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Billboard Boxscore

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Trans-Siberian Orchestra (TSO) once again rules Billboard’s monthly Top Tours chart in December, with the act now ringing the No. 1 bell for the final month of the year in 2023, 2022, 2021 and 2019. (Of note, there was no chart in 2020 due to COVID-19’s impact on touring.) Over 73 shows between Dec. 1-30, the classical holiday collective grossed $51.5 million and sold 657,000 tickets according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore.

With ensembles on both the East and West Coasts, TSO was able to play at least two shows per day — and used the additional bandwidth to its advantage, squeezing the most performances into this December than it has in any year since 2016. Despite a 6% dip in attendance compared with last year, revenue increased by 1%, marking the highest grossing month for TSO in its illustrious 25-year touring history.

Overall, TSO grossed $68.2 million and sold 873,000 tickets on its 2023 tour. The group saw consistent increases in its annual grosses through the end of the 2010s, up 10%, 13%, and 18% in 2017, 2018 and 2019, respectively.

The 2021 season, flanked by the first wave of COVID-19’s Omicron, dipped back by 18%, while last year’s tour came within half a percentage point of the 2019 peak. Finally, with the effect of COVID in the rearview mirror, this year’s revue establishes a new high dating back to the collective’s 1999 touring debut.

TSO hit 21 markets in November and another 42 in December. As always, major markets prime for double-headers are saved for mid-to-late December when seasonal hype reaches its apex. The average gross per city in November was $835,000, while December’s pace rose to $1.2 million.

Cleveland and Tampa were standout markets, and the first to ever generate more than $2 million in TSO history. Two shows at the former’s Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse grossed $2.02 million from 26,000 tickets, and a double-header at the latter’s Amalie Arena earned $2.08 million from 25,600 tickets.

Including its Y2K launch (Dec. 10, 1999, to be exact), TSO has grossed a reported $802.4 million and sold 15 million tickets from 1,893 shows. While that situates it just outside the top 20 grossing acts in Boxscore history, its rank based on attendance makes it one of the top 10 artists since Boxscore’s late-‘80s start.

TSO’s fourth month at No. 1 ties Bad Bunny and Beyoncé. Only Elton John has spent more time on top, having reigned for seven months, spread between 2019, 2020, 2022 and 2023. While its annual touring window is limited to holiday months, its dominance is reliable, likely to be repeated in Decembers to come.

Given the sheer abundance of shows in TSO’s calendar throughout all of December — compared with most tours wrapping up halfway through the month — the group’s victory this time of year can feel inevitable. Still, the No. 1 spot was claimed by just a 3% margin, narrowly fending off U2’s eight-show run at Las Vegas’ Sphere.

U2 earned just over $50 million and sold 133,000 tickets during the Dec. 1-16 leg of its residency at Sphere, claiming the No. 1 spot on Top Boxscores. Combined with the first leg, which stretched from late September to early November, the rock legends have earned $159.8 million at the groundbreaking Vegas arena. Beginning this weekend, Bono & Co. are slated for 15 more shows through March 2.

U2 isn’t the only Vegas residency act to impact the December recap. Bruno Mars is No. 4 on Top Boxscores with a five-show return to MGM’s Dolby Live. The pop-R&B chart-topper grossed $10.3 million toward the end of the month, including a New Year’s Eve performance. At the same venue, Usher is No. 30 with the final two shows of a 12-date leg that began in early November. At Resorts World Theatre, Carrie Underwood pops up at No. 22, with $4.1 million from eight of nine shows that kicked off on Nov. 30.

While Vegas leads the way, half of the 30-position Top Boxscores chart took place outside of the mainland U.S., ranging from Latin America (RBD) and Europe (Madonna) to Asia (SEVENTEEN) and Australia (50 Cent). Paul McCartney takes up the most real estate with four appearances, all of which were in Brazil. Shows in Sao Paulo, Belo Horizonte, Rio de Janeiro and Curitiba rank at Nos. 3, 12-13 and 18, respectively. Three shows at Allianz Parque lead the pack with a $16.2 million gross and 149,000 attendance count over three shows.

