The crowd in Times Square at 5 p.m. on Thursday (June 3) appeared normal. Tourists posed with giant Labubus and Transformers, and those pushing past to get from A to B faced no more difficulty than usual. But at 6:27 p.m., two secret doors inside a billboard three stories above Broadway opened up and the Queen of Pop emerged. For the next 15 minutes, Madonna took to the small stage overlooking the street to perform her two new singles from her new album Confessions II, as well as favorites from Confessions, as thousands of adoring fans looked on from the street below.
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Behind the scenes, the moment took years of careful planning. Madonna’s performance, which captured attention globally and served as a marketing ploy in partnership with Grindr to celebrate Pride Month and help support her current album campaign for Confessions II, was tied to the official launch of new venue The Square. And its location, directly on Broadway and 47th Street in the heart of Times Square, makes it one of the more sensational, and secretive, venues in the city.
“We thought she was the right person to talk across multiple generations of fans,” says Jeff Marks, CEO of Innovative Partnerships Group, which was involved in the venue’s creation. “You don’t get someone better than her who can talk to anyone in the world.”
