Madonna NEWS NEWS

Madonna puts the "hot" in Hot Shot Debut this week as the diva scores her seventh Billboard 200 No. 1 with "Hard Candy." The feat breaks a tie with Janet Jackson and Mariah Carey to give The Queen of the Dance Floor sole ownership of the No. 2 spot on the all-time list of album No. 1s among female artists. Only Barbra Streisand, with eight, has more. "Hard Candy" moved 280,000 units its first week out.

And that's not the only accomplishment for the pop great this week, as she also own the Hot Shot Debut title on The Billboard Hot 100 with new single "Give It 2 Me," which entered at No. 57, almost entirely on the strength of digital sales. The single moved 38,000 downloads to earn the No. 21 spot on Hot Digital Songs.

MADONNA'S YUMMY "STICKY & SWEET" TOUR ITINERARY UNWRAPPED FOR FANS FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME
"HARD CANDY" CD DEBUTS AT NUMBER 1 AROUND THE WORLD IN 27 COUNTRIES THUS FAR INCLUDING US, UK, FRANCE, GERMANY, JAPAN AND AUSTRALIA


LOS ANGELES May 8, 2008 Madonna, the world's tastiest sweetheart, has announced more non-stop treats for her legions of legendary and devoted fans. Following the latest news that "HARD CANDY" has debuted at Number 1 around the globe, it has been confirmed that Madonna's "STICKY & SWEET TOUR" will begin (hip) hopping around the world on August 23rd in Cardiff, Wales with stops in major European markets through September including London (11-September) and Paris (20-September).


The North American leg of the "STICKY & SWEET TOUR" begins October 3rd at the Izod Center in East Rutherford, New Jersey, with stops at New York's Madison Square Garden on October 6th and 7th, followed by performances in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and more before stopping at Miami's Dolphin Stadium on November 26th. Madonna's "STICKY & SWEET" tour will also visit Mexico and South America later this year. (Show dates, and on sale information in these markets will follow at a later date.)


Confirmed today by Guy Oseary, Madonna's manager and Arthur Fogel, Live Nation's CEO Global Touring and Chairman Global Music, who is producing the tour, "STICKY & SWEET" will play arenas and stadiums throughout Europe and North America including a number of cities where Madonna has not performed in the past fifteen years. "STICKY & SWEET" will be directed by Madonna's long time creative collaborator Jamie King. The musical director will be Kevin Antunes. The complete tour itinerary is listed below with additional cities and dates to be announced. For complete tour and ticket information, fans can visit: www.livenation.com and www.madonna.com. "HARD CANDY," Madonna's 11th studio album for Warner Bros. Records debuted at number one in 27 countries around the world thus far, including the USA, JAPAN, FRANCE, UK, GERMANY, CANADA, ITALY, AUSTRALIA, THE NETHERLANDS, SOUTH AFRICA, SWEDEN, DENMARK, IRELAND, FINLAND, AUSTRIA, CHILE, SPAIN, MEXICO, HONG KONG, SINGAPORE, SLOVENIA, PORTUGAL, BELGIUM, BRAZIL, SWITZERLAND, ISRAEL and U.A.E. The album has received Four Stars in Rolling Stone, Blender and People Magazine with The NY Daily News hailing "HARD CANDY" as Madonna's greatest album ever. Madonna's current smash single "4 Minutes" was co-written and co-produced by Madonna, Timbaland and Justin Timberlake. "HARD CANDY" is the Number One most downloaded digital album in the U.S. and many other countries. Madonna's previous studio album "CONFESSIONS ON A DANCE FLOOR" sold over 8.5 million copies


Madonna and Live Nation entered into a revolutionary partnership last fall and her last three worldwide tours were produced by Live Nation.


A multi-Grammy award winner and recent inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Madonna has long been known for groundbreaking multi-dimensional tours that consist of visual and audio extravaganzas with non-stop singing and breathtaking dancing. Madonna's last outing, 2006's acclaimed Confessions Tour played in 25 countries including Russia, reached a collective audience of over 1.3 million fans, and was the highest grossing concert tour of all time by a female artist.


"I'll be your one stop Candy Shop Everything that I've got"
Madonna "CANDY SHOP" from "HARD CANDY"


TICKETS: Tickets for "Sticky & Sweet" will go on sale beginning Friday, May 16th in London, Paris, Cardiff and Nice followed by on sales Saturday, May 17th in Amsterdam, Boston and Chicago with E. Rutherford and New York City on sale Monday, May 19th. Tickets will range from .00 through 0 (5.00 in Las Vegas) offering a variety of excellent seats at all price levels. Additional on-sales vary and are listed below or available at www.livenation.com and www.madonna.com . There will be a 4 ticket limit per person at the arena performances and a 6 ticket per person limit for stadium events.