And while Sphere enjoys a commanding lead over the Top Venues (15,001+ capacity) chart, it’s a New York theater that reigns over all concert halls in December. Radio City Music Hall crowns the Top Venues (5,001-10,000 capacity) list with $80.6 million and 133 shows. Even more efficient than TSO, The Radio City Rockettes headlined this year’s annual Christmas Spectacular, earning a gargantuan $116.7 million over 193 shows between Nov. 17 and Jan. 4.

Mariah Carey’s Merry Christmas One and All! tour grossed $29.6 million and sold 214,000 tickets according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore. On a per-show basis, the tour’s 15 dates sold more tickets than any Carey tour in 25 years, dating back to the Butterfly World Tour in 1998.

Carey released Merry Christmas in 1994, featuring the iconic and evergreen smash single, “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” That would be enough to cement her status as the Queen of Christmas, but Carey has put in the work each year and assumed her throne on stage as well. For every year since 2014 (except for the 2020-21 COVID years), she has toured and/or held mini residencies honoring her holiday material.

For four years, Carey played a stint at New York’s Beacon Theatre, building from 16,200 tickets in 2014, to 20,700 in 2015, and to 23,400 in 2016. She cut down to just three shows at the Beacon in 2017, before rebuilding at Madison Square Garden in 2019, 2022 and 2023. Her two shows there in December sold a combined 28,700 tickets and grossed $4.5 million, both of which are bigger than ever.

Not only has Carey increased her efficiency in New York, she’s built out across the country and into Europe. What began as a NYC-only event in 2014, expanded to Europe in 2017 and 2018, plus more North American cities in 2019. After last year’s post-pandemic return focused on just New York and Toronto, the 2023 tour boasts Carey’s biggest holiday routing yet, never playing to fewer than 12,500 fans across the U.S. and Canada. Holiday classics or not, it’s her first such major arena tour since 2006.

Considering “All I Want for Christmas Is You” re-entered the Billboard Hot 100 based on the tracking week of Nov. 10-16, and stayed at No. 2 through the first week of 2024, it’s possible she could expand beyond the Nov. 17-Dec. 17 window of this year’s run.

The Merry Christmas One and All! tour averaged $2 million and 14,200 tickets per show. Those revenue figures are Carey’s biggest ever, dating back more than 30 years since she crashed the Billboard charts.

But while a bustling concert economy and decades of inflation can explain some of her recent success, Carey’s reach – the sheer number of tickets she sold – is also sky high. That 14,200 average is the best per-show attendance for any of her tours since 1998, when she was supporting the previous year’s Butterfly.

Leading up to that 1998 tour, Carey amassed four No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200 and 12 No. 1 songs on the Hot 100. Since then, there have been another two No. 1 albums and seven No. 1 songs, including 14 weeks on top, spread across the last five holiday seasons, for “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” In 2019, one month before that track reached the summit, Carey ranked No. 4 on Billboard’s Greatest of All Time Artists chart, leading among women and Black artists.

Still, Carey has never toured with the same intensity as many of the acts that surrounded her on that list, such as Elton John, Madonna or Taylor Swift. Her first three concert tours, in the midst of her ‘90s chart-topping spree, each lasted for no more than 11 shows, almost one eighth of Swift’s calendar for 2024.

It’s encouraging that Carey has arguably been busier than ever on the road in the last decade, including her annual holiday series, two Las Vegas residencies and three international tours. Far removed from releasing her last chart-topper, her 2023 upswing in concert attendance, not to mention the all-time-high grosses, tells a positive story about Carey’s legacy as the Queen of Christmas, using her unique niche (and 19 No. 1 hits – a record among soloists – expanding their presence in the holiday show setlist) to fill arenas.

