That’s why I said “pretty close”. I don’t disagree with your and @anon48584343 ’s premise that someone attending a live event needs to have contingency plans in case things run late. But there is a fundamental difference between a concert or sports event starting two hours late and an event going two hours over time because the performer decided to do several encores or the game needs to break a tie.
In both circumstances audience members can choose to leave if they run out of time, but in only one do those people get the entertainment they paid for.
My guess: they understand that her audience is aging with her. Concerts starting at 10:45 ending 1:00am is cool when you’re 20, not so much when you’re 60. Would she still sell out a venue? Maybe. It is Madonna, after all, and her concerts are events. But maybe they’d only sell 3/4 the number of tickets if they advertised the actual start times, because some people can’t make that work, or don’t want to stay up that late, or have things to do the next morning. So the promoters decide it’s better to piss them off with a late start but make it up with a hell of a show and hope the negative feelings go away.
