MercyMe returns to Chartway Arena on April 2, its first Hampton Roads show since 2024

The Christian rock veterans bring their spring LIVE 2027 tour back to Norfolk on a Friday night in April.

The last time MercyMe played Hampton Roads, it was a Friday night in October 2024 at Chartway Arena. Two and a half years later, the band is coming back to the same building, and for a lot of local fans that gap has been long enough.

MercyMe plays Chartway Arena in Norfolk on Friday, April 2, 2027, with the show starting at 7 p.m. Tickets are sold through the arena at chartwayarena.com. The date was announced Oct. 19, and it is the band's first Hampton Roads show since Oct. 18, 2024, also at Chartway Arena.

The Norfolk stop is part of MercyMe's spring run, which the band is calling LIVE 2027. According to SeatGeek's tour rundown, it's a 31-show tour that opens March 11 at the Berglund Center in Roanoke and wraps May 2 at the Ford Center in Evansville, Indiana. That puts Norfolk a few weeks into the tour, after the band has had time to settle into the show, and makes it one of the Virginia stops on a run that begins just up I-81.

Openers Ben Fuller and Peter Burton are joining MercyMe on most dates, per the same rundown, though the full bill for each city is worth checking on the arena's listing before you go. General on-sale for the tour began Wednesday, Oct. 21, so tickets are available now.

For a lot of local fans, two and a half years has been long enough.

What has changed since 2024? Mostly the road. MercyMe spent 2025 out on its MercyMe Live 2025 tour with Zach Williams and special guest Sam Wesley, and the 2027 run keeps the band in arenas across the country, with stops like Pinnacle Bank Arena in Lincoln, Nebraska, on April 23. A band that has been filling arenas for this long has learned how to pace a night in a big room, and the spring tour is built around exactly that.

The room is part of the story too. Chartway Arena holds about 9,100, which makes it one of the larger indoor rooms in the region and a natural home for a band of MercyMe's size. It's the same building the band played last time, so returning fans will know the sightlines and the routine, and first-timers get a venue that has hosted the band before.

For the Hampton Roads Christian music community, a MercyMe arena date is the kind of show that gets planned around: church groups, families making a night of it, longtime listeners bringing the next generation. A Friday in early April is also friendlier for that than a school night.

What to know before you go: the show starts at 7 p.m., so plan your drive and parking accordingly. Buy through the arena's own site, chartwayarena.com, which is the official seller for this date. And since openers are scheduled on most tour stops, arrive on time if you want to catch the full night.

It has been a while. On April 2, MercyMe gets to pick up where it left off in Norfolk.

Sources: MercyMe announces LIVE 2027 tour dates, schedule, presale tickets and openers — SeatGeek (seatgeek.ca); Christian music band MercyMe heads to Lincoln in April — WOWT (wowt.com); MercyMe: Live 2025 Tour with Zach Williams & special guest Sam Wesley — Nutter Center (nuttercenter.com); MercyMe announces MercyMe Live 2025 with Zach Williams — Gospel Music Association (gospelmusic.org); Chartway Arena (chartwayarena.com)