Animal Collective adds two "Feels" concerts after sellouts and bot problems
Animal Collective has expanded its series of special concerts dedicated to the album "Feels" after the first two announced dates in New York and Los Angeles quickly sold out and some fans reported difficulties with the presale and purchasing tickets. On September 18, the band announced two more performances: October 21 at the Knockdown Center in Queens, New York, and October 26 at the Fox Theater in Pomona, California. This expands the "Feels Live" program to four concerts, all conceived as full performances of the 2005 album. According to the schedule published by Pitchfork and the organizers, the existing dates remain October 22 at the Knockdown Center and October 24 at the Fonda Theatre in Los Angeles. For Animal Collective, this is also a rare opportunity for Avey Tare, Panda Bear, Deakin and Geologist to reunite on stage, performing as a four-piece for the first time since 2022.
The addition of new dates was not presented merely as a standard expansion prompted by strong sales, but as the band's direct response to how the initial ticket sale unfolded. Stereogum, reporting on Animal Collective's Instagram post, stated that the group cited problems with automated bots, technical difficulties in the system and cases in which some people registered for the presale did not get an opportunity to purchase tickets. The band also expressed dissatisfaction with tickets being resold at higher prices and with artists' limited ability to control the secondary market. For precisely this reason, the additional dates take on a broader significance than the usual "second date" added after a sellout: they are an attempt to increase the legitimate supply of tickets and reduce the pressure that arises when the number of interested buyers is many times greater than the available capacity.
Four concerts between New York and Southern California
The new schedule is concentrated in two U.S. metropolitan areas. In New York, Animal Collective will perform on two consecutive evenings, October 21 and 22, at the Knockdown Center, a venue in Queens listed by official ticketing channels as the location for the "Animal Collective Performs Feels Live" program. For the additional October 21 date, AXS lists an 8 p.m. show start, doors opening at 7 p.m. and an 18+ age restriction, while The Bowery Presents confirms the same date and schedule. The second New York performance, on October 22, remains at the same venue, also beginning at 8 p.m. This will give audiences in New York two consecutive opportunities to experience the live return of an album that marked one of the most important stages in the band's development.
The California portion of the series includes October 24 at the Fonda Theatre in Los Angeles and October 26 at the Fox Theater in Pomona, a city east of Los Angeles in the broader Southern California area. Pitchfork states that all four performances will be devoted to playing the album "Feels" in its entirety. The official Fox Theater page for the October 26 event lists the "FEELS LIVE" program, an 8 p.m. start and doors opening at 7 p.m., with admission for all ages. At the same time, organizer Goldenvoice has introduced a strict limit of four tickets per order for that date, with a warning that orders exceeding the permitted number may be canceled without prior notice. The event page also states that box-office sales on September 19 will take place exclusively at the Fonda Theatre in Los Angeles, demonstrating how extensively promoters have tried to adjust the process following the problems recorded during the first wave of ticket sales.
Bots, presales and the secondary market at the center of the problem
According to Stereogum, Animal Collective said in its message to fans that it had not expected automated bots to become such a significant problem during ticket purchases. In the same statement, the band also mentioned other failures in the presale system that prevented some registered users from gaining access to purchases in the way they had expected. Such problems become particularly pronounced at events with relatively limited capacity and a strong fan base, because a large number of buyers attempt to log in at the same time. When the official ticket allocation is quickly exhausted, demand almost immediately shifts to the secondary market, where prices can differ substantially from the original sale price. According to Stereogum, the band publicly expressed frustration over the fact that artists have few direct tools for stopping resales or limiting the prices that subsequently appear on the market.
That is precisely why the measures surrounding the new Pomona date are attracting additional attention. The official Fox Theater website specifies a limit of four tickets per order, while AXS confirms for the same event that the public sale is scheduled for September 19 at 10 a.m. Pacific Time and that part of the sales process will be linked to the physical box office at the Fonda Theatre. Such a model cannot by itself eliminate the entire problem of secondary-market sales, but it shows that after the initial experience, organizers attempted to put additional obstacles in the way of bulk purchasing. For audiences, it is important to distinguish official information from organizers from offers on resale platforms, particularly when tickets for high-demand concerts have only just gone on sale or when additional quantities may become available through official channels.
"Feels" returns to the stage more than two decades after its release
The album "Feels" was originally released in 2005, and Domino identifies it as Animal Collective's sixth studio album and a release featuring all four key members: Avey Tare, Deakin, Geologist and Panda Bear. It was recorded in Seattle with engineer Scott Colburn and came after the 2004 album "Sung Tongs" and before 2007's "Strawberry Jam" and 2009's "Merriweather Post Pavilion". In the context of the group's discography, "Feels" therefore sits within the period in which Animal Collective was moving from the experimental indie scene toward a broader international audience, without abandoning the dense vocal layers, unconventional rhythms and sonic textures for which the band became known. Among the nine songs on the original album are "Did You See the Words", "Grass", "The Purple Bottle", "Banshee Beat", "Loch Raven" and the closing track "Turn Into Something".