MADONNA.COM: Icon is Madonna's official fan club. Legacy members of Icon get first access to tickets starting May 12th, 2008. Fan club members who join May 1st and later will not have access to presale tickets. However, all ticket buyers for the tour get a free trial one year Virtual Icon membership which provides access to the largest digital archive of Madonna photos online, a social networking community of dedicated Madonna fans, contests, news and much more. Sign up for Icon at Madonna.com today.


Citi: "We are proud to provide Citi® cardmembers with access to one of the most anticipated tours of 2008," said Vik Atal, Chairman and CEO, Citi Cards. "The Madonna tour is a great example of the benefits of our alliance with Live Nation which enables us to offer our cardmembers exceptional experiences through our innovative Private Pass Program." Citi cardmembers will have access to presale tickets beginning Tuesday May 13th at 10am ET through Citi's Private Pass Program®. For complete presale details visit: privatepass.citi.com. *Applicable for Sticky & Sweet shows in the U.S.


www.stubhub.com: StubHub is the official fan-to-fan ticket marketplace for Madonna's North American Tour 2008.* StubHub is the world's largest ticket marketplace enabling fans to buy and sell tickets to a vast selection of nearly 30,000 sports, concert theatres and other live entertainment events. StubHub reinvented the ticket resale market in 2000 and continues to lead through innovation. The company's unique online marketplace, dedicated solely to tickets, provides all fans the choice to buy or sell their tickets in a safe, convenient and highly reliable environment. All transactions are processed and delivered via StubHub's patent-pending Fan Network (SM ticket delivery service, supported by seven-day toll free customer service at 1-866-STUBHUB and backed by an industry-first Fan Protect Guarantee. *Applicable for Sticky & Sweet shows in Canada & the U.S. (excluding Mexico)


www.viagogo.co.uk: viagogo is the Official Premium Ticketing Partner for Madonna's European Tour 2008*. Premium tickets and VIP packages will be available from Friday 16th May on www.viagogo.co.uk. In addition, viagogo will be the Official Secondary Ticketing Exchange where fans can buy and sell their tickets. viagogo facilitates the exchange between someone who wants to sell and someone who wants to buy a ticket for a live event. It guarantees that buyers receive their tickets in time for the show and sellers receive payment. viagogo is Europe's leading ticket exchange. *Not applicable for Sticky & Sweet shows in Germany & Italy.


About Live Nation: Live Nation is the future of the music business. With the most live concerts, music venues and festivals in the world and the most comprehensive concert search engine on the web, Live Nation is revolutionizing the music industry; onstage and online. Headquartered in Los Angeles, California, Live Nation is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, trading under the symbol "LYV." Additional information about the company can be found at www.livenation.com under the "About Us" section


MADONNA STICKY & SWEET TOUR ITINERARY 2008


Showdate - City - Venue - On sale Date:


23-Aug - Cardiff Millennium Stadium - Fri. May 16
26-Aug - Nice Stade Charles Ehrmann - Fri. May 16
28-Aug - Berlin Olympic Stadium - Wed. May 21
02-Sept - Amsterdam Arena - Sat. May 17
04-Sept - Dusseldorf LTU Arena - Wed. May 21
06-Sept - Rome Olympic Stadium - Fri. May 23
09-Sept - Frankfurt Commerzbank Arena - Wed. May 21
11-Sept - London Wembley Stadium - Fri. May 16
20-Sept - Paris Stade de France - Fri. May 16
03-Oct - E. Rutherford Izod Center - Mon. May 19
06-Oct - New York City Madison Square Garden - Mon. May 19
07-Oct - New York City Madison Square Garden - Mon. May 19
15-Oct - Boston TD BankNorth Garden - Sat. May 17
18-Oct - Toronto Air Canada Centre - Sat. May 24
22-Oct - Montreal Bell Centre - Sat. May 24
26-Oct - Chicago United Center - Sat. May 17
30-Oct - Vancouver BC Place Stadium - Sat. May 24
01-Nov - Oakland Oracle Arena - Sun. June 1
04-Nov - San Diego Petco Park - Sun. June 1
06-Nov - Los Angeles Dodger Stadium - Sun. June 1
08-Nov - Las Vegas MGM Grand Garden Arena - Sat. May 31
11-Nov - Denver Pepsi Center - Sat. May 31
16-Nov - Houston Minute Maid Park - Sat. May 31
19-Nov - Philadelphia Wachovia Center - Mon. June 2
22-Nov - Atlantic City Boardwalk Hall - Mon. June 2
24-Nov - Atlanta Philips Arena - Sat. May 31
26-Nov - Miami Dolphin Stadium - Sat. May 31


Additional dates and venues to be announced.


Madonna's Sticky & Sweet tour will also visit Mexico and South America later this year. Show date and on sale information to follow.