After two months at No. 2, a reunited RBD takes the lead as the highest grossing touring act of November. According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, the group’s Soy Rebelde Tour grossed $71.1 million and sold 734,000 tickets from Nov. 3 to 30. The tour is the act’s first trek since 2008’s Tour del Adios.
Current through Nov. 30, the Soy Rebelde Tour has grossed $197.1 million since launching in August. About half a million dollars shy of Daddy Yankee’s 2022 farewell tour, RBD’s reunion will become the second-highest grossing tour by a Latin act once its December shows are reported, behind Bad Bunny‘s World’s Hottest Tour.

RBD’s monthly crown is due to hustle. Other than Trans-Siberian Orchestra, the perennial holiday favorite that includes two touring ensembles for either coast of the U.S., RBD played more shows in November than any act among the top 30. With 17 shows split between seven markets, the group earned its spot atop the heap by playing hard.

After sitting at No. 2 behind Beyoncé and Pink in September and October, respectively, RBD levels up, and its routing has much to do with it. Not only did the group play more shows than in either of the previous months, but after touring the U.S., RBD took on Latin America in November, transitioning to a primarily Spanish-language audience.

That move allowed RBD to move from arenas to stadiums, multiplying its nightly audience by more than two. In the U.S., the group paced about 18,000 tickets per night before rocketing to more than 43,000 each show in Colombia, Brazil and Mexico.

But the ticket pricing economy is much different in these geographical regions, and RBD’s average ticket price went from $241.30 in the U.S. to $96.81 in Latin America. In all, its average gross stayed almost the same, even dipping by 4%. But the pure volume of seats that RBD could sell made up the difference, giving RBD its first monthly win yet.

At No. 1 for November, RBD is only the third Latin act to lead the monthly Top Tours chart. Los Bukis first broke ground in September 2021, and Bad Bunny pushed the boundaries further, ruling in February, March, August and September of 2022. Aventura, Daddy Yankee, Maluma, and Rauw Alejandro have also hit the top five.

That means that RBD is the source for the genre’s first female artists to hit the top tier. The mixed-gender group’s reunion features original members Anahi, Dulce Maria and Maite Perroni, all hailing from Mexico. Beyond Latin music, they continue a hot streak for women atop the chart: after a nearly four-year drought, Beyoncé, Pink and RBD have kept women at No. 1 for six of the last seven months.

Beyond the No. 1 act, Pink and Madonna add support at Nos. 3 and 5, respectively. Mariah Carey, Shania Twain, Ms. Lauryn Hill, and in her monthly Boxscore debut, Doja Cat, follow. While a grand total of seven women acts in the top 30 doesn’t give them a majority, the 23.3% gender split is up from the 2023 year-end wrap, where women’s representation doubled from the previous year.

Doja leads a growing list of hip-hop acts on the Top Tours chart. Travis Scott, Rod Wave, Ms. Lauryn Hill & The Fugees and 50 Cent appear between Nos. 22-29. Though they miss the top 10, five rap acts on the chart foreshadow a promising year, when the genre’s share among the top 100 tours of 2023 dipped below 3%.

Four of RBD’s seven stops in November crack the 30-position Top Boxscores chart. Four shows at Allianz Parque in Sao Paulo, Brazil (Nov. 16-19) earned $17.4 million and sold 191,000 tickets, while another four at Estadio Antanasio Girardot (Medellin, Colombia; Nov. 3-6) took in $17.2 million from 150,000 tickets.

In Sao Paulo, RBD played another two shows at Estadio do Morumbi on Nov. 12-13, grossing $11 million. If the group had consolidated their Sao Paulo run at one venue, the combined gross would’ve given them the No. 1 spot with more than $28 million.

Instead, Mexico City’s Corona Capital festival took top honors among individual engagements, as the three-day festival grossed $26.5 million and sold 216,000 tickets. It’s followed by the final three shows of U2’s first leg at Las Vegas’ Sphere. Those shows earned $19.4 million, making up a small part of the $109 million run that began in late September. It’s enough to put Sphere at No. 4 on the Top Venues (15,001+ capacity) chart and situate U2 at No. 12 on Top Tours.

