Eric Clapton returns to the Royal Albert Hall in May 2027

The dates

Eric Clapton will play four nights at London's Royal Albert Hall in May 2027, on 20, 21, 23 and 24 May, after a single date at bp pulse LIVE in Birmingham on 17 May. The shows were announced on 14 October 2026.

A fan club presale began on 15 October and the general sale followed on Friday 16 October, as Fraser Lewry reported for Louder. Louder listed no other 2027 dates.

Louder described the Hall as Clapton's traditional second home, and by its own rough arithmetic the last of the four nights will be his 220th solo show there.

Fraser Lewry reported this first for Louder. Checked against Eric Clapton 2027 dates announcement (as published by Louder).

Sixty years at the Hall

Clapton first played the Royal Albert Hall in December 1964, as a member of the Yardbirds. His next shows there were with Cream, whose famous farewell concerts took place at the Hall in 1968. The band came back to the same stage for their reunion shows in 2005.

It is as a solo artist that Clapton has made the Hall his own. His solo shows there include numerous residencies, and the run he played in 1990 and 1991 became the 24 Nights box set.

"It's a very comfortable, homey place for me," Clapton told the BBC in 1990, adding that he tended to think of it as his. He described the Hall as having a genteel, sophisticated and comfortable atmosphere.

This time the only other date announced is Birmingham, three days before the London run begins.

From the Bluesbreakers to Layla

Clapton's career began in the British blues boom of the early 1960s. After leaving the Yardbirds he joined John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, and in 1966 Mayall and the producer Mike Vernon made the album Blues Breakers with him, which Tony Russell, in his Guardian obituary of Mayall, called the most momentous album in British blues history. Vernon, who died in March 2026 at 81, had already recorded Clapton for Decca as a sideman on the blues pianist Champion Jack Dupree's album From New Orleans to Chicago in 1965, Russell wrote in a second obituary. It showed off the talent of a 21-year-old Clapton. By the time it came out, he had left to form Cream with the bassist Jack Bruce and the drummer Ginger Baker.

After Cream came Blind Faith, which made one tour in 1969, with the American rock-soul act Delaney & Bonnie and Friends as the opening act. Several of those musicians played on Clapton's first solo album in 1970, and three of them joined him in Derek and the Dominos, as Adam Sweeting set out in his Guardian obituary of the keyboard player Bobby Whitlock in 2025.

Blind Faith had brought Clapton together with Steve Winwood, who left Traffic to join him. The guitarist Dave Mason, Winwood's former Traffic bandmate, played in Delaney & Bonnie's band on that Blind Faith tour and on their live album On Tour With Eric Clapton, recorded at the Fairfield Halls in Croydon in December 1969, and later played a few early shows with Derek and the Dominos, Sweeting wrote in his obituary of Mason, who died in April 2026.

The Dominos made one studio album, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, in 1970. It reached only No 16 in the US and did not chart in Britain at the time, but it grew into what is often considered Clapton's finest work. Its title song was inspired by his infatuation with Pattie Boyd, then married to George Harrison.

Mayall, who died in 2024 at the age of 90, was a father figure to Clapton, Russell wrote, and the two shared a stage again at a 70th birthday concert for Mayall in Liverpool in 2003.

Harrison, Boyd and Lennon

The Layla story ran through the heart of the Beatles' world. Boyd had married Harrison in 1966, and towards the end of the decade Harrison and Clapton were writing music together. Clapton's letters to Boyd from 1970, sold by Christie's in March 2024 with the rest of her collection for almost £3m, laid out how far he had fallen for her, as Ben Beaumont-Thomas reported for The Guardian. The original painting used on the cover of Layla was in the same sale.

Boyd and Harrison split in 1974, and she and Clapton reconnected in the middle of the decade and married in 1979. He wrote other songs about her, including Wonderful Tonight, the ballad written while she was getting ready for a night out.

John Lennon wanted Clapton too. Lennon nearly pulled out of the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival, where he was due to play with a hastily assembled band, until Clapton finally agreed to join him on guitar, as Jim Farber described in his review of the documentary Revival69. In an eight-page letter dated 29 September 1971, which went to auction in 2024, Lennon set out a plan for a new group with Clapton on lead guitar and Phil Spector producing, Lanre Bakare reported for The Guardian. It never happened.