The special concerts come one year after the album's 20th anniversary celebrations. In September 2025, Domino announced the expanded "Feels 20th Anniversary" edition, which was released on October 17, 2025, with an additional disc containing nine B-sides and previously unreleased demos. "FEELSLive 04/05" was released on the same day, an archival live project assembled from MiniDisc recordings made during performances in 2004 and 2005. According to Domino and the band's official Bandcamp page, the live collection includes performances of songs from the period when "Feels" was being created, including "Grass", "Daffy Duck", "Loch Raven" and "Turn Into Something". The current concerts therefore function as a continuation of the anniversary cycle, but with one important difference: instead of archival material, audiences will hear the entire album again from the full four-member lineup.
Return of the complete lineup after 2022
Pitchfork states that Avey Tare, Panda Bear, Deakin and Geologist last performed together in 2022. The members have since continued with separate projects, while Animal Collective released the studio album "Isn't It Now?" in 2023. Domino also lists a range of later activities by the members, including solo releases and work on music for films. Geologist and Deakin released music for the documentary film "Jetty" in 2025, while Avey Tare, Panda Bear and Geologist also appeared with their own or collaborative projects in the period following the group's most recent album. For this reason, the four October concerts are not only a retrospective celebration of a single album, but also the first publicly confirmed return of the complete lineup to the concert stage after a multi-year break.
That circumstance further explains the strong demand. Fans are not buying tickets merely for a standard concert in which songs from different phases of the band's career would alternate, but for a limited-time series with a clearly defined concept and a rare joint performance by all members. Full performances of classic albums have become an important format in recent years for artists with long discographies because they allow audiences to hear songs that otherwise rarely appear on regular set lists. In the case of "Feels", the format carries particular weight because the album's sound relies heavily on the interaction of the four musicians, layered vocals and shifting dynamics. So far, it has not been announced whether the concert program will include additional songs, B-sides or material from other phases of the band's career alongside the nine songs from the original release.
Ticket demand remains the key issue ahead of October
The first two concerts, October 22 in New York and October 24 in Los Angeles, were announced on September 8. Pitchfork reported at the time that Animal Collective would perform "Feels" in its entirety at both shows, while Stereogum subsequently stated that tickets sold out quickly. Following problems with the initial sale, the band added the October 21 and 26 dates on September 18. Official channels for the additional New York concert listed sales beginning on September 18, while the official sale for Pomona was listed as beginning on September 19 at 10 a.m. Pacific Time. Because availability can change from minute to minute, the status of individual ticket categories should be checked with official ticket sellers and organizers.
For the additional New York date, AXS also lists a partnership with the PLUS1 initiative, under which one U.S. dollar from every ticket will be directed to the organization This Must Be the Place and its work to make naloxone and other overdose-prevention resources available at events. The same notice has also been published for the Fox Theater date in Pomona. This detail does not change the underlying problem surrounding demand, but it shows that all four concerts are part of an organizationally coordinated series rather than unrelated individual performances. With stricter purchasing rules for Pomona and an additional date in New York, promoters have at least partially responded to complaints from fans following the first wave of sales.
For fans who were unable to obtain tickets for the original dates, the additional concerts represent a new opportunity, but also a reminder of how quickly rare, concept-driven performances can create pressure on ticketing systems. Animal Collective has not announced that the series will expand beyond these four dates, so according to currently available information, New York, Los Angeles and Pomona are the only confirmed locations for "Feels Live" in October 2026. Whether more concerts will appear will likely depend on the members' plans and the logistics of bringing the full lineup together, but for now there is no official confirmation of additional cities. In that context, the two new dates increase availability but do not remove the limited nature of the project as a whole.
"Feels Live" concert schedule
- October 21, 2026 - Knockdown Center, Queens, New York
- October 22, 2026 - Knockdown Center, Queens, New York
- October 24, 2026 - Fonda Theatre, Los Angeles, California
- October 26, 2026 - Fox Theater Pomona, Pomona, California
The series thus connects the anniversary reissue, archival live recordings and the return of the four-member lineup into a single program that will last less than a week. For Animal Collective, "Feels" is no longer merely an album from the mid-2000s, but the centerpiece of a current live event that, due to demand, has grown from two to four performances. At the same time, the circumstances surrounding ticket sales demonstrate how questions of ticket availability, bots and the secondary market are increasingly becoming part of the story surrounding major and rare concert events themselves. In the case of this series, the band responded to the problem by increasing the number of performances and publicly emphasizing its dissatisfaction with the way tickets became unavailable to some fans. Until October, attention will therefore be focused equally on the full performance of "Feels" and on the extent to which the additional dates will actually ease the pressure of demand.
Sources:
- Stereogum - report on the addition of new concerts, problems with bots, technical difficulties and the band's response to ticket resales (link)
- Pitchfork - dates of all four concerts, confirmation that the album "Feels" will be performed in its entirety and information about the four members' first joint performance since 2022 (link)
- Domino - official information about the album "Feels", the 20th-anniversary reissue and the "FEELSLive 04/05" project (link)
- AXS / Knockdown Center - official information about the additional New York concert on October 21, the schedule and the partnership with PLUS1 (link)
- Fox Theater Pomona - official information about the October 26 concert, ticket sales and the limit on the number of tickets per order (link)