Spice Girls reveal anniversary box set, not reunion tour

The Spice Girls have revealed that their heavily teased mystery announcement was a 30th anniversary box set rather than the reunion tour many fans had hoped for, prompting a mixed and often disappointed reaction on social media. The speculation began on Wednesday, September 9, when the group posted a cryptic video on its official Instagram account. The clip showed a newspaper placed on the staircase of London's St Pancras Renaissance Hotel, the location made famous by the music video for their 1996 debut single Wannabe, whose opening bars could be heard in the teaser. The post was captioned with a date and time, 10.09.2026 2pm BST. The newspaper shown in the video was The Stage, the entertainment publication that carried the original 1994 advertisement seeking members for an all-female group that became the Spice Girls. The fictional advert asked: R U a Spice Girls fan with the ability to sing and dance? It described the band as a widely successful global act with a record nine UK number ones and more than 100 million global sales, and told fans they would need a vinyl or CD player.