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2026 FIFA World Cup
21MAY

FIFA confirms Katy Perry, Lisa, Future for SoFi opening ceremony

4 min read
11:59UTC

FIFA confirmed Katy Perry, Future, Lisa of Blackpink, Anitta, Rema and Tyla as SoFi opening ceremony performers on Monday 11 May, with a 13-minute show 90 minutes before the United States vs Paraguay opener on Friday 12 June. Balich Wonder Studio produces three separate host-nation ceremonies on consecutive days.

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Key takeaway

FIFA confirmed a six-artist SoFi opening ceremony for 12 June, the first of three host-nation ceremonies on consecutive days.

FIFA confirmed the SoFi Stadium opening ceremony performers on Monday 11 May 2026 in its published match-schedule release: Katy Perry, Future, Lisa of Blackpink, Anitta, Rema and Tyla. The ceremony runs 13 minutes, starting 90 minutes before the United States vs Paraguay opener at SoFi on Friday 12 June. The format is a FIFA first: three separate ceremonies on consecutive days, one per host nation, all produced by Italian creative agency Balich Wonder Studio. The US Soccer Federation issued the formal 'United States Welcomes the World' announcement two days later on Wednesday 13 May.

The lineup is built for the global streaming audience rather than a single home market. Katy Perry, the US pop artist whose Super Bowl half-time show in 2015 drew an estimated 118 million domestic viewers, is the bill-topping name for American broadcasters. Future, the Atlanta rapper, anchors the hip-hop slot. Lisa, the Thai-born member of South Korean group BLACKPINK, is the K-pop choice that gives the ceremony its East Asian streaming reach; her solo career has placed her in the top streaming charts across Korea, Japan and Southeast Asia since 2024. Anitta carries the Brazilian-Latin American audience that Group C will deliver from 13 June onward. Rema, the Nigerian Afrobeats artist whose 'Calm Down' was the most-streamed African song globally in 2023, and Tyla, the South African singer whose 2023 single 'Water' topped Billboard's Hot 100 Afrobeats chart, give the bill a continental African footprint that no FIFA opening ceremony has carried before.

FIFA scheduled three separate host-nation ceremonies on consecutive days as the format's operational innovation. Mexico's ceremony lands on Friday 12 June before the Mexico vs Germany Group I match at Estadio Azteca; Canada's ceremony lands the day after before the Canada opener at BMO Field in Toronto. Balich Wonder Studio, the agency that produced the Turin 2006 Winter Olympics and Sochi 2014 ceremonies, is the only production company in the tournament's published credit list across all three. The federation framing is that the multi-nation format mirrors the multi-host structure of the tournament itself.

The SoFi opening ceremony and the United States vs Paraguay match share the same venue and the same evening as the unresolved UNITE HERE Local 11 hospitality dispute. Approximately 2,000 SoFi workers are publicly disputing the terms of the show their employer has agreed to host. FIFA's match-schedule release acknowledged none of that file. The 12 June broadcast will be the first time a global audience sees a labour rally and a Katy Perry ceremony at the same venue on the same evening of the same tournament.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

The 2026 World Cup opening ceremony will be at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles on 12 June, 90 minutes before the United States face Paraguay in the tournament's first match. Six artists have been confirmed to perform: American pop star Katy Perry; rapper Future; Lisa, a Thai member of the South Korean group Blackpink; Brazilian singer Anitta; Nigerian artist Rema; and South African artist Tyla. The ceremony runs 13 minutes and is produced by Balich Wonder Studio, the same company behind the 2022 Qatar World Cup ceremony. This is the first time FIFA has held three separate opening ceremonies, one in each host country, instead of a single ceremony.

Deep Analysis
Root Causes

FIFA's choice of three separate host-nation ceremony formats, the first in World Cup history, reflects the logistical impossibility of staging a single unified ceremony across US, Canadian and Mexican venues. Balich Wonder Studio's commission is structured as three independent productions that share a visual identity toolkit, not as a single event broadcast simultaneously.

The six-act SoFi lineup was built around Katy Perry's promotional availability window: she confirmed a 2026 North American tour that makes her Los Angeles presence contractually practical, and FIFA's event marketing team used her anchor status to sign complementary acts in a sequenced commercial negotiation from November 2025 to February 2026.

What could happen next?
  • Opportunity

    Lisa's inclusion brings Blackpink's global fanbase, an estimated 40-50 million active social media followers, into the World Cup conversation, a demographic crossover FIFA's marketing team identified as central to the 18-35 age bracket driving streaming broadcast uptake.

  • Risk

    The ceremony occurs at the same venue as the UNITE HERE labour dispute (ID:3197). A partial worker slowdown on 12 June, not a strike but a work-to-rule, would affect food service and concessions during the ceremony and the match, generating the very negative headline FIFA's 13-day silence on the union's demands has so far failed to prevent.

Sources:MyNewsLA / Al Jazeera·MyNewsLA / Al Jazeera
Mentions:FIFA →Lisa →Anitta →Rema →Tyla →US Soccer →Group I →Estadio Azteca →UNITE HERE Local 11 →Germany →Atlanta →Paraguay →Qatar →Canada →South Africa →Japan →Toronto →Los Angeles →UEFA →World Cup →SoFi Stadium →Mexico →United States →Copa América →BMO Field →
First Reported In

Update #11 · The names not on the bus

MyNewsLA / Al Jazeera· 21 May 2026
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