Billboard Live Music Summit 2024
This article was created in partnership with Live Nation
Billboard’s highly anticipated Live Music Summit made its grand return after a 5-year hiatus. This year marked the return of the Live Music Summit, which had been on hiatus since 2019, in response to high demand to refocus on the thriving touring industry.
Attendees experienced a dynamic mix of panel discussions, live performances, workshops, and industry mixers, all culminating in the Touring Awards Ceremony. Among the star-studded panel lineups were Olivia Rodrigo, John Summit and top industry executives. It was an invaluable opportunity for those in the music business to gain insights from industry leaders while celebrating the milestones many touring artists have achieved this year.
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Olivia Rodrigo closed out the eventful day with her Superstar Q&A, during which she discussed the GUTS Tour, her most recent Billboard cover and received the award for 2024 Touring Artist of the Year. See highlights from the panel, presented by Live Nation and moderated by Billboard Deputy Editor Lyndsey Havens, below.
Olivia Rodrigo Takes Center Stage at the Live Music SummitRodrigo captivated the audience as she reflected on her successful 2024 GUTS World Tour. The “Vampire” singer’s GUTS Tour, launched in 2024 in support of her critically acclaimed sophomore album SOUR, marking a pivotal moment in the evolution of modern touring and the music industry. The tour showcased her ability to seamlessly blend introspective storytelling with electrifying live performances, resonating with audiences of all ages.
Spanning 95 dates across multiple continents, Rodrigo became a global phenomenon in 2024. Tickets for the sophomore tour sold out almost instantly across all markets, underscoring the immense demand for her live performances. She kicked off her performances in the United States and Canada during the Spring before touring Europe and the UK this summer and making her debut in Asia, and Australia this fall. The response was overwhelming, particularly in Asia and Australia, where the demand exceeded expectations, leading to multiple sold-out shows in every city – especially in Australia where she performed four sold-out nights in both Sydney and Melbourne, a testament to her skyrocketing popularity.
The GUTS Tour was not only a commercial triumph but also a cultural event, as it brought Rodrigo’s blend of heartfelt lyrics and powerful performances to new corners of the world, further establishing her as a defining voice of her generation.
Olivia Rodrigo speaks onstage at the Billboard Live Music Summit at 1 Hotel West Hollywood on November 14, 2024 in West Hollywood, California.
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Connection to Her Fans
Rodrigo’s career trajectory has been anything but conventional. Her debut album SOUR was released during the COVID-19 pandemic, and from the outset, she knew exactly what she wanted for her second album and accompanying tour.
Reflecting on her first experience on the road, the singer-songwriter shares, “After going on the first SOUR Tour, I learned so much about touring and learned how playing songs like ‘Brutal’ and ‘Good 4 U’ were so much fun on stage and with that information in my back pocket, I went on to make GUTS.”
For her second tour, Rodrigo sought to create a deeper connection with her audience. “Connecting with the audience and bringing them into your world was something that I wanted to achieve on this tour,” she shared, aiming to reach not only fans in the front row but also those in the back and higher up in the arenas. As part of her vision, she incorporated an innovative element into her live show: Rodrigo would be suspended in a purple crescent moon, flying above the crowd during her performances. This unique moment allowed her to wave to fans, particularly those moved to tears, offering a sense of intimacy and shared experience throughout the sold-out tour.
To make each show feel unique for her fans, Olivia and her team collaborated to create a new, city-specific phrase for her final outfit of every tour stop. Rodrigo reflects, “My team bought a machine where we should screenprint tank tops…and it became a fun creative outlet in itself.” Fans would eagerly anticipate the new phrase on her shirt each night, making it a special way to highlight each city on the tour.
A main takeaway from the GUTS Tour was the growing necessity of fan engagement in live shows. Many venues incorporated immersive experiences, digital interactivity and intimate moments that made each concert feel personalized specifically to them. Additionally, GUTS represented a new wave of tour strategies, emphasizing sustainability and creative, genre-blending setlists.
Olivia Rodrigo at the Billboard Live Music Summit at 1 Hotel West Hollywood on November 14, 2024 in West Hollywood, California.
Christopher Polk
Olivia Rodrigo’s Commitment to Social ChangeIn addition to her musical success, Rodrigo launched her global initiative, Fund 4 Good, which is dedicated to building a more equitable future for women and girls. Through Fund 4 Good, she directly supports community-based nonprofits that focus on girls’ education, reproductive rights and the prevention of gender-based violence. “It was really meaningful to me to learn more about these organizations and support them,” she shared, “and I’m excited to do more in the future.” The Grammy Winning Artist recounted her experience on the Phillipines leg of her world tour – “I’m part Filipino and that was the first time I’ve been in the country. I wanted to give back to the community who supported me throughout my career”. Her show in the Philippines was her largest show on the tour – with 55,000 seats at the Philippine Arena in Manila, all priced at $27 USD/1,500 Philippine pesos to ensure affordability for the half-Filipino singer’s fans.
Rodrigo also introduced the Silver Star Ticket program, offering a limited number of affordable $20 USD tickets (or local equivalent) to make her concerts accessible to more of her fans. Inspired by Coldplay’s Infinity Tickets, this initiative allowed fans to attend her shows at an affordable price, reinforcing Olivia’s and Live Nation’s commitment to inclusivity and fan engagement. This approach influenced the touring industry, encouraging other artists to offer similar exclusive packages. The Silver Star tickets demonstrated how fan loyalty and personalized experiences could drive both engagement and revenue in the modern live music landscape.
With a careful balance of commercial success and artistic integrity, Rodrigo’s latest tour reshaped how artists approach live performance in an era where streaming, viral moments with special guests, and social media heavily influence an artist’s connection with their audience.
Olivia Rodrigo is ready to take a well-deserved break at the conclusion of her Guts World Tour in 2025. When asked what she plans to do after the tour — which continues next year in Brazil, Mexico, Ireland and the U.K. — Rodrigo told Billboard’s deputy editor Lyndsey Havens: “I’m so excited to just rot on the couch and eat so much food.”
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Rodrigo was presented with the touring artist of the year honor at Billboard’s 2024 Live Music Summit in Los Angeles on Thursday (Nov. 14) after her Guts World Tour grossed $184.6 million from over 1.4 million tickets sold, according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore.
After shows on the tour, Rodrigo says she immediately gets offstage and ices her feet, which she joked is “really sexy.”
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“I jump around a lot, like my calves get sore. So, yeah, that’s what I do. Take a shower, take off my makeup, and head back to the hotel,” Rodrigo said. “It’s really not that exciting. It’s a really interesting shift to go from like being in front of 1000s of people to like being alone in your hotel rooms.”
While on tour, Rodrigo said one of her favorite songs to perform for catharsis is “All