Kelsea Ballerini To Host Exclusive 'Rolling Up The Welcome Mat' Screenings

Kelsea Ballerini is revealing an exclusive glimpse of her 6-track EP, Rolling Up The Welcome Mat, in three cities next month. Ballerini announced on Wednesday (June 19) that she would host “three exclusive short film screenings and a conversation with me” in Los Angeles, Nashville and New York.

The events, titled Under The Welcome Mat, are set for August 1, August 8 and August 10, respectively. Tickets will be available on Thursday (July 20) at 11 a.m. local time with Ballerini’s fan club getting first dibs. Early access opens at 10:30 a.m. local time, per Ballerini’s announcement.

The award-winning singer-songwriter released her emotional EP and accompanying short film (written and directed by Ballerini) on Valentine’s Day, sharing her side of the story of her divorce after nearly five years of marriage. Ballerini said at that time: “here’s my healing journey. here’s my heart. here’s my truth. i’ve never been this open, i’ve never been this bold, and i’ve never been this proud of my art. so with love and respect, i’m rolling up the welcome mat. six song story and short film out now. happy valentine’s day. ❤️‍🩹”

Ballerini recently told iHeartRadio’s Amy Brown that she “had no expectation for Welcome Mat,” particularly after releasing her latest full-length album, Subject To Change, several months before the EP. “It was something that was obviously the narrative of my life at that time and those songs helped me understand that process and putting it out was therapeutic, and then I thought …I could go back to Subject, and it didn’t happen that way, and it hasn’t happened that way.”

Ballerini found it “definitely therapeutic” and “necessary” to write Rolling Up The Welcome Mat, she told Brown during her exclusive iHeartRadio LIVE show in Nashville, Tennessee. The 29-year-old superstar said she’s been using songwriting to express “really big feelings” since she was 12 years old, when her parents divorced. Ballerini said one of her Welcome Mat songs, for example, “Blindsided,” was written when she “was at capacity. I was at capacity, and ‘Blindsided’ was the thing where the cup was gonna overflow, and I wrote that song and it didn’t.”

The Rolling Up The Welcome Mat track list also includes “Mountain With A View,” “Just Married,” “Penthouse,” “Interlude” and “Leave Me Again.” Find it on iHeartRadio here.