Billboard Boxscore
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In the first full year of tracking since the pandemic, New York’s Madison Square Garden (MSG) returns to No. 1 on Billboard’s year-end Top Venues (15,001+ capacity) chart. But more than that, MSG is the highest-grossing venue of any size or shape, eclipsing all stadiums, arenas, theaters and clubs. According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, Madison Square Garden hosted 124 shows during the tracking period, combining to $241.4 million and 1.8 million tickets.
For those following Billboard’s monthly Boxscore charts, MSG’s No. 1 finish shouldn’t be a huge surprise. The arena led the monthly venue chart in February, August and September, the last of which was a record-setter for the biggest one-month sum for a venue since the monthly rankings launched in early 2019. MSG’s 22 September shows raked in a combined $64.3 million.
MSG appeared on the 10-position chart for 10 of the year’s 12 months, only missing in January and March. Otherwise, including its three months at No. 1, it spent half of the year in the top three.
With 124 shows, MSG’s calendar was packed. Still, some heavy hitters can take some credit for its ultimate triumph. Harry Styles, No. 1 on the year-end Top Boxscores chart, led the charge with his mammoth 15-show residency. The shows collectively grossed $63.1 million and sold 277,000 tickets between Aug. 20 and Sept. 21, a key factor in the venue’s monthly wins.
And while they are regarded as individual engagements, Billy Joel’s ongoing residency continued with 11 shows during the tracking year – one show in each month except for January, during a largely dark period amid the Omicron wave. His shows combined to $29.6 million and 205,000 tickets sold. That means that Styles and Joel’s 26 shows accounted for $92.7 million, or 39% of the venue’s total annual gross.
Following Styles atop the heap, Phish ($8.8 million), Rage Against the Machine ($8.2 million), Elton John ($6.9 million) and Genesis ($5.3 million) round out MSG’s top five grossing concert engagements of the year with multi-show runs. Based on attendance, Styles leads Phish (76,000), Rage Against the Machine (71,000), John Mulaney (42,000) and Luke Combs (36,000).
MSG became the first venue to earn more than $200 million in a year when it closed out 2019 with $221.7 million. The arena reaches new heights three years later, but considering 2020 and 2021 were shortened due to COVID, its own record re-set is essentially immediate. The $241.4 million gross is the largest for any venue in a single year.
While Boxscore charts date back to the late ‘80s, year-end venue charts launched in 1999. In those 24 years, MSG has led the charge among venues with a capacity of 15,001 or more in 14 of those years. After starting at No. 6 in 1999, MSG was No. 1 for nine consecutive years from 2000-2008. It then floated around the top 10 while London’s O2 Arena assumed the throne from 2009-2016, falling one year short of MSG’s record ‘00s-era reign.
MSG regained the title for 2017-2020, slipped to No. 2 last year behind Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena, and returns to the summit for 2022.
Was 2022 the worst “best year ever?” By some measures, the concert business had its most successful year. From Nov. 1, 2021, to Oct. 31, 2022, the top 10 tours grossed a combined $2.2 billion in ticket sales, according to Billboard Boxscore, 36% more than they did in 2019, the previous full year of touring, and more than four times the $519 million they took in during the pandemic-limited 2021.
Some of this growth follows an existing trend. Since 2013, the live business has grown steadily between 5% and 10% a year, thanks to international expansion and an increasing number of megatours. In 2013, eight acts took in over $100 million at the box office — Bon Jovi, P!nk, Bruce Springsteen, Beyoncé, Rihanna, Taylor Swift, The Rolling Stones and the Cirque du Soleil Michael Jackson show.
But the business also experienced a sharp uptick this year, driven by a combination of pent-up demand, a number of big tours and inflation. Sixteen tours crossed the $100 million mark, and the number of concert tickets sold in the first three quarters of 2022 was up 37% over 2019, according to Live Nation’s most recent quarterly report.
The bad news, however, is twofold: More work for fewer employees in the wake of pandemic layoffs, plus rising costs for staffing, production and travel, threaten to erode profits. “We are working harder than ever just to try and make sure we don’t lose any ground,” says Jim Cressman, founder and owner of Canadian independent promoter Invictus Entertainment.
