It’s hard to describe a Katy Perry show without sounding like you’ve made half of it up. There were lasers. There were giant flowers. There was a robot apocalypse, a red lightsaber battle, three fans on stage, a floating heart moment, and yes – a girl from Hull wearing a plastic bag that said “I feel like a plastic bag.”
And somehow, it all worked.
The crowd was already unhinged before Katy even stepped out, and when California Gurls hit, the arena went straight into full scream mode. No slow build. Just chaos, glitter, and a sugar-rush energy that stayed on blast for two hours.
She played the hits early (TGIF came in hot), but in between the bangers there were moments of pure Katy weirdness, the kind only she can pull off. At one point she borrowed a fan’s phone mid-song and made it part of the set. Then she teased a few bars of Peacock before shutting it down with a cheeky grin, reminding everyone her daughter was there. “That’s all you’re getting,” she joked. Crowd booed. She laughed. Icon behaviour.
Kissed a Girl started low, like, literally crouched-down, seductive energy, then exploded into a full acrobatic number, with dancers spinning under a giant glitter ball while Katy soared above them. Crowd absolutely lost it. Phones up. Everyone dancing like they’d just been let out of a cage.
There was a sci-fi storyline threaded through the whole show, and honestly? No notes. At one point we were suddenly in a space station, with a robotic Katy saving the world by releasing butterflies. Then, in a full genre shift, she told us it was time to go to Havana, and giant flowers rose up from the stage. She bounced across the backs of her dancers, flew across the arena to a flower platform near FOH, then backflipped mid-air as the crowd counted along. “Let’s break a record, Sheffield,” she shouted. As if we hadn’t already.
She throws herself into every bit of it. Joking with the crowd (“Make some noise if you’ve got a crush on my boys, I know you do”), throwing in mad transitions (“This song’s a throwback so I’m gonna throw it back”), and ramping up the energy every time it even thinks about dipping. You could feel the floor shake during Wide Awake.
And then: the QR code moment.
Sci-fi visuals returned. We’d “unlocked a bonus round.” The crowd was told to vote for which Katy era we’d get, Teenage Dream got the biggest scream, obviously, but the wheel landed on Prism. Cue: people fighting their phone signal to load the QR code like their lives depended on it.
Katy re-emerged in a jungle-inspired outfit, as if nothing had happened. “Did you vote?” she smirked. “You can’t even see your phone, you’re so pissed.” No lies detected.
Then: a round of live fan chaos. She pulled three people on stage, each more iconic than the last.
- Matilda, 11, from Hull, wearing a plastic bag that said “I feel like a plastic bag.” Katy hugged her like she was her own child.
- Liam, 17, from Norwich, was full sobbing as he told Katy she meant the world to him. She hugged him, teased him about his tattoo, and filmed him doing a death drop.
- Ben, 20, from Bakewell (yes, the entire arena chanted “Bakewell” mid-song), studying economics and Chinese, sang Teenage Dream and proved he knew every single word. “You’re a legend,” Katy said, dead serious.
They all got their moments, high fives, selfies, full hugs, and the arena was fully obsessed. Then Katy said the words:
“This next one goes out to the mums.”
Hands went up. She made the dad’s promise to let them sleep in. Then she talked about how becoming a mother changed her, “I was frozen. I was hopeless. But all the love I lost came back to me.” The lighting turned soft. Hearts floated around her. She was lifted high above the crowd as she sang it, holding onto a cluster of glowing hearts like a scene from a dream.
And just when you thought she couldn’t top that?
The sci-fi saga came back hard.
There were enemies. There were drones. There was a lightsaber fight. Katy came up from under the stage with a red laser sword and a robotic arm that literally set the stage on fire. Her cyber-bra had glowing red lights on it. She defeated the “mainframe.” There were butterflies trapped in tubes. The storyline somehow made you feel things.
The lights cut. A hand scan flashed on the screen. And when Katy returned, she was a butterfly. Wings out. Flying across the crowd as she sang Roar. Not just high, miles from the stage. Fully suspended in the air. Like… how is this real?
From there, the pace didn’t drop once.
The dancers came back flipping. The crowd was losing it. Katy gave them each a freestyle moment and introduced them like they were old mates. The screens turned into a live fan cam, showing everyone giving their last blast of energy. Katy was right there with them, spinning through her infinity loop stage, laughing, dancing, filming us back like a livestream.
“This is your last chance to dance. I don’t care how old or cool you think you are — it’s time to sing Firework.”
She didn’t need to ask twice.
The noise during Firework was unreal. Confetti everywhere, yellow, blue, purple, green. A full rainbow blizzard. And the final image? Katy removing a VR headset on the screen. Wild.
There’s no other pop show like it. She’s funny, theatrical, sharp as hell and still somehow manages to out-sing the visuals. You get the hits, the heart, the fan chaos, and the kind of production that makes your jaw drop every five minutes.
Katy Perry in 2025 is doing whatever she wants, and the rest of us are just trying to keep up. There are still some tickets available for other UK & Europe dates, this is a show you don’t want to miss!
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