Billboard Boxscore
Page: 10
“Bienvenido y gracias,” British singer Chris Martin told the sold-out crowd of more than 40,000 at Costa Rica’s Estadio Nacional in March 2022 — and “welcome and thank you” may be just enough Spanish to cement Coldplay’s popularity in the region forever.
“Over the years, Chris has developed a good level of what you might call ‘frontman Spanish,’” says Phil Harvey, the band’s manager. “It’s not what I would say is fluent, but he knows enough that he can conduct a concert in Spanish, and obviously that’s helpful in large parts of Latin America.”
The concert in San José, Coldplay’s first performance in Costa Rica, kicked off the band’s Music of the Spheres tour, which eventually played 41 sold-out stadiums throughout Latin America, from Mexico to Peru to Colombia to Chile. The band hit the top two slots on the 2023 midyear Top Boxscores chart with two runs in South America: six dates in March at Estadio do Morumbi in São Paulo drawing almost 440,000 fans and grossing $40.1 million, and six dates last November at Estadio Unico Diudad de la Plata in Buenos Aires, Argentina, with more than 376,000 fans and a $29.8 million gross. The band also hit No. 13 with three dates in Rio de Janeiro later in March, totaling 211,000 fans and a $17.2 million gross. All in all, not counting the band’s performance at the sold-out, 100,000-capacity Rock in Rio festival in Brazil last September, its tour dates in Latin America earned more than $193.3 million, according to Boxscore.
English-speaking rock stars from the United States and Europe have sold out shows in Latin America over the decades, of course, including Aerosmith and Lady Gaga, but Coldplay has spent the last several years burrowing unprecedentedly into local territories and cultures. In addition to tiny gestures such as speaking Spanish, the band invited Colombian singer Manuel Turizo onstage in Bogotá and Argentine star Tini in Buenos Aires for duets. In Buenos Aires, Coldplay covered beloved Argentine rock en espanol band Soda Stereo’s 1990 hit “De Música Ligera”; in Colombia, it covered local hero J Balvin’s 2019 hit with Bad Bunny “La Canción.” (It probably didn’t hurt the band’s Latin American popularity that Camila Cabello, who is Cuban American, opened several dates.)
Midyear Boxscore charts are based on figures reported to Billboard Boxscore. Eligible shows played between Nov. 1, 2022 and April 30, 2023.
“The Latin American audience is so fanatically loyal — if you’re loyal to them, they’re not going to forget you, the way crowds do in the U.S. and Europe,” says Bruno Del Granado, CAA’s global head of Latin music, who does not work with Coldplay. “A lot of times, international bands go to Latin America and they phone it in. They don’t want to deal with the language barrier. By having Manuel Turizo onstage, then singing his song, it’s like, ‘Wait a second, this guy wants to learn our culture.’”
In addition to the onstage moments, Coldplay has spent the last few years routing tours with prominent dates in Latin American countries — its 2016 A Head Full of Dreams tour began and ended in La Plata, Argentina, with stops in Chile, Peru, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico. “That was very deliberate,” says Jared Braverman, senior vp of global touring for Live Nation, Coldplay’s longtime promoter. “They’ve always made it a point to prioritize many countries that get passed over because they’re not easy to get to. That builds up an audience over time.”
Over the years, many Western pop and rock stars have sold out large venues throughout Latin America, from Aerosmith’s regional tours beginning in the late 1970s to Rock in Rio, the Brazilian festival that debuted in 1985 and attracts some 700,000 attendees every other year. American rockers such as Keith Richards in the ’80s and Metallica in the ’90s, according to Del Granado, emphasized Latin American dates. The difference over the last two decades, he adds, is “state-of-the-art arenas,” such as the 11-year-old Mexico City Arena, the 4-year-old Movistar Arena in Buenos Aires and the Movistar Arena in Bogotá, renovated in 2018. “So it’s not even a case of, ‘Oh, my God, what am I going to do? Play in an open field or a bullfighting ring or a stadium?’” Del Granado says. “There’s no real excuse for bands not to go down there.”
Coldplay’s Western contemporaries have flirted with the same idea of building up Latin American credibility by paying tribute on the ground to beloved local songs and artists: In 2017, Maroon 5 performed a Portuguese version of the Getz/Gilberto Brazilian jazz classic “The Girl From Ipanema” at Rock in Rio. “But Coldplay has embraced it head-on,” says Bruce Moran, president of Live Nation Latin America, adding that music stars are scheduled to play 70 stadiums in the region in 2023. “It’s not just that they’re smart and savvy, but they really have embraced their fans in all regions — and it has paid off, clearly.”
