With more than $210 million in revenue across 78 shows, Travis Scott’s Circus Maximus World Tour – set to hit Abu Dhabi on November 15 – is officially the highest-grossing solo rap tour of all time. But back in 2016, when the rapper first touched down in the UAE capital, he was a rising star. While he had a cult following even then, Scott was far from the global force he is today.
Part of the line-up at the free Beats on the Beach concert series on the Corniche, on the sidelines of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Scott was a headliner on the third night, performing on the same stage as Lebanese powerhouse Nancy Ajram. Scott's performance came less than two months after the release of his second studio album, Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight, which debuted at No 1 on the US Billboard 200 chart.
“Scott took to the Corniche stage like a rocket and in the space of a mere 15 minutes had the crowd sweating and shouting along to his Mad Hatter-esque raps and shuddering dystopian beats,” The National wrote of the 2016 show.
For some fans, however, the intensity proved too much. The then-24-year-old paused his performance midway to allow an exhausted audience member to be escorted from the front. After ensuring the fan was OK, he warned the crowd that he wasn't finished: “This is a Travis Scott show. If you can't handle that, you better leave because we all came here to party, right?” he said.
Hours after his show, too, Scott wasn't done, turning up at Mad nightclub at Yas Island for another performance “bounding around and whipping the late-night onlookers into a frenzy”.
Scott was due to return to Abu Dhabi three years later, as one of the headline acts at the 2019 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix after-race concert series, but suddenly pulled out three days before the show due to “unforeseen circumstances”, leaving many fans disappointed.
“While we are not contractually able to discuss the reason why, Travis couldn’t do it because something happened that was totally out of his control,” John Lickrish, chief executive of organiser Flash Entertainment, told The National. “Now we as a team are disappointed that this can happen so close to the show, but what I can say is that it was for extremely legitimate reasons and I feel empathy for him.”
Rappers Future and Gucci Mane stepped in for Scott on the night.
Scott returned to Abu Dhabi in 2023 for a blowout set, as the headliner of the inaugural Wireless Festival Middle East at Etihad Park, where he will also perform in November.
The UK-import festival featured British rapper MIA, American rapper Lil Uzi Vert, Egyptian star Wegz and Iraqi rapper Ali Gatie performing across multiple stages. But Scott was the main draw of the event and he delivered an explosive show, blending surreal stage settings with his raucous onstage temperament.
Scott was at the top of his game, The National reported, arriving on stage amid a cacophony of bass, strobes and smoke, opening with Hold That Heat and Highest in the Room, as he thundered around the stage as loyal fans mirrored him below.
There were plenty of flames, smoke and exhilarating visuals with every song such as the genre-bending Stargazing, from 2018’s Astroworld, performed in front of a kaleidoscopic wall of digital art.
As The National's review of the show noted: “Scott simply never runs out of steam. He’s a one-man hurricane.”