It was a banner month for Latin American shows. Not only did RBD and Corona Capital dominate Top Tours and Top Boxscores, Luis Miguel, Paul McCartney and Red Hot Chili Peppers all charted from shows south of the U.S. Even on Top Promoters, Mexico’s OCESA is No. 2 with $123.9 million and 1.5 million tickets sold, pushing perennial top-two candidate AEG Presents to No. 3, also above $100 million.

On the venue charts, Mexico City and Sao Paulo take the top four spots on Top Stadiums, plus Medellin’s Estadio Atanasio Girardo and Rio de Janeiro’s Estadio Nilton Santos at Nos. 6-7. The former market adds notices on three of the four capacity-based venue charts, notably with Auditorio Nacional at No. 2 among venues with a capacity between 5,001-10k.

Even more, the November recap captures a thriving global box office. Just among the month’s top five tours, RBD and Red Hot Chili Peppers hit Latin America, Coldplay played in Asia and Australia, Pink toured the U.S. and Canada, and Madonna celebrated in Europe. Only two of the top 10 – Morgan Wallen and The Trilogy Tour, starring Enrique Iglesias, Pitbull and Ricky Martin – played exclusively in the U.S. during November.

Last week, Billboard revealed its year-end Boxscore charts, ranking the top tours, venues, and promoters of 2023. That coverage included analysis of the new wave of genre diverse artists crashing stadium stages, and in turn, our charts. Here, we are breaking down the year’s biggest tours, genre by genre. Today, we continue with rap. Hip-hop […]

Last week, Billboard revealed its year-end Boxscore charts, ranking the top tours, venues, and promoters of 2023. That coverage included analysis of the new wave of genre diverse artists crashing stadium stages, and in turn, our charts. Here, we are breaking down the year’s biggest tours, genre by genre. Today, we continue with comedy. Comedy […]

Billboard revealed its year-end Boxscore charts, ranking the top tours, venues, and promoters of 2023. That coverage included analysis of the new wave of genre diverse artists crashing stadium stages, and in turn, our charts. This week, we are breaking down the year’s biggest tours, genre by genre. Today, we continue with country. Country music […]

Last week, Billboard revealed its year-end Boxscore charts, ranking the top tours, venues and promoters of 2023. That coverage included analysis of the new wave of genre diverse artists crashing stadium stages, and in turn, our charts. This week, we are breaking down the year’s biggest tours, genre by genre. Today, we begin with K-pop, […]

Last week, Billboard kicked off its 2023 year-end Boxscore coverage. Beyoncé led reported tours, Taylor Swift is poised for a record-setting finish and BLACKPINK and Karol G are helping usher in a new generation of genre diverse headliners. Plus, Boxscore breaks down the highest-grossing venues in the world, split between four capacity categories, plus a chart for stadiums.

New York City is spotlighted atop two of these lists. Madison Square Garden reigns supreme amongst venues with a capacity of 15,001 or more (excluding stadiums), while Radio City Music Hall is tops for venues with a capacity of 5,001-10,000.

For Madison Square Garden, 2023 marks its 15th year at No. 1 in its capacity category, dating back to 1999. It’s been No. 1 for six of the last seven years, after dipping to No. 2 in 2021. And for the second consecutive year, it’s the highest-grossing venue, regardless or capacity or structure. According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, MSG’s 116 shows grossed $223 million and sold 1.6 million tickets between Nov. 1, 2022 and Sept. 30, 2023.

For Radio City Music Hall, it’s back at No. 1 for the first time since 2020, after Colorado’s Red Rocks Amphitheater led in 2021-22. Over 231 shows in the tracking period, the theater earned $122 million from 1.2 million tickets.

Red Rocks remains the venue with the most tickets sold in the 5,001-10k category (1.4M), while London’s O2 Arena takes top honors for 15,001+ (2.4M).