As previously reported, Harry Styles came out on top on Billboard Boxscore’s 2023 midyear Top Tours chart. But it wasn’t an easy win. Across the six-month tracking period, the No. 1 spot flipped six times, coming down to a margin of less than $500,000, or 0.3%. Take a look below at how the midyear 2023 Top Tours ranking took shape, from Nov. 1, 2022, through April 30, 2023.
For the first day of November, Elton John led via his Nov. 1 show at Las Vegas’ Allegiant Stadium, earning $7.8 million, according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore. But, temporarily, he gave way to Coldplay, in the middle of a 10-show run at Buenos Aires’ Estadio Unico Ciudad de La Plata.
It took two Argentinian shows for Coldplay to take over. But before that epic run could end, Sir Elton was back on top, continuing his mammoth stadium run in North America, including three sold-out shows at Los Angeles’ Dodger Stadium on Nov. 17 and 19-20.
John held the top spot into December, until being displaced by 2022’s overall champ, Bad Bunny. The Puerto Rican superstar wrapped World’s Hottest Tour, reaching a high of $67.9 million since the beginning of the ’23 tracking period. But just like that, Daddy Yankee, another Puerto Rican icon promoted by Cardenas Marketing Network, took over for the end of the calendar year, with $72.5 million.
Elton was back in January, playing shows in Oceania that not only gave him a third stint at No. 1, but cemented the Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour as the highest-grossing tour of all time.
But then came Harry. After many months, midyears and year-end rankings in the top five, Mr. Styles claimed the pole position, juiced up by shows in Australia and Asia in February and March. Ultimately, he earned $138.6 million between November and April.
And despite Elton’s last-minute run at the O2 Arena (and one show on April 27 at Munich’s Olympiahalle), Styles stayed strong. John inched towards the top but ultimately fell short by less than half of a percentage point.
While those men traded off on top, Ed Sheeran, Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Dua Lipa, Kevin Hart, Luke Combs, SZA and many more came in as some of the top touring acts of the midyear tracking period. Check back later this year for a year-end update with some of the summer’s biggest stadium runs.
Billboard Boxscore’s Midyear reports are in, and once again, the box-office ticket sales data voluntarily submitted by promoters and venues shows continued growth in the top tier of tours.
This year’s numbers are a strong signal of strength in the post-pandemic concert business. Still, a more in-depth look shows that the business may also have to adjust the way it looks at the touring calendar.
For much of the history of the concert business, touring schedules were planned around the calendar year: Outdoor tours launched in spring hit their high mark in summer and wrapped up in autumn, coming off the road just as winter began. But the growth of the indoor arena business — and growing importance of international markets — has upended the traditional touring calendar, in turn affecting how information from reporting tools such as the midyear Boxscore reports is used.
“The idea of touring year-round was once revolutionary,” says Gregg Perloff with Another Planet Entertainment, which produces concerts in the San Francisco Bay Area. “In California, the moderate climate allowed for year-round touring, but few acts wanted to be the ones who experimented with performing during the winter months. But as the business became more global, that shift started happening without any people noticing, and today, the schedule for how major acts tour is totally different than it was in the past.”
In the Spring of Things
This year’s data shows that many tours now begin in late March or early April, and that the fall months of October and November, when tours once wound down, are now more of a midpoint.
The height of concert season now takes place well past the middle of the summer and continues into the beginning of the new year — and often wraps up in seasonally warm climates. Take for example the midyear Top Tours title holder, Harry Styles, who began the European leg of his Love on Tour trek in late June 2022, and will end his run in July 2023. Coldplay, which launched its Music of the Spheres world tour in late March 2022, will end the bulk of its touring in July of this year. (The band will then play four fall dates, including makeup performances in San Diego, Australia and Malaysia.)
By late May/early June, it often starts to become clear which headline concert tours stand out as big earners, which major-market venues won the big shows of the summer and who will be headlining the big festivals that run through Labor Day weekend. But that’s a challenge for calendar-based reporting metrics such as Billboard Boxscore, whose midyear tracking period covers shows from Nov. 1, 2022, to April 30, 2023. While November is typically a strong month for the concert business, touring grinds to a halt around mid December and often doesn’t resume in a major way until mid March.
Still, while the top 10 of the Top Tours chart is $94 million stronger than 2022’s midyear recap, it’s not because the 2023 season started earlier, but because the 2022 season ran longer.
