VEGAS MUSIC NEWS: When We Were Young Festival, Backstreet Boys Add Dates

Posted on: February 25, 2025, 02:14h. 

Last updated on: February 25, 2025, 02:57h.

Corey Levitan Read More
Expertise: Commercial Gaming, Entertainment, Expert Insight, Las Vegas, Restaurants, Las Vegas Myths.
  • When We Were Young festival adds second date
  • Backstreet Boys add three dates to their Sphere residency
  • Vegas will celebrate songwriters in August

When We Were Young, the annual alt-rock festival at the Las Vegas Festival Grounds, has added its anticipated second show on Sunday, October 19. As with previous festival editions going back to its 2022 inception, the lineup will remain the same as the first night (October 18, which sold out the day it went on sale last November).

Blink-182 takes a curtain call. (Image: @Instagram/blink182)
The lineup poster for this year’s When We Were Young Festival. (Image: When We Were Young)

This year’s Gen-X cavalcade is toplined by pop-punk trio Blink-182 and Las Vegas’ own Panic! at the Disco. They’re returning to the stage to perform “A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out” in its entirety, marking their debut album’s 20th anniversary.

Original Panic! lead guitarist Ryan Ross is sitting the reunion out, as is original bassist Brent Wilson. But Wilson has a valid excuse … He’s currently serving 46 months in the Clark County Detention Center on a 2022 conviction for felony drug possession.

Also on the lineup are Weezer, Avril Lavigne, The Offspring, The Used, and dozens more listed in the poster at right.

Fans can sign up now at WhenWeWereYoungFestival.com to receive an SMS access code to the second date’s presale, which starts at 10 a.m. PST Friday, February 28. A general onsale will follow — if any tickets remain.

No Sphere of Backstreet Failure

The Sphere’s first boy band, the Backstreet Boys, have added three new shows to their previously announced residency in the globular wonder.

The Sphere seats 18,600, which is more than four times as many as the reunited pop stars’ last Vegas residency venue (The Colosseum at Caesars Palace from April 8-9 and April 15-16, 2022), and nearly four times the size of Planet  Hollywood’s Axis/Zappos/Bakkt Theater (today’s PH Live), which hosted their “Larger Than Life” residency in March and April of 2019.

The Backstreet Boys have added three new Sphere dates. (Image: Live Nation)

Nevertheless, sales for the Backstreet Boys’ Sphere residency have been brisk enough to tag on August 15, 16, and 17 to the previously announced batch of 15 dates.

Tickets for the new shows go on sale at 9 a.m. PST Friday, February 28 at backstreetboys.com and Ticketmaster.com. A fan club presale began Tuesday, and an artist presale – available only to those who previously signed up for it — begins Wednesday.

Songwriters Celebrated

The inaugural Las Vegas Songwriters Festival promises to be the largest gathering of songwriters in the town’s history. Hosted in nearly a dozen venues at Mandalay Bay from August 21-24, it will feature 300 No. 1 hits performed in 100 live performances by 50 top songwriters. Among those slated to appear are Liz Rose (Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood), Dean Dillon (George Strait, Kenny Chesney), and Bob DiPiero (Tim McGraw, Brooks & Dunn).

Tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. Friday, February 28 at axs.com/lasvegassongwritersfestival.