen,” she said wryly, “when you tap, it takes you to the thing that you’re tapping on. Well, not for Maddie Poppe’s web site! No, something must go wrong and today we’ve run into a problem where if you tap on it, it doesn’t actually take you anywhere!”
Poppe explained that those using a touchscreen need to hold down the ticket button to bring up a pop-up that asks if the user wants to open a new tab, which will then take them to the date and tickets they want. There seemed to be no issue, however, with those using computers to order their tickets.
“Please don’t give up,” Poppe said, and then joked, “The other thing that’s cool is if you are 500 years old, you can get on a desktop computer and hit ‘Tour’ and then hit ‘Tickets’ just in one click.”
Megan Danielle & Maddie Poppe Are Both Paving Their Own Paths in Music
The pairing of Danielle and Poppe is an interesting one, given that both women are determined not to be pigeonholed or held back by industry standards and labels.
Danielle, who worked with “Idol” record label partner 19 Recordings to release her first single, “Dream Girl,” has said that she wants to be able to sing gospel and country music rather than be boxed into one genre.
On the show, Danielle was vocal about her deep faith from the moment she first stood in front of “Idol” judges Luke Bryan, Katie Perry and Lionel Richie. When she auditioned with a song by one of her own idols, Christian pop artist Lauren Daigle, the artist surprised Danielle by walking in on her audition. Video of that moment has been viewed on YouTube by over 1.3 million people and Daigle returned for the season finale to sing a duet with Danielle.
“I see myself as a country and Christian artist, but I don’t want to label myself as one thing,” Danielle recently told TV Insider. “I love both. I want to find a way to make it all work.”
Meanwhile, Poppe skyrocketed to fame after her “Idol” win in 2018, but later lost her record deal in the early months of the COVID pandemic as she struggled to figure out who she wanted to be as an artist, she told People in 2022.
“I feel like for a while, I just wanted to do what other people wanted me to do,” she said. “I lived to please other people. And I felt that since people voted for my folk/Americana sort of sound on ‘American Idol,’ that was the sound I was meant to have, because they were the ones that put me here, you know? That’s when I realized that I needed to love what I was putting out.”
“I wanted to get the same feelings from the music I put out that I would get from listening to some of my favorite artists,” she continued. “But it took some time to get there. There were times that I was really frustrated.”
Poppe has since embraced life as an independent artist, and has been busy touring and releasing new music, including her latest, “Good Enough to Let You Go.”