Harry Styles will play five nights at Austin's Moody Center in September.
Photo by Lillie Eiger
Clear your September schedules, Harry Styles fans. The international superstar and former member of UK pop sensation One Direction is coming to Austin’s Moody Center for not one, but five nights.
In support of his upcoming album, Harry’s House, the British crooner announced a massive 32-night North American tour at some of the U.S. and Canada’s most notable venues. Styles’s Love on Tour 2022 will kick off on Monday and Tuesday, August 15 and 16 at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, Ontario.
From Toronto, Styles will then take up residence at Madison Square Garden in New York City for 10 nights before gracing the Austin stage. Further proving that the city’s newest arena is already garnering international attention, Styles will play five nights at the Moody Center before shimmying up north for five nights at Chicago’s United Center and wrapping up in Los Angeles for a 10-night run at Kia Forum.
The highly anticipated 2022 tour follows a sold-out 42-date arena tour in 2021 and two special One Night Only shows in New York and London. Fans will have access to multiple nights in each major city, turning iconic venues into “Harry’s House” for the run of shows.
Produced by Live Nation, the tour has partnered with Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan platform. Fans can register now through Thursday, May 19 at 9 pm CST for the Verified Fan presale. Registered fans who receive a code will have access to purchase tickets before the general public Wednesday, May 25, starting at 12 pm local time. Only fans who have received a unique code will have the chance to purchase tickets for performances on a first come, first served basis.
Styles recently released his record-setting No. 1 new single, “As It Was” — the first taste of his upcoming third album, Harry’s House, which makes its global debut on May 20.
Few people are strong enough to resist the lure of Girl Scout cookie season every year, with the cookies’ limited availability and unique flavors a strong incentive to indulge. But only the girls and their families who have sold the cookies know the joys and stresses of trying to get people to buy them, a process that is detailed in the new documentary, Cookie Queens.
The film by documentarian Alysa Nahmias uses the stories of four different girls to represent the nationwide ritual for the Girl Scouts. They include 12-year-old Olive in Charlotte, North Carolina, a longtime top seller; 8-year-old Shannon Elizabeth in El Paso, Texas, who wants to earn the reward of going to camp; 5-year-old Ara in San Diego, California, whose goal is modest compared to most other girls; and 9-year-old Nikki in Chino, California, who has to compete with her older sisters in the cookie-selling bonanza.
The girls represent a cross-section of both ages and backgrounds, with some girls coming from wealthy families and some girls dealing with more limited means. And how much money your family has makes a big difference, as not only does someone richer have more freedom with their time and supplies, but all scouts are required to reimburse the organization for every box they take in, regardless of whether they’re able to sell it or not.
That caveat makes the journeys of the four featured girls feel wildly different. It’s clear from the start that Olive and Nikki’s families don’t give a second thought to the personal economics of selling cookies, with each girl taking in thousands of boxes at the beginning of the six-week selling season. With both Olive and Nikki rightfully confident that they’ll have no problem offloading their supply, their stories turn to how selling is personally affecting them, with each trying to reconcile the fun of doing it with the pressure they feel from their family members.
Shannon Elizabeth’s story is more harrowing, as her parents feel a strong desire to help her accomplish her lofty goal, but worry that the cost might literally be too high for the family as a whole. More than once, the parents are shown fretting that they won’t have the money to pay back what they owe should they fall significantly short in their sales. Their selling approach, which includes walking through an empty swap meet and standing outside a chain restaurant at night, only adds to their stress.
The most fun story to watch is that of Ara, whose innocence is matched by her confidence. Her parents teach her how much money they’ll owe with her small goal of 55 boxes, but right away she takes on more responsibility than expected. She’s shown making sales pitches and tallying the total number of boxes she’s sold with little to no help from either her mom or dad. With her high voice, glasses, and a monitor on her arm to manage her diabetes, she becomes the cute and sympathetic part of the film.
There are times that the film starts to feel more than a little manipulative, however. While many of the moments documented come off as organic, some of them seem like Nahmias is actively guiding the participants in order to get a better story. This is especially evident with Shannon Elizabeth and her family, whose early struggles turn into a miraculous feel-good story by the end, a turnaround that seems implausible at best. Everything with them might have been aboveboard, but Nahmias and her team edit the family’s journey in a way that pushes a bit too hard for emotion.
Cookie Queens, which was produced by a company owned by Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, helps to give insight into the business of selling Girl Scout cookies for those who’ve only been on the purchasing end of the transaction. The dedication of each girl toward selling their allotted supply proves fun and interesting, even if the filmmaker tries to gild the lily on occasion.
