At a Glance

• Date: Sunday, July 19, 2026
• Venue: New York New Jersey Stadium (MetLife Stadium), East Rutherford
• Runtime: 11 minutes
• Fundraising target: $100 million for the FIFA Global Citizen Education Fund

Two days from now, midway through the most-watched football match on the planet, a marker pen and a soccer ball will mean less than what happens on the MetLife Stadium pitch: an 11-minute performance featuring Justin Bieber, Madonna, Shakira and BTS as co-headliners for the first-ever FIFA World Cup Final Halftime Show. It's scheduled for Sunday, 19 July 2026, at New York New Jersey Stadium, and it's the first time in the tournament's 96-year history that the final has paused for a full-blown concert.

The lineup didn't arrive all at once. Madonna, Shakira and BTS were locked in first. Then, on July 8, FIFA confirmed Justin Bieber as the final co-headliner joining the trio. Rounding out the bill: Burna Boy, Gustavo Dudamel  the Venezuelan conductor and Music and Artistic Director of the New York Philharmonic  and the Webby Award-winning PS 22 Chorus, a public elementary school choir from Staten Island. Characters from Sesame Street and The Muppets will also appear on stage.

Who's Curating the FIFA World Cup 2026 Final Halftime Show?

Chris Martin of Coldplay is curating the show, and it's being produced by Global Citizen in partnership with Live Nation and Done + Dusted  the same production company behind past Super Bowl halftime shows. That pedigree matters: FIFA is explicitly modeling this on American football's biggest stage, borrowing the format rather than inventing a new one.

Shakira isn't new to this stadium. Madonna is  this marks her World Cup debut, while BTS, Bieber and Burna Boy bring representation from Asia, North America and Africa respectively. Burna Boy's inclusion tracks with the charts: his single "Dai Dai" with Shakira continues dominating globally.

Why Is There a Halftime Show at the World Cup Final This Year?
Here's the part that gets buried under celebrity names: this isn't just entertainment. The performance supports the FIFA Global Citizen Education Fund, which aims to raise $100 million to expand access to education and football programs for children worldwide. More than $50 million has already been raised, and $1 from every FIFA World Cup 2026 ticket sold goes toward the fund.

Bieber put it simply when the announcement dropped:

"The World Cup brings the world together in a way nothing else can." Justin Bieber

The counterintuitive part? A children's public-school choir from Staten Island is sharing a stage with Madonna and BTS in front of what FIFA expects will be roughly two billion viewers. That's not a filler act  PS 22 Chorus has performed at the Oscars and the White House, and their inclusion is deliberate: the education fund's whole pitch is that global stages should make room for actual kids, not just stars talking about kids.

How Much Does It Cost to Watch?
Nothing extra  the halftime show is folded into the final's broadcast, included with any World Cup Final ticket or standard match broadcast package. There's no separate ticket, unlike a standalone concert.

What Time Does the Halftime Show Start?
FIFA hasn't published an exact halftime clock time, since it depends on the match's first-half stoppage time. Expect it to begin roughly 45–50 minutes after kickoff on July 19, 2026, Jakarta time falling in the early morning hours given the US East Coast time difference.

For Indonesian viewers planning their Sunday night  or very early Monday morning  around this, the safest move is tuning in from kickoff rather than trying to time the interval.