New Year, Same Success Stories
The 2023 Top Tours chart essentially functions as an addendum to the 2022 year-end chart at the halfway point, with all of the top 10 midyear tours from 2023 also appearing on the 2022 year-end chart, including seven within the year-end top 10. The crossover is simple to explain: The tours continued after Billboard’s Nov. 1 cutoff date.
Bad Bunny’s record-breaking $373 million haul from 2022 actually extends past the $400 million mark after factoring in the last two months of the year. Elton John adds $60 million to his $338 million year-end total when his shows at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles are accounted for, according to the midyear report.
Nearly all of the concerts featured on the midyear charts took place in venues in the western United States, Mexico, South America or Australia.
Only one entry on the top 10 Boxscores chart was located in a cold-climate city: John’s run of shows in London, which took place during the fairly warm month of April.
That’s not to say the East Coast and Western Europe is dead in the winter. Eleven of the top 20 performing venues in the categories of 10,001-15,000 capacity and 15,001 or more capacity are located in cold-climate cites such as London; Hamburg, Germany; New York; and Washington, D.C. The number drops to five out of 10 for theaters and four out of 10 for clubs.
Some of the year’s biggest tours — including those by Taylor Swift, Beyoncé and Madonna — will likely make a sizable dent in 2023’s year-end charts with blockbuster summer grosses as stadiums in America open up for the next several months. (Beyoncé’s and Madonna’s tours began after the tracking period for the midyear report ended; Swift is yet to report numbers during that span.) Once reported, those figures will provide a strong indication of how 2023 looks — and early sales reports have concert business executives feeling optimistic.
Mexico Drives International Growth
Even with half of 2023 remaining, data from the midyear Boxscore report may indicate what lies in store for the rest of the year. One example is Phish reporting that it earned $22 million from its February engagement at the Moon Palace Golf & Spa Resort in Cancun, Mexico. The impressive eight-figure return proves that the perennial jam-rock band can still generate huge sales. It also shows that demand for live entertainment is still strong there, both for concerts targeting U.S. tourists and those aimed at residents of Mexico.
Two other concerts, both held in Mexico City — Daddy Yankee at the Foro Sol and Corona Capital at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez — each generated over $20 million apiece, making Mexico the highest grossing country on Billboard’s Top 10 Boxscores chart. That data shows that despite a continued rise in cartel violence since 2019, according to the U.S. Department of State, the Mexican concert market remains strong nearly a year after Live Nation purchased Mexican promoter OCESA. That information can be extremely helpful to concert bookers and promoters as they plot touring plans — potentially far more important than what part of the touring cycle Billboard Boxscore covers. Still, the inexorable shift toward year-round touring is making itself felt in a way that’s hard to ignore.
Harry Styles has been a constant presence on Billboard’s Top Tours chart, especially since the post-pandemic return of live music. He was No. 3 on 2021’s abridged year-end ranking, No. 21 on 2022’s midyear list and finished at No. 4 on that year’s overall tally. In between and since then, he has appeared on 13 monthly charts, including 10 top five appearances and three at No. 2. Now, finally, he takes his place atop the heap, dominating the 2023 midyear chart.
According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, Styles’ Love on Tour trek grossed $138.6 million and sold 1.2 million tickets across 38 shows between Nov. 1, 2022, and April 30, 2023. That puts him at No. 1 on both Top Tours (ranked by gross revenue) and Top Ticket Sales (ranked by paid attendance).
Though this is Styles’ first solo appearance at No. 1 on Top Tours, he has reached the summit before as a member of One Direction. The five-member global sensation topped the 2014 year-end list and the 2015 midyear chart.
As Styles’ consistent chart presence indicates, his midyear triumph is the result of a constant grind, with the pop star road warrior making his way to the top at a pivotal moment in the two-year tour. The Love on Tour run was long delayed (pandemic-affected tours continue to appear on the Boxscore charts) but built upon the successful tours behind both 2019’s Fine Line and 2022’s Harry’s House.
Styles’ win is also an example of Boxscore’s global reach, as the artist’s chart totals include shows in California, Central and South America, Australia and Asia.
Styles began the tracking period with the back half of 12 shows at the Kia Forum in Inglewood, Calif. (The first half were in October, which counted toward the 2022 year-end rankings.) He returned for three additional dates at the venue in January that were rescheduled from November, completing a $47.8 million haul over 15 concerts at the Los Angeles-area arena. Of that total, $28.9 million goes toward the 2023 charts, placing Styles at No. 3 on Top Boxscores.
From mid-November to mid-December, Styles played 14 shows in Mexico and South America, adding $40.4 million and 546,000 tickets. Then, following his final return to California (the three last Kia Forum shows, as well as two at the Acrisure Arena in Palm Desert, Calif.), he swept through Australian stadiums, earning $47.6 million from 373,000 tickets sold.
