Armenian Government Uses Taxpayer Money to Fund J.Lo’s ‘Up All Night’ Tour—No Other Country Has

In an exclusive interview with The Armenian Report, Varuzhan Hoktanyan, Program Director of the Transparency International Anti-Corruption Center, questioned the Armenian government's decision to spend $6 million of public funds on a Jennifer Lopez concert in Yerevan.

Hoktanyan told The Armenian Report in an interview that the government had repeated the same questionable approach it used for the canceled Snoop Dogg concert in 2023—deciding to provide assistance in a very strange way by selecting a company, Doping Space, which had no presence in that field at all. He said the company received the funds and, since it didn’t return the money, he believes the government now plans to recover it through proceeds from ticket sales, likely in the form of taxes.

Hoktanyan also told us that such events are typically business projects, and the state should not be directly financing them. If there truly were no capable organizers in Armenia, he said, the government could have offered interest-free loans to interested companies and allowed them to repay the amount with profits. Instead, the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture, and Sports paid out millions from a budget meant to support Armenian cultural programs.

Although the concert was a commercial event with ticket prices from 25,000 to 180,000 drams ($65 to $468), the state still covered the full cost. While officials said this was to promote tourism, Hoktanyan explained that the funding didn’t come from the Ministry of Economy, which raises more questions.

Government Decision No. 1365-N, issued in August 2023, requires at least 24.3 million AMD (around $62,000 USD) to be repaid to the state after the concert. But so far, no clear public update has been given on whether that repayment will happen or when.

People have also been concerned because the organizer’s name wasn’t made public until the last minute. Hoktanyan believes this was done to avoid public backlash in case the concert was cancelled, similar to the situation with the Snoop Dogg show, where a significant amount of money went missing and no one was held accountable.

In a Facebook post, former Prime Minister Hrant Bagratyan criticized the decision, saying, “Allocating $6 million from the state budget to Jennifer Lopez for a concert in Yerevan is unconstitutional.” 

He argued that the state should not fund commercial concerts, especially when tickets are being sold. In his view, this means public money is being used for private gain, benefiting only a small group while the resource belongs to everyone. 

Bagratyan also added, “This case must be investigated by the Prosecutor’s Office and anti-corruption bodies. Minister of Education, Science, Culture, and Sports Zhanna Andreasyan must answer what reasoning was used to choose Lopez, and Finance Minister Vahe Hovhannisyan should be interrogated for making expenditures not planned in the state budget.”

Still, the government insists the concert was a good investment. Gevorg Papoyan, Armenia’s Minister of Economy, posted on Facebook that around 15,000 tourists visited Armenia for the concert. Citing a study, he claimed that visitors on tour packages spend about $888 each, meaning the event generated over $13.3 million for the economy. He also pointed to the country’s international exposure as another benefit and suggested that Armenia should hold similar concerts every year.

But there’s no proof that any other government has paid Jennifer Lopez to perform during her “Up All Night” world tour. In other countries, her shows have been funded by private sponsors, ticket sales, and event promoters. Armenia stands alone in spending public funds on such an event.

The criticism grew even stronger after RFE/RL investigated how the money for the concert was being spent, details later reported by The Armenia Report. 

Jennifer Lopez’s food alone was budgeted at $37,000 more than twice the $16,000 set aside for her team’s meals. Another $10,000 was planned just for food for her dressing room staff. The hotel costs were also high. The total bill came to $185,000, with $10,000 of that going toward Lopez’s personal stay. On top of all this, the government agreed to pay her a $2.6 million performance fee, almost the same amount Snoop Dogg was promised for his cancelled concert in 2023. 

Despite that concert never taking place, the event organizer Doping Space kept a large portion of the money. An official later said that Snoop Dogg returned his share, but no one fully explained what happened to the rest. This same company is now behind the Jennifer Lopez concert.

The government only admitted to funding the Lopez concert days before the event. Officials explained that they simply reallocated the funds that were originally meant for Snoop Dogg’s show. Still, critics argue that this does not excuse the decision, especially when the money comes from a cultural budget meant to support Armenian art and music.

To make matters worse, many Armenians are pointing out that the $6 million could have gone toward much-needed areas: education, healthcare, rural development, and national security. In fact, that amount is more than the yearly budget of many small towns across Armenia.

When the Snoop Dogg concert was cancelled in 2023, the government justified the spending by claiming it would help boost Armenia’s image. But for many people, those claims don’t feel convincing, especially now, as the country continues to deal with the consequences of Azerbaijan’s military aggression against Artsakh and the forced ethnic cleansing of its Armenian population.

In the end, one question stands above the rest: Would Jennifer Lopez have come to Armenia anyway without public money being spent? Given the global model of concert touring, and the fact that no other government paid her to perform, the answer is likely yes. But now, Armenian taxpayers are the ones covering the cost.

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