Cressman and Live Nation executives say that fans also seem to be changing their concertgoing habits by waiting longer to buy tickets. About 30% of tickets for this year’s Lollapalooza festival in Chicago were purchased five days or fewer before the event, according to Live Nation. It’s a concerning trend for promoters and tour organizers who have become accustomed to scaling event costs up and down based on projections from early sales. Fans are also getting wise to the fact that ticket prices, especially on the secondary market, tend to drop over time.
The names of the top 10 tours won’t surprise anyone who follows the industry. No. 1 is Bad Bunny, who did two tours during this time frame: El Último Tour del Mundo, which ran from February to April and grossed $116 million, and World’s Hottest Tour, which brought in $246 million from August to the end of the Billboard Boxscore touring year; it will run until Dec. 10. The tour dates within this time frame, as well as isolated hometown shows in Puerto Rico, grossed a combined $373.5 million, the third-highest year-end total in Boxscore history after Ed Sheeran’s $429.5 million in 2018 and The Rolling Stones’ $425 million in 2006.
This is the first year that each tour in the top 10 grossed over $100 million and the top five each took in more than $200 million. Some of that is due to higher ticket prices: Bad Bunny tickets cost an average of $201, while tickets to Sheeran’s No. 1 2019 ÷ (Divide) shows cost an average of $86; the average ticket price of a top 10 tour was $130.76, up from $114.29 in 2019. Some of that growth comes from inflation, of course, while some is from a shift to higher ticket prices in order to capture revenue that once went to the secondary market. “The spending levels are really the same,” says Live Nation Global Touring chairman Arthur Fogel. “It’s just that artists are capturing more of it than ever before.”
Farther down the Top Tours chart, the growth also stays consistent. The top 40 tours grossed a total of $4.6 billion, up from a total of $3.5 billion in 2019, a difference of 32%
The New Scorecard
This year, Billboard Boxscore created a new chart to rank tours by number of tickets sold, not just revenue, although that information had already been included. And although promoters were concerned earlier in 2022 that touring market oversaturation would mean concerts drew fewer fans, the chart actually shows the opposite — major concerts attracted larger audiences without cannibalizing other shows. In 2022, a combined 17.1 million people saw the top 10 attended tours, up 21% from a combined 2019 attendance of 14.1 million. This year also marked the first time that 19 of the top 20 attended tours drew over 900,000 fans.
The top 10 tours also represent one of the youngest lists in recent years, with an average headliner age of 49.3, as opposed to 51.2 in 2019 and 54.6 in 2021. The oldest act was The Rolling Stones — Mick Jagger and Keith Richards will both be 79 by the end of the year, and Ron Wood is 75. The youngest acts were Harry Styles and Bad Bunny, both of whom turned 28 this year.
As in years past, Live Nation dominated the business, exclusively promoting half of the top 20 — which grossed a combined $1.5 billion — as well as Bad Bunny’s stadium shows, in collaboration with Cárdenas Marketing Network, and some shows for My Chemical Romance and Paul McCartney. AEG Presents follows with a handful of global tours, including Elton John, that combined accounted for $843 million. CMN powered Bad Bunny at No. 1 and Daddy Yankee at No. 13, while Mercury Concerts led the Latin American dates for Guns N’ Roses. Sheeran, at No. 3, was promoted by a mix of buyers throughout Europe.
On the agency front, the leader is Creative Artists Agency, with eight acts in the top 20: Styles, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Weeknd, Lady Gaga, the Eagles, Dua Lipa, Justin Bieber and My Chemical Romance. Wasserman Music had four clients in the top 20 — Sheeran, Coldplay, Kenny Chesney and Billie Eilish — while UTA had two: Bad Bunny and Guns N’ Roses.
Three of the top tours — John, McCartney and The Rolling Stones — have global touring deals with AEG but don’t have a traditional booking agency deal. WME had only one artist in the top 20 with Daddy Yankee. So did the Neal Agency, started in February by Austin Neal, son of longtime WME agent Kevin Neal. Austin formed the agency to represent Morgan Wallen, who took a hiatus from touring after his use of a racial slur was caught on video in 2021. Wallen grossed $128 million in 2022 from 66 shows.