Those legs include three appearances on Top Boxscores, at Nos. 15 ($16.4 million; Accor Stadium, Sydney; March 3-4), 20 ($15 million; Marvel Stadium, Melbourne; Feb. 24-25) and 27 ($11.1 million; Allianz Parque, São Paulo; Dec. 6, 13-14).
Finally, Styles played six shows in Asia, adding $16.1 million and 122,000 tickets to his totals.
On Top Ticket Sales, Coldplay joins Styles as the only other act to sell over a million tickets during the tracking period. Coldplay’s 1.11 million tickets fall 9% short of Styles’ 1.22 million.
But on Top Tours, the margins are even thinner. Styles’ $138.6 million barely defends his title against Elton John’s late-surging total of $138.2 million, maintaining a lead of just 0.3% over his fellow Brit. Like Styles, John has been a consistent player on Billboard’s monthly, midyear and year-end Boxscore charts since the launch of his Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour. Notably, he was No. 1 on the midyear rankings for 2019 and 2020 and has topped seven monthly listings, which is more than any other act.
The presence of pop/rock British acts from last year’s Boxscore charts doesn’t end with Styles and John. Coldplay and Ed Sheeran, who come in at Nos. 3 and 4, respectively, on the midyear list, were Nos. 5 and 3, respectively, on last year’s recap. The only other act in last year’s top five was Bad Bunny, who winds up at No. 6 on the midyear chart, bumped by fellow Cárdenas Marketing Network artist Daddy Yankee.
Carryover from one year-end chart to the next is common, as major tours often continue beyond Billboard’s cutoff date of Oct. 31/Nov. 1. Further, tours are also blurring the lines of traditional album cycles, carrying on beyond a typical one-year span. Styles’ Love on Tour run has spanned the release of two albums, while Sheeran’s Mathematics Tour began as support for 2021’s = (Equals) and continues following the release of – (Subtract) in May.
Those blurred lines disappear, however, for Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour, which is celebrating her entire discography rather than focusing on last year’s chart-topping Midnights. Launching in mid-March and continuing through the summer, the trek will likely crash the year-end rankings with other summer tentpole tours. But Styles won’t fade away. While Love on Tour became one of Boxscore’s highest grossing treks of all time in May, 30 shows still remain — and he’ll play stadiums in Europe before wrapping July 22 in Italy, perhaps on his way to a $500 million finish.
Morgan Wallen released One Thing at a Time on March 3, kicking off a run of 11 (and counting) consecutive weeks atop the Billboard 200. One of the set’s focus tracks, “Last Night,” became his biggest hit yet, topping the Billboard Hot 100 for seven (and counting) frames. And now, his spin-off run of concerts – the One Night at a Time World Tour – crowns Billboard’s Top Tours chart.
According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, Wallen played four shows in April, earning $27.9 million from 145,000 tickets sold. He fends off Elton John ($27 million) and former tourmate Luke Combs ($25.8 million) in a narrow race, securing his first monthly victory.
Earlier this month, Wallen was forced to postpone the One Night at a Time World Tour for six weeks due to a vocal injury, resuming on June 22 at Chicago’s famed Wrigley Field. Including three shows from May 4-6 and a handful of dates in Oceania in March, the tour has earned $44.3 million and sold 258,000 tickets to-date.
Wallen will mix arenas, amphitheaters and stadiums across the remaining 45 scheduled dates. Running through June 2024, Wallen is on to soar past the $200 million mark (and then some), easily topping his own The Dangerous Tour ($113.5 million; 841,000 tickets) and further, Kenny Chesney’s Here and Now Tour ($135 million) and Taylor Swift’s The Red Tour ($150.2 million) to become the top-grossing country tour ever. Country tours are generally defined as by artists recording primarily country music at the time of a respective tour.
Wallen’s April triumph marks the first time in nine months that an artist scores a first month at No. 1. The last act to claim its first chart-topper was Coldplay in July 2022, who poetically closed the loop by repeating at No. 1 just last month.
In between, Bad Bunny (Aug. and Sept. 2022), John Mayer (Oct. and Nov. 2022, Jan. 2023), Trans-Siberian Orchestra (Dec. 2022), and Ed Sheeran (Feb. 2023) notched repeat wins. In 34 months since the monthly charts premiered, Wallen is just the 15th artist to lead the Top Tours ranking.
