SALT LAKE CITY — While the Utah Jazz are taking advantage of the All-Star break, the Delta Center will come to life Wednesday night as a global superstar kicks off his world tour.
Bad Bunny, a three-time Grammy winner, is set to perform 47 shows in 31 cities across the country over the next three months, starting with a visit to the Beehive State.
The singer, whose real name is Benito Antonio Martinez, has spent the last three days in the Salt Lake area, rehearsing and making sure everything is ready for his big performance tonight.
It'll be the singer's first visit to the Delta Center, which his team proposed due to Utah's growing Latin community.
When the agent for Bad Bunny began mapping out a world tour, his first call was to the man who helps run live events at the Delta Center, Mark Powell.
"He reached out and said, 'Hey; the secret’s out, Salt Lake is a great Latin X market, and if you have the dates available, we want to come there and rehearse and start the tour,'" Powell explained. "We had the dates because it’s All-Star break for the Jazz and we finalized the deal and yeah, they’ve been loaded in since Sunday.”
Bad Bunny's portfolio has generated nearly 19 billion streams on Spotify and he has a net worth of $50 million. Shy of 30 years old, the superstar also has a YouTube channel with 46 million subscribers and 30 billion video views.
To say the Utah tour date is a big deal is an understatement.
“This is our highest grossing single day concert in the history of the arena," Powell said. "More than U2, more than the Eagles, anybody.”
Last year, the Delta Center hosted four Spanish-speaking artists and this year there will be more than twice that.
“The citizens of Salt Lake are really supporting these shows and they’re coming out and they’re having a great time," Powell reflected. "All of our customer satisfaction surveys are off the charts. It’s just a fun night when we have these shows here in the building.”
Tickets for the highly-anticipated concert start at around $200, and Powell said there are still some available for those who want a last-minute night out.