In between, Dickies Arena (Fort Worth, Texas) completes a steady climb to its first year-end No. 1 in the 10,001-15,000 category. After opening in November 2019, the arena was No. 10 on the 2020 year-end recap, and No. 4 in 2021 and 2022. With $70.5 million, it narrowly takes the gold over Berlin’s Mercedes-Benz Arena ($69.3M), Austin’s Moody Center ($67.8M) and Glasgow’s OVO Hydro ($67.3M).

Even newer, Las Vegas’ Resorts World Theatre claims the top spot among venues with capacity of 5,000 or less. It opened in December 2021 and remains undefeated after crowning last year’s chart. Bolstered by residencies by Luke Bryan, Katy Perry and Carrie Underwood, the theater hosted 90 shows and grossed $45.3 million.

Finally, the Top Stadiums chart is led by SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif., outside Los Angeles. Like Dickies, it’s a relatively new building, after launching in September 2020. This year marks a return to the top, after leading in 2021 and sitting at No. 2 last year behind Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas. The venue reported 19 shows that collectively earned $175.1 million and sold more than 1 million tickets.

The numbers are in for the first leg of Madonna’s The Celebration Tour. According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, the European leg grossed $77.5 million and sold 429,000 tickets.
In January, Madonna announced The Celebration Tour, slated to honor the biggest hits of her legendary career. After a medical emergency forced a postponement of the first batch of North American dates, she launched the trek on Oct. 14 at London’s O2 Arena.

Over four shows that week, Madonna earned $14.7 million and sold 60,000 tickets, only to return to the O2 for the leg’s final two shows on Dec. 5-6, which added another $7.5 million and 31,000 tickets. Since returning from the pandemic, only Elton John and Queen + Adam Lambert have amassed bigger totals at the O2, and they did it with nine and 10 shows, respectively. When Madonna last played the O2, it was just two nights in 2015, compared to this year’s six.

In between, Madonna stopped in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and more, for a total of 27 shows across 11 European markets. Four nights at Paris’ Accor Arena provided the tour’s other eight-figure gross, bringing in $10.7 million from 62,000 tickets on Nov. 12-13 and 19-20.

Madonna’s European totals average out to $2.9 million and 15,900 tickets per night on a $180.53 ticket. Compared to the theater-residency run of her last tour, the Madame X Tour (2019-20), she’s up by 312% in nightly earnings and by 518% in average attendance.

On more level footing with the European leg from the Rebel Heart Tour from 2015-16, Madonna’s last arena tour, her 2023 shows are still up – by 9% in attendance, sold out on every show, and by 70% in average gross, thanks in large part to bulked up ticket pricing.

Immediate demand for The Celebration Tour expanded Madonna’s initial routing of 12 shows in Europe to 27. Likewise, the first batch of 26 shows in the U.S. and Canada has swelled to 47. She kicks off the North American leg on Wednesday (Dec. 13) at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center. After a handful of shows this month, she’s back for the rest in 2024, playing through April 15 in Austin, plus five shows from April 20-26 at Mexico City’s Foro Sol.

Looking at the relationship between Madonna’s European shows and stateside shows on the Rebel Heart Tour, Billboard expects the U.S. and Canadian leg to earn about $150 million from 650,000 tickets.

With the handful of Mexico shows to follow, the current routing for The Celebration Tour is headed toward a total haul of $240-245 million and 1.1-1.2 million tickets over 79 shows. That would situate it behind stadium runs on the Sticky & Sweet Tour (2008-09; $407.7 million) and The MDMA Tour (2012; $305.2 million), but ahead of arena treks the Confessions Tour (2006; $194.8 million) and the Rebel Heart Tour (2015-16; $169.8 million).

Last week, Billboard revealed its year-end Boxscore charts, ranking the top tours, venues, and promoters of 2023. That coverage included analysis of the new wave of genre diverse artists crashing stadium stages, and in turn, our charts. This week, we are breaking down the year’s biggest tours, genre by genre. Today, we continue with rock. […]