Usher Breaks $100 Million in Las Vegas — And He Could Do It Again on His 2024 Arena Tour
Written by djfrosty on February 6, 2024
It’s a big week for Usher. On Friday (Feb. 9), he’ll release Coming Home, his first studio LP in eight years. Two days later, he’ll perform as the official headliner of the 2024 Apple Super Bowl LVIII Halftime Show. On Tuesday morning (Feb. 6), he announced Usher: Past Present Future, his first solo headline tour in a decade.
But that doesn’t mean that Usher has been away from the concert stage. In July 2021, he kicked off Usher: The Las Vegas Residency at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace. A year later, he moved down the strip to MGM’s Dolby Live for My Way: The Vegas Residency. As he looks forward to a new album and some of the biggest performances of his career, he can celebrate the success of these two residencies: According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, Usher has grossed more than $100 million across these Vegas stints.
The Caesars residency was relatively brief, with 14 shows in July and August 2021, and another six around the turn of the new year. Those 20 dates earned $18.8 million and sold 84,000 tickets. The MGM run was more extensive, hitting 80 shows between July 15, 2022, and Dec. 2, 2023. There, he grossed $95.9 million and sold 394,000 tickets.
Altogether, these theater shows grossed $114.6 million and sold 479,000 tickets across 100 dates. That’s a higher revenue total than any of Usher’s prior tours, previously topped by the OMG Tour, which brought in $76 million in 2010-11. That lined up with Usher’s other Super Bowl halftime appearance, when he made a cameo during the Black Eyed Peas’ 2011 set.
On a per-show scale, My Way: The Vegas Residency has averaged $1.198 million each night, surpassing $1.026 million from the OMG Tour and $698,000 from Truth Tour (2004-05). The latter run supported Confessions, the 2004 album that spawned four Billboard Hot 100 No. 1s and was the top Billboard 200 album of the year.
By almost any metric, that album and tour was a rare commercial peak for an artist with multiple No. 1 singles before and after. To improve upon his demand as a live act by more than 70% with his Vegas residencies proves the strength of his talent, discography, and brand, more than 30 years after he first hit the Billboard charts with “Call Me A Mack (From “Poetic Justice”)” in the summer of 1993.
Of course, inflation and an ever-changing ticketing market make comparing concert revenues from 20 years apart a difficult task. But in a Vegas theater a third the size of most North American arenas, Usher is a high-demand destination ticket. Both residencies have averaged a $239 ticket, far beyond the post-pandemic highs at Resorts World Theater and Caesar’s Bakkt Theater.
And while Usher arrived in Vegas in 2021 with new-and-improved demand, he leaves Sin City with even bigger momentum thanks to word-of-mouth around both residencies, a well-received Tiny Desk Concert and a run of single releases. His first stretch of shows at Caesars averaged $928,000, before increasing on almost every leg, peaking at $1.5 million on his last run of 21 shows from Oct. 11-Dec. 2.
After he releases Coming Home and plays the Super Bowl stage this weekend, he will embark on Usher: Past Present Future later this year. The arena trek launches on Aug. 20 in Washington D.C. and is scheduled through two shows in Chicago on Oct. 28-29. The initial announcement’s 24 North American stops could yield more than $50 million at the box office. But a successful album rollout and Super Bowl performance could lead to additional dates, extending his routing and pushing potential earnings further toward the $100 million threshold that he cleared after two and a half years in Las Vegas theaters.