If you didn't win your tickets for the exclusive show Madonna will perform at the Olympia Hall in Paris on May 6, then here is your chance to attend this so special event!

The first 500 fans who will lineup in front of the Olympia Hall, 28 Boulevard des Capucines, 75009 Paris, tomorrow morning, will get a wristband allowing them to attend the show tomorrow night!

Wristbands will be given away tomorrow, May 6, at 10am, Paris time.
Good luck and see you at the show!

MTV will broadcast a brand new Madonna interview as part of their 'MTV News' program during the next few days.
Below are the airtimes to the different segments of the interview.

MADONNA ON MILEY
Fri 5/2- 9:50am, EST, 1:50pm, EST

MADONNA CONCERT WRAP
Fri 5/2- 10:50pm, EST
Sat 5/3- 1:50am, EST, 7:50am, EST

MADONNA ALBUM NEWS
Sat 5/3- 11:50pm, EST
Sun 5/4- 4:50am, EST, 6:50am, EST
Mon 5/5- 1:50am, EST, 4:50am, EST, 9:50am, EST, 10:55am, EST

Also, make sure to check MTV's website for an interview of Madonna and Justin Timberlake by John Norris, which was made right after their performance at the Roseland Ballroom on April 30th.

Halfway through her 32-minute set on Wednesday night at the Roseland Ballroom in Manhattan, Madonna offered a message of sympathy. "All you people I saw sleeping in the street last night," she said, "this song is for you."

It was "Hung Up," about the agony of waiting. And as she finished the song, she added, just in case the message wasn't clear: "Anybody who knows me knows how much I hate to wait."
New York may be a city of the impatient, but for Madonna's fans, Wednesday's show proved that seeing her for free in a 2,200-capacity hall -- minuscule by her usual touring standards -- was something worth waiting for. And waiting for a very long time.

The line outside Roseland, on West 52nd Street, formed 60 hours before show time. By late Tuesday it had stretched around the block as the faithful stood and sat and slept and caffeinated themselves for the chance to score one of the 750 wrist bands that would guarantee free admission.
Erica Gabriel, a 28-year-old makeup artist, waited through the night in line with friends. Once duly wrist-banded some time after 6 a.m., she returned home to prepare the elaborate, swooping hairstyle and "stewardess-Madonna-tricky-tranny look" that she sported early Wednesday evening -- as she waited on line again to receive a second wristband.

"Gays don't camp out," said one of Ms. Gabriel's friends, as the group laughed, "but we'll camp out for this."
Even those who joined the queue relatively late proved to be professionals of a sort.
"I'm not fanatical," said Walter Sharpe, 36, an interior designer from Brooklyn. "But I do collect Madonna magazine covers, and I've got maybe 170 of them."
There is something almost quaint about an overnight line for concert tickets in an era of Internet pre-sales and ordering by text message. But Madonna's show, to promote her new album, "Hard Candy," was also part of a technologically sophisticated, 21st-century product rollout that involved multiple media tie-ins. It was broadcast live on the Internet by MSN and on cell phones worldwide by Verizon and Vodafone. In addition to the 750 spots given to fans on the line -- that's on a line, not online -- about 1,000 were given to radio contest winners, and 200 to members of Madonna's fan club, which now has a social-networking component.

And at 49, Madonna remains on the entrepreneurial vanguard of the music business. "Hard Candy" is her last album for her longtime label, Warner Brothers; in October she announced a new deal with the touring giant Live Nation that will encompass recordings, tours, merchandising and various other projects, and is valued at 0 million.
Not that all of the Music Biz 2.0 stuff mattered much to the people who crammed into Roseland on Wednesday, even those who breathe media and marketing. One of them was Tanesha Fields, a pretty 26-year-old who works in advertising and said her nights are filled with business parties. "I don't have to go to another media event for a year," she said. "This tops them all."

The room roared with "Omigods" and lit up with digital camera flashes when Madonna emerged at 10:09 p.m. from behind a revolving stage barrier, dressed in shiny black and wearing lace-up boots. Backed by a live band whose members worked in the far corners of the stage, she performed six songs, four of them from "Hard Candy."
Another big roar rose for the third song, "4 Minutes": Justin Timberlake, who is featured on the song and is one of the writers and producers of it, took the stage in a sharp white jacket and black scarf, and joined Madonna in some dirty dancing that had slight bondage overtones -- with Madonna dominant, of course.

The show was swift clockwork. At 10:23, right after "4 Minutes," Madonna picked up a black electric guitar and, after picking out the riff to the Rolling Stones' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction," led a grungy version of "Hung Up." At 10:32 there was a slight costume change -- she put on a black top with "HARD" in silver letters on the front and "CANDY" on the back -- and she sang the new "Give It 2 Me."
Then came "Music," much dancing, and a quick makeup and hair fix on the wings. By 10:42 Madonna and her dancers had swung back through the revolving wall and the lights went up.