The Dominos themselves overlapped with the Beatles' break-up: the band came together while all four members were playing on Harrison's triple album All Things Must Pass, his first solo record after the Beatles, and recorded their first single in the same studio during a break in his sessions, Sweeting wrote.

Clapton in 2026

He is still touring. In September 2026 Clapton curated his Crossroads Guitar Festival at the Moody Center in Austin, Texas, appearing with guests including Joe Bonamassa, Gary Clark Jr, Billy Gibbons, Buddy Guy, Taj Mahal, John Mayer and the Tedeschi Trucks Band, Louder reported.

His European dates earlier in the year had one unwelcome moment. During a concert in Madrid on 7 May, Clapton was hit in the chest by a vinyl record in its sleeve, thrown from the audience near the end of his set. He ended the show without the expected encore, but his next concert, in Barcelona, went ahead as planned, as Ben Beaumont-Thomas reported for The Guardian.

Away from music, Clapton joined Mick Jagger, the actor Felicity Kendal and the comedian Harry Hill in a two-year campaign against a 100-metre tower planned next to Battersea Bridge in south-west London. The campaigners won in May 2026, Daniel Lavelle reported for The Guardian.

How the prices have moved

We have tracked all five dates on StubHub, the resale marketplace, since they went on sale on 15 October. When we checked at 08:25 on 30 October, the cheapest listed tickets were £146.26 for 21 May, £155.93 for Birmingham on 17 May, £158 for 20 May, £168 for 23 May and £215.15 for 24 May, plus StubHub booking fees at checkout.

Most dates have come down since the first day of sales. The cheapest ticket for 20 May has fallen from £228.89 on 15 October to £158, and 21 May from £211.11 to £146.26. The 23 May show has also dropped from £228.89 and was at its lowest point so far when we checked. Birmingham has stayed in a narrower band, between £146.49 and £178.20.

The 24 May show has moved the most. Its cheapest ticket went as low as £133.33 in the first two weeks, the lowest price for any of the five dates so far, then rose as high as £262.91 on 25 October before falling back to £215.15. It is now the dearest of the five, and it also has the fewest listings: 131, against 201 for 20 May, 262 for 23 May, 353 for 21 May and 412 for Birmingham.

Over the past week every London date has got cheaper at the bottom end. The cheapest ticket for 24 May fell by about 18 per cent compared with a week earlier, 20 May by about 7 per cent and 23 May by about 4 per cent, while 21 May barely moved and Birmingham was unchanged.

At the Hall, the cheapest tickets on 24 May were in the Gallery, which is standing. Seats in the Circle started at £262.91 and in the Stalls at £328 when we checked, plus StubHub booking fees at checkout.

What the numbers mean

Prices on a resale marketplace are set by the people selling. They often move most in the first days after a general sale, and a single listing can move a date's cheapest price a long way when there are only a few hundred tickets listed, which is what happened on 24 May.

The four London nights are in the same room, so for many people the date matters less than the price. On 30 October, 21 May was the cheapest London night and 24 May the dearest, a gap of about £69 for the cheapest ticket.

Prices shown are listing prices on StubHub. Booking fees are added at checkout, so the total you pay will be higher than the figures in this article.

Getting there

The Royal Albert Hall shows start at 7.30pm, with doors at 6.30pm, according to our event listings. The Hall is on Kensington Gore, and the nearest Underground station is South Kensington, about 700 metres away. The Birmingham show is at bp pulse LIVE on Monday 17 May.

The 24 May show falls on a Monday, as does Birmingham. The 20 and 21 May shows are on a Thursday and Friday, and 23 May is a Sunday.

Price alerts

We watch the prices for every date and can email you when the cheapest ticket falls, either below today's price or below a budget you choose. Each of the five dates below has its own alert, and you can follow Eric Clapton to hear about any new dates.

We will update this story if more dates are added.

Tickets today

What StubHub lists now, checked hourly. Prices are listing prices; StubHub adds its booking fees at checkout.