An opening act or warm-up act (in British English and Australia, supporting act) is an entertainer, musician, band, or entertainment act that performs at a concert before the featured (or headline) entertainer/musician(s). Rarely, an opening act may perform again at the end of the concert.
The opening act's performance serves to "warm up" the audience, making it appropriately excited and enthusiastic for the headliner.
In rock music, the opening act will usually be an up-and-coming group with a much smaller following than the featured artist. On long concert tours, different opening acts may be used for different legs of the tour.
The opening act may also be followed by a DJ in some shows before the headline act performs.
Famous quotes containing the words opening and/or act:
“His leanings were strictly lyrical, descriptions of nature and emotions came to him with surprising facility, but on the other hand he had a lot of trouble with routine items, such as, for instance, the opening and closing of doors, or shaking hands when there were numerous characters in a room, and one person or two persons saluted many people.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“Communication is a continual balancing act, juggling the conflicting needs for intimacy and independence. To survive in the world, we have to act in concert with others, but to survive as ourselves, rather than simply as cogs in a wheel, we have to act alone.”
—Deborah Tannen (20th century)