Some had waited for more than two days for a half-hour show. But no one seemed to be complaining.
"I had the time of my life tonight," said Jeanrené St. Pierre, a fan club contest winner from Montreal who wore a "BOYTOY" necklace. "Of course it was worth it."

Madonna confirmed that she would go on tour this fall during an interview with Ryan Seacrest this morning. The interview is available for streaming from KiisFM's website. Just click here.

Tour dates and cities to be announced soon so stay tuned!

viagogo, Europe's leading secondary ticketing company (www.viagogo.co.uk) has teamed up with Madonna to offer fans the chance to see her up close and personal at an intimate club show in Paris and at her first UK show since last year.

The club show, in celebration of Madonna's new album, Hard Candy, will take place at L'Olympia Hall in Paris on Tuesday May 6th. This follows a similar event in New York at the Roseland Ballroom on Wednesday 30th April. Five pairs are up for grabs for the Paris show and fans can enter the competition by registering at www.viagogo.co.uk/hardcandy.

Madonna's UK fans will be able to see her a bit closer to home when the songstress headlines Radio 1's Big Weekend at Mote Park in Maidstone, Kent. Registration for the event has now closed so fans who missed out on one of the 30,000 free tickets have one last chance to join the privileged crowd by registering at www.viagogo.co.uk/hardcandy.

It will be Madonna's first live appearance in Britain since Live Earth in 2007. With the lead single from the album, 4 Minutes, topping the UK charts and anticipation building for her new album, the show is set to be one of the live events of the year.

Eric Baker, CEO of viagogo, added: "We are delighted to team up with Madonna on these new shows. It's an honour for us to be able to offer fans the chance to win tickets to see the most famous female recording artist of all time. At viagogo we always put the fans first and make sure that, whatever the event, they have a 100% guaranteed ticket."

TV channel Fuse will broadcast a Madonna special, including an exclusive interview with the one and only Queen of Pop, on May 3rd.
In her first ever Fuse appearance, Madonna will discuss her new Hard Candy album as well as her '4 Minutes' single.

The interview will premiere on May 3rd at 10pm and will be part of a Madonna special, which includes the following programs:
7:30pm: Madonna: Truth or Dare
10pm: Madonna: Hard Candy (P)
10:30pm: Videos That Rocked The World: Madonna: Like a Prayer

Check your local listings for encores to be aired throughout the month of May.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, NEW YORK, NY, April 27, 2008 - As digital sales of Madonna's new single, '4 Minutes' passes the one million mark, Madonna will be giving away free tickets to hundreds of lucky fans in celebration of this week's release of her new CD 'HARD CANDY' (April 29) when she gives a historic up-close and personal performance at NY's Roseland Ballroom (April 30), it was announced today by Warner Bros. Records.


"It's my way of saying thank you to my fans," said Madonna. As a result, Roseland will be filled up with the most devoted and die-hard Madonna fans who have been asked to wait in line beginning 6:00 am on the morning of April 30th at Roseland Ballroom (239 W 52nd Street between Broadway and 8th Ave.). The tickets will be distributed on a first come - first served basis.


This historic event will include the debut performance of Madonna's No. 1 single '4 Minutes' as well as several other songs from "HARD CANDY" along with previous hits. The show, presented by Verizon, Vodafone and Control Room, is scheduled to be broadcast live on msn (music.msn.com) and will be available to Verizon and Vodafone customers around the world.


'Madonna's single '4 Minutes' has become the second single ever to have digital sales exceeding one million (Rhianna was first) units in five weeks. As of today, digital sales are l,004,482 units. 'HARD CANDY' is the follow up CD to Madonna's 'CONFESSIONS ON A DANCE FLOOR' which debuted at No. 1 in 30 countries and has sold more than 8 million copies.. The CD has already received Four Stars (****) in Rolling Stone, Blender and People Magazine. "It may be the best album of Madonna's career," raved Jim Farber in his Five Star (*****) review in NY's Daily News. The album has been described as a brilliant up-tempo collection of 12 songs in which Madonna remains ensconced in dance club mode with an urban-hip-hop beat in creative collaboration with musical partners Timbaland, Justin Timberlake, Pharrell Williams of the Neptunes and Nate "Danja" Hills.

VH1 has just launched a contest allowing to win tickets to Madonna's New York show, which will take place at the Roseland Ballroom on April 30. To enter this contest, just visit VH1's devoted page and submit a four-line poem about Madonna. It can rhyme, not rhyme, be about her fashion sense, be about a song, or be about a particular era of her storied career. Click here for more info and/or to enter.