Cardenas Marketing Network Breaks Company Record at Midyear, Revenue Up 43% With Hit Tours
Written by djfrosty on June 3, 2024
Since its founding in 2001, Cardenas Marketing Network (CMN) has grown into one of the most dominant concert promoters in the world, leading the charge as Latin music continues to assert itself on arena and stadium stages. Case in point: In the midyear Boxscore tracking period, the company is up in every conceivable metric, posting the biggest gross and attendance in its history.
According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, CMN grossed $233.3 million and sold 1.9 million tickets from 148 shows between Oct. 1, 2023, and March 31, 2024. That attendance figure marks a 12% increase from the company’s 2023 midyear showing, which was already up by 71% from 2022 — a year that saw a 94% rise in attendance from pre-pandemic 2019.
CMN’s $233 million gross marks the company’s first midyear tracking period that finished north of the $200 million threshold, rising 43% from last year’s $163 million. Its 2024 midyear earnings are notably almost 4.5x higher than its pre-pandemic business. That achievement comes from working both smarter and harder: in essence, by putting on more shows by more artists in bigger venues with maximized potential.
Luis Miguel leads the charge among CMN’s touring artists. The Mexican music icon finished at No. 1 on the midyear Top Latin Tours ranking, grossing $165.6 million and selling 1.2 million tickets during the tracking period — eclipsing the biggest Latin tour of 2023 (Karol G) on both metrics in just six months. That marks the biggest gross for a Latin artist in the history of Billboard Boxscore’s midyear charts.
But as proven by Karol G last year and CMN’s run with Bad Bunny in 2022, the promoter’s reach exceeds genre restrictions. At midyear, Miguel is No. 4 on the all-genre Top Tours chart, behind only U2, P!nk and Madonna. He also ranks third in terms of tickets sold. Elsewhere, Marc Anthony is No. 48 on Top Tours with $23.4 million, while Don Omar and Christian Nodal also pulled in eight-figure earnings with $14.1 million and $11.8 million, respectively.
Notably, CMN is absent from the midyear Top Promoters chart. Having recently entered into a partnership with AEG Presents, the company’s totals were rolled into those of AEG — which ranked No. 2 with grosses of $976.6 million — for midyear chart purposes. AEG’s total is up nearly $300 million from last year thanks to the touring giant’s own promotions and the addition of CMN to its tally. Had CMN been listed individually on Top Promoters, it would have ranked in the top five.
While the midyear tracking period closed on March 31, CMN’s tours have continued rolling. Reported grosses from April and March amount to more than $100 million, outpacing the midyear period thanks to big assists from recently launched treks by Aventura and Victor Manuelle.
CMN’s would-be top five midyear placement tracks, as the company spent the last three years in the upper region of the year-end Top Promoters chart — the culmination of a steady climb since its 2001 inception. CMN volleyed on and off the chart throughout the 2000s before rising from No. 15 in 2018 to No. 10 in 2019 to No. 7 in 2020. It ranked at either No. 3 or No. 4 in 2021, 2022 and 2023.