Among those 15 leaders, Wallen is the first country act to hit No. 1. Previously, the genre had peaked at No. 3 with George Strait (March 2019 and Jan. 2020) and Reba McEntire (Jan. 2022). In fact, stretching beyond the origins of Billboard’s monthly charts, the last time country spawned the top-grossing act of the month was Chesney in May 2015, almost eight years ago.
Including Wallen and Combs, country artists have five top three placements, or 4.9% of all top three ranks since the charts launched in Feb. 2019. When looking at the full 30-position survey, the genre makes up 11.8% of the chart, following only rock and pop.
While country has consistently been a core factor in the concert industry’s well-being, it’s taken more than three years (including COVID’s blackout period) for one of its own to lead, with more of its headliners in the teens and 20s of the monthly chart.
Much of that has to do with the structure of country tours, as most acts play weekend shows but take off during the week, compared to every-night or every-other-night routings for many pop, rock, Latin and hip-hop artists. Playing two or three shows a week, country artists can only sell so many tickets, limiting their total figures especially when compressing the chart’s tracking period to a strict timeframe.
For their parts, Wallen played in Milwaukee on a Friday and Saturday, and then Louisville and Oxford, Miss. on the following Thursday and Saturday. (Combs played one stadium show each week, except for a double-header in Nashville). But despite a limited show count, both artists scaled up to stadiums, able to compete with lengthier arena runs via massive nightly audiences.
Elton John, sandwiched between Wallen and Combs at No. 2 on Top Tours, played double the shows as either country competitor. Nine of those took place over the course of 16 days at London’s O2 Arena, averaging one show every other night.
John’s run at the O2 is No. 1 on April’s Top Boxscores, having earned $25.3 million and sold 148,000 tickets. It’s the month’s only engagement to break the $20 million mark or 100,000 tickets. Wallen (Nos. 2 and 5) and Combs (Nos. 4, 7-8) help flesh out the top 10, with Usher at No. 3 for an eight-night run at MGM’s Dolby Live in Las Vegas.
Not only does the O2 Arena push Elton to No. 1 on Top Boxscores and No. 2 on Top Tours, it is itself the top-grossing venue of the month. The last time it reigned was June 2022 with $41.7 million and 372,000 tickets sold, just north of April’s $41.1 million and 344,000.
Post-pandemic anticipation helped accelerate a new class of arena headliners, but also cemented long-time road warriors on their ways to new peaks. More than 20 years into the band’s touring career, Muse is reaching new heights on the Will of the People World Tour. With reported data through April 12, the glam hard rockers break the $200 million barrier in career grosses, having earned $206.6 million, according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore.
The Will of the People World Tour launched in October with theater-sized underplays in major markets, before playing a quartet of shows in Mexico in January. Muse then traveled north for a proper run of arena shows in the U.S. and Canada, playing 24 dates across two months. In all, the tour has reported grosses of $36.1 million and sold 402,000 tickets over 30 shows.
Broken out by region, it’s the biggest tour of the band’s career. In Mexico City, two shows at Foro Sol grossed $6.8 million and sold 107,000 tickets, eclipsing plays in the same city in 2019, 2013 and 2007, in terms of revenue and attendance. In Guadalajara, the Jan. 20 show grossed $1.2 million and sold 13,000 tickets, up 34% from an area play in 2013.
In arenas in the U.S. and Canada, Muse’s business averaged out to $1.1 million per show, marking the band’s first North American tour to crack the seven-figure line. Previously, The 2nd Law World Tour (2012-14), the Drones World Tour (2015-16) and the Simulation Theory World Tour (2019) each paced between $700,000-800,000, while the current run represents a 50% increase from what had seemed to become their standard business.
Muse’s star rose throughout the 2000s and 2010s, reaching increasingly higher until they amassed some of the biggest rock hits of all time (2009’s “Uprising” and 2012’s “Madness” are Nos. 1 and 4, respectively, on Billboard’s Greatest of All Time Alternative Songs chart) and then scored a No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 with 2015’s Drones. But years beyond those chart peaks, Muse hits a new high on tour, backed by last year’s Will of the People.
The Will of the People World Tour resumes this weekend in the U.K., continuing throughout Europe with a mix of headline tour dates and headline-festival gigs. Muse’s tour history indicates that the shows across the pond will earn about 20% more than the spring’s North American dates, pushing the tour gross toward the $50 million mark.
More than two decades as road warriors, Muse’s latest grosses push their career total to $206.6 million and 3.1 million tickets.
Following a four-month hiatus, Coldplay returned to the stage in March to extremely efficient effect. Despite playing just three Brazilian markets, the band still compiled numbers large enough to secure honors as the top-grossing live act of the month. According to figures reported to Blilboard Boxscore, the British act earned $65.4 million and sold 736,000 tickets between March 10 and March 28.