Harry Styles has been on tour for over a year now. He kicked off Love on Tour in Las Vegas on Sept. 4, 2021, and played for three months around the country. Then he played two months of shows in Europe over the summer of 2022 before he returned to North America.
“Tour” is a funny word for Styles’ last three months of performances. Yes, he played many concerts in quick succession. Yes, he moved from city to city, playing to hundreds of thousands of fans in major markets. But while his pop chart competition played one or two shows at each venue, hitting 20, 30 or 40-plus stadiums and arenas, Styles played extended batches of shows in a handful of A-markets.
After a pair of shows in Toronto, he settled in at New York’s Madison Square Garden for 15 shows at the iconic arena, stretching from Aug. 20 to Sept. 21. The strength of his ticket sales there set records that defy qualification. His monthlong run isn’t just the highest grossing engagement for a British artist, or for a male artist, or for a former boy-band member, and not even just the biggest for any at that venue.
According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, Styles’ 15 shows at MSG grossed $63.1 million and sold 277,000 tickets, enough to be the highest grossing headline engagement in Boxscore’s three-decade-plus history.
Given his all-time standing, Styles’ MSG mini-residency naturally leads Billboard’s year-end Top Boxscores chart, ranking individual concerts, but grouping together performances by an artist at one venue. He is followed by Ed Sheeran’s five shows at London’s Wembley Stadium (July 24-July 1; $37.2 million), BTS’ four shows at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas (April 8-16; $35.9 million), San Francisco’s Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival (April 5-7; $33.9 million) and BTS’ four-show run at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif. (Nov. 27-Dec. 2, 2021; $33.3 million).
Overall, Styles eclipses Take That, who previously owned the top two Boxscores of all time. Relatives of Styles’ British boy-band family, the group played eight shows at Manchester’s Etihad Stadium on June 3-12, 2011, earning $44.2 million. Weeks later, it ran another eight shows at Wembley Stadium from June 30-July 9, establishing a decade-long record with $61.7 million in the bank.
By a sliver of less than $1.4 million — or 2.25% — Styles takes the all-time title by playing nearly double the shows as Take That in a venue a quarter the size of Wembley Stadium. He averaged $4.2 million and 18,457 tickets per show in New York, while Take That paced $7.7 million and 77,967 tickets in London. While Styles owns the all-time gross record, Take That’s gargantuan ticket total of 623,737 secures the eight-show run as the most attended Boxscore of all time.
It would have been enough for Styles to go home after 15 nights at the Garden – those shows’ $63.1 million total nearly matches the $63.7 million that he grossed on his entire 2017-2018 Live on Tour. But he soldiered on. In addition to the opening two shows in Toronto, he played six in Austin, another six in Chicago, and 12 in Inglewood, Calif. (There were 15 shows scheduled in Inglewood, but three were rescheduled to January 2023 due to health issues.)
His Inglewood shows at Kia Forum have grossed $38.1 million, enough to be the fifth highest grossing Boxscore of all time, behind the MSG concerts, the two Take That runs, and a 10-show sweep by Bruce Springsteen at Giants Stadium in New Jersey (July 15-Aug. 31, 2003; $38.7 million). Including the three Inglewood shows to come early next year, that lump sum will likely move into third place. (The first six of those shows count toward his 2022 year-end standings, and the remaining nine will count toward 2023 charts).
Altogether, the mini-residency leg of Love on Tour has grossed $147.7 million and sold 717,000 tickets, bulking the entire tour’s totals to $298.4 million and 2.1 million. Like his MSG gross, that number also defies qualification. Love on Tour is not only the biggest tour of Styles’ solo career, but passes One Direction’s Where We Are Tour ($290.2 million), which was No. 1 on Billboard’s 2014 Top Tours chart, to become the biggest tour that he has ever hand a hand in.
In addition to the remaining three California shows, Love on Tour continues with a Latin American leg that wraps on Dec. 14 in Sao Paulo. Styles will hit Oceania and Asia in February and March, and European stadiums later in the spring.