Civilnet
By Lia Avagyan
American pop icon Jennifer Lopez headlined a Sunday night concert at Yerevan’s Republican Stadium as part of her “Up All Night” tour. Ahead of the event, she declared in a Facebook post to her 60 million followers: “This summer is a celebration of freedom and having a damn good time. See you tonight Yerevan! #JLoLiveIn2025.” But behind the glitz, the event has triggered widespread criticism over its financing from Armenia’s state budget.
According to an investigation by Azatutyun journalist Mkrtich Karapetyan, the Armenian government quietly reallocated $6 million originally earmarked for a canceled 2023 Snoop Dogg concert to finance the Lopez event. The decision, formalized just two days before the concert, did not disclose the specific date of the show and lacked transparency about the extent of state involvement. Despite this, the concert was organized by the same company—Doping Space—which never returned the Snoop Dogg funds after that concert was canceled due to the Nagorno-Karabakh ethnic cleansing in September 2023.
The detailed budget for the Lopez concert revealed several eye-catching line items. Among them:
- $37,000 allocated specifically for Lopez’s two-day food expenses,
- $185,000 for hotel accommodations for Lopez and her entourage, including a luxury stay at the Dvin hotel,
- $15,000 fee for the show’s program producer,
- $29,000 for the technical director, and tens of thousands more for roles such as transport manager, food service manager, and generator overseer.
The funding decision has drawn particular ire in a country where one in four citizens officially lives below the poverty line, and the government often cites budgetary constraints for shortfalls in education, healthcare, and social programs.
As the funding details became public, government supporters and critics clashed online. Public broadcaster host and government loyalist Petros Ghazaryan took to Facebook to defend the expenses, claiming the $37,000 food budget covered "several dozen" team members. “Lopez, even with her generous curves, couldn’t possibly eat that much,” he wrote. However, Karapetyan’s report clarified that the amount was intended solely for Lopez herself.
In another post, Ghazaryan added that “the demand for positive emotions is just as natural as the pain of our losses,” implying critics were politicizing a celebration. But public backlash has been fierce. Blogger Gor Madoyan condemned the event as “mindless governance and embezzlement of public funds,” questioning why tickets—financed by taxpayers—were still sold to citizens, and what income, if any, the concert would generate for the state.
A satirical Facebook page, “News from Hell,” mocked the expense: “$37,000 was allocated for Jennifer Lopez’s food over two days. That doesn’t include the nerves Armenians ate upon hearing the news.”
Despite the uproar, no government official has provided a clear cost-benefit analysis of the event, and the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports has yet to answer why it opted not to sue Doping Space to recover the unused Snoop Dogg funds. Meanwhile, no state communications or advertising in the months ahead of the concert indicated that it was taxpayer-funded.
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