That eye-popping total was amassed from $40.1 million over six shows in Sao Paulo, $8.1 million from two shows in Curitiba and $17.2 million across three dates in Rio de Janeiro.
The slate of stadium concerts in Sao Paulo marks the seventh-largest engagement in Boxscore history, both in terms of gross and paid attendance. Further, that run helps Coldplay become the third consecutive act to simultaneously lead Top Tours and Top Boxscores, following fellow Brits Elton John in January and Ed Sheeran in February.
The Brazil shows averaged $5.9 million and 67,000 tickets per show, in step with previous legs in the U.S. ($5.7 million; 53,200 tickets) and Europe ($6.4 million; 66,400 tickets). But it’s a boost from previous plays in Latin America.
Coldplay opened the tour with shows March and April 2022 in Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, and Mexico, pacing $4.1 million and 52,600 tickets. The band returned last September for concerts in Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Peru, running $4.6 million and 58,900 tickets per show. The Brazil run marks a 30% bump from the previous South American lap.
March is Coldplay’s second month at No. 1 on Top Tours. The band’s first trip to the top was last July with almost identical totals, when they grossed $66.7 million and sold 730,000 tickets. The 736,000 haul this month is the second-biggest monthly attendance count, only behind Sheeran’s 750,000 in June 2022.
In total, the Music of the Spheres Tour has grossed $407.7 million and sold more than 4.5 million tickets since launching in March 2022, approaching the all-time top 10 in both metrics. The band’s previous tour, the A Head Full of Dreams Tour (2016-17), sits at No. 7 on the historical ranking, with $523.3 million and sold 5.4 million tickets.
The Music of the Spheres Tour resumes in May in Europe before returning to North America in September. With close to 40 scheduled shows left to play, the entire run could be heading toward the all-time top five with more than $600 million in the bank and six million tickets sold.
Sheeran backs off from No. 1 in February to No. 2 in March, adding $43.1 million and 409,000 tickets for The Mathematics Tour. He is followed by Harry Styles at No. 3, enjoying his seventh consecutive month in the top five.
It’s the fifth month with an all-British top three since Billboard launched the monthly rankings in February 2019. All five of those occurrences have featured at least one of this month’s leaders, with Sheeran participating in four of those sweeps.
SZA is No. 4 with $23.2 million and more than 150,000 tickets on the SOS Tour. Matching Carrie Underwood last month and Karol G in October, it’s the highest rank for a female artist in more than a year based on reported figures. The only women to reach higher since returning from the pandemic were Billie Eilish, Reba McEntire and Alanis Morissette, each hitting No. 3 in February 2022, January 2022, and September 2021, respectively.
Much ado was made of the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ double-duty in February, appearing twice in Top Tours’ top 10 – once by themselves and once with co-headliner Post Malone. A version of that phenomenon happens on March’s Top Boxscores ranking, as Billy Joel hits No. 27 on Top Boxscores with his latest Madison Square Garden concert, but also No. 6 with co-headliner Stevie Nicks. The first date of their brief collaborative tour earned $10.9 million at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif. Both acts have further scheduled dates separately and together.
Coldplay’s dominance extends to the venue charts. Sao Paulo’s Estadio do Morumbi, home of their mammoth six-show run, is the top-grossing venue of the month, No. 1 on the ranking for venues with a capacity of 15,001 or more, but out-grossing every venue on the other capacity-specific charts as well. Estadio Nilton Santos, the band’s Rio de Janeiro stadium, follows on the 15,001+ ranking at No. 7.
T-Mobile Arena (Las Vegas) and Madison Square Garden (New York) follow at Nos. 2-3, leading the month for arenas. Las Vegas scores No. 1 rankings on the 10,001-15k chart with MGM Grand Garden ($6.8 million) and 5,001-10k list with Dolby Live ($13.5 million).
The tally for venues with a capacity of 5,000 or less is led by Morsani Hall at the Straz Center for the Performing Arts in Tampa, Fla., earning $6.7 million from 26 shows during March. Vegas’ Resorts World Theatre follows at No. 2 ($5.2 million), giving Sin City a top two rank on all four venue charts.
Post-pandemic album cycles for A-list pop acts have often been accompanied by major, career-high concert announcements. Bad Bunny’s all-stadium World’s Hottest Tour preceded the release of Un Verano Sin Ti, Taylor Swift’s Midnights was followed by The Eras Tour, and Morgan Wallen’s One Thing at a Time is being supported by his first run in stadiums. For the Jonas Brothers, similar announcements would trickle out. But before going big, they went intimate.
In March, Joe, Kevin & Nick Jonas put on five shows at Broadway’s Marquis Theatre, recently the home to stage musicals Beetlejuice, Tootsie and Evita. Located on 46th Street between 7th and 8th Avenues in Manhattan, the Jonas Brothers took on Broadway with a series of (relatively) small shows that set the stage for the year ahead.
Titled Jonas Brothers on Broadway = 5 Albums 5 Nights, the band played its entire discography dating back to 2007, one album at a time: Jonas Brothers on the 14th, A Little Bit Longer on the 15th, Lines, Vines and Trying Times on the 16th, Happiness Begins on the 17th, and this year’s as-yet-unreleased The Album on the 18th.
Speaking to Billboard, Brad Wavra (SVP Global Touring, Live Nation) commented, “The Jonas Brothers’ Broadway shows were all about doing something unique and special for their fans. The intimate setting combined with the format of celebrating five albums over five nights was meant to bring fans along on the band’s personal journey from day one all the way into their new upcoming album.”
According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, the Jonas Brothers grossed $1.6 million and sold 7,291 tickets over these five consecutive shows.
Scaling for the week of shows was relatively consistent, ranging from 1,387 tickets on the final night to 1,500 on the 16th. Accordingly, grosses barely budged, from $298,000 to $322,000. Tickets were priced between $299 and $89, averaging out at $213.
Having toured arenas and amphitheaters for the last 15 years, the Marquis Theatre is the smallest venue the Jonas Brothers have played since 2008, dating back to a sold-out underplay at London’s Carling Academy Islington (591 tickets, now known as the O2 Academy). To further illustrate the Broadway run’s rare intimacy, it’s the first reported engagement at the venue in Boxscore history.
Since the Jonas Brothers’ 2019 reunion, the band’s New York presence has been spread between Madison Square Garden, Barclays Center, the Prudential Center (Newark, N.J.) and Northwell Health at Jones Beach Theater (Wantagh, N.Y.). Those five shows (there were two at MSG) averaged $2.2 million and close to 15,000 tickets.
But the Marquis Theatre shows don’t represent a step down from historical business. Since their Broadway concerts, the JoBros announced a two-night stay at Yankee Stadium, marking the biggest area play of the band’s career. “The momentum is only going to build from here with their stadium shows coming in August, and with what more lies ahead for 2023,” says Wavra.
Throughout their history in arenas and amphitheaters, the Jonas Brothers have dipped their toes in the stadium circuit. Most recently, they played one show at Boston’s Fenway Park (Oct. 1, 2021) and two at Hersheypark Stadium in Hershey, Penn. (Aug. 31, 2019 and Sept. 24, 2021). Those shows peaked at 31,000 in attendance and $2.6 million, leaving room to grow for Yankee Stadium’s 45,000 capacity.
Since the group’s earliest Boxscore reports in 2006, the Jonas Brothers have grossed $326.8 million and sold 4.5 million tickets across 359 shows. With three secret-location shows later this month in Los Angeles (April 25), Dallas-Fort Worth (April 26) and Baltimore (April 28), plus the Aug. 12-13 New York dates, those numbers will continue to grow in 2023.
It’s been a transformative few months for SZA. The R&B superstar released SOS, her second studio album, in December to universal critical acclaim and blockbuster business. The set earned 318,000 album equivalent units in its first week of release, kicking off a non-consecutive 10-week run atop the Billboard 200. And in the middle of that chart-topping stretch, she kicked off the aptly titled SOS Tour.
The 18-date stint ran from Feb. 21 through March 23, giving SZA her first taste of headlining arenas on her own. According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, the SOS Tour grossed $34.5 million and sold 238,000 tickets.
Spread across its month of action, SOS shows averaged $1.9 million and 12,812 tickets per night. Returns were remarkably consistent, only dipping below 11,000 at the (relatively) low-capacity Viejas Arena in San Diego. The SoCal arena sold 8,700 tickets, but fostered the tour’s second-highest ticket price, at $174.69. Otherwise, attendance swung between 11,069 (Atlanta) and 14,383 (Toronto) on a nightly basis.
New York and Los Angeles were the two markets, perhaps unsurprisingly, with double-headers. SZA played two shows at Madison Square Garden on March 4-5, and the run’s final two dates at Kia Forum in Inglewood, Calif., on March 22-23. Logically, these were the highest grosses and attendance counts, hitting $4.7 million and 27,000 tickets at the East Coast arena, and $3.9 million and 25,000 on the West.
Reporting is limited for SZA’s pre-pandemic concerts, with a small handful of figures for 2017’s Ctrl the Tour and subsequent 2019 Australian shows. But matching up her shows market-by-market, her growth over the last six years is undeniable.
SZA played at Austin’s Emo’s on Oct. 1, 2017, earning $31,000 from a sold-out audience of 1,550. She returned to the city on March 9 at the newly minted Moody Center. She spun that attendance and its average $20 ticket seven times over, amounting to a show gross 55 times the total of her previous market play ($1.7 million).
In New York, it’s a similar – but bigger – story. SZA grossed $45,000 and sold 1,800 tickets at Brooklyn Steel on Dec. 10, 2017. Returning to Madison Square Garden last month, she earned $4.7 million and sold 27,000 tickets. That represents a jump of 1,376% in attendance and more than 10,000% in revenue.
The caveat in NYC is that SZA also played an un-reported show at Manhattan’s Irving Plaza the night after her Brooklyn date in 2017. But even if the 1,100-capacity club sold out at the same average ticket price, her growth in New York would still be nearly 6,500%.
SZA got some arena experience during her first album cycle, snagging co-headline billing on Top Dawg Entertainment’s Champions Tour in between Kendrick Lamar and Schoolboy Q. But even that stacked bill played only one show in New York, selling fewer tickets (12,500) than SZA did on either of her solo ’23 shows at the same venue.
Much of that upward trajectory can be attributed to the slow-burn success of 2017’s CTRL. While peaking at No. 3 and spending “just” a handful of weeks in the Billboard 200’s top 10, it has accumulated more than 300 weeks on the chart. One of its five frames in the top 10 was in June 2022, after a five-year-anniversary deluxe edition hit streaming services.
After letting that album breathe for more than five years, SZA’s timing was sharp. The SOS Tour was announced days after its namesake album was released, with tickets going on sale a few days after that. The set’s massive opening week backed up the feverish hype surrounding her long-awaited comeback, and its subsequent ticket on-sale capitalized on that momentum without missing a beat.
The SOS Tour helped complete SZA’s transformation from slow-burn R&B wunderkind to genre-bending arena powerhouse. She is represented by Wasserman Music and promoted by Live Nation. The tour featured direct support act Omar Apollo.
Just under the surface of Ed Sheeran’s chart-topping Oceania shows, the Red Hot Chili Peppers breaks new ground on Billboard’s monthly Boxscore charts. The band is No. 2 on February’s Top Tours ranking, and followed closely again at No. 6, becoming the first act to appear twice on the same chart since the list launched in February 2019.
The Chili Peppers played eight shows in Australia and New Zealand from Jan. 21 through Feb. 12. For those stadium gigs, the group paired with Post Malone for a co-headline run of $48.2 million, splitting by $15.2 million in January and another $33 million in February. That was enough to land them at No. 2 for both months, first behind Elton John and then Sheeran.
Without missing a beat, the Chili Peppers followed with three shows in Asia on Feb. 16, 19 and 21, sans Post Malone. Those earned $12.1 million, putting the unaccompanied band at No. 6 on February’s overall ranking. In the four years since the monthly charts premiered, no act had previously doubled up on the 30-position ranking, much less in the top 10.
While it’s the first time that an artist has scored two positions on a monthly chart, it’s not unprecedented among all Boxscore rankings. On the 2018 year-end charts, Jay-Z was No. 3 alongside Beyonce for the On the Run II Tour, and at No. 25 for his solo headline dates.
The Chili Peppers also blanket the Top Boxscore chart, both on its own and alongside Post Malone. The co-headline shows appear at Nos. 5-6 and 9, topped by two shows on Feb. 2 and 4 at Sydney’s Accor Stadium ($13.5 million; 107,000 tickets).
Unaccompanied, the band hits Nos. 9 and 24, spotlighting the Feb. 19 performance at Tokyo Dome which earned $7.2 million and sold 45,000 tickets.
In addition to two shows from Sheeran, the Chili Peppers’ Sydney dates helped make Accor Stadium the month’s top-grossing venue with a $32.4 million gross and 279,000 tickets sold.
Since launching in June in Europe, the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Global Stadium Tour has earned $237.4 million and sold 1.9 million tickets. Beyond the Oceania and Asia legs, the band continues with a swing of North American shows that extend through mid-April, before returning to Europe and continuing on to Latin America later this year.
At $491.9 million, the soon-to-be-reported Western shows will push the band’s career Boxscore gross past the half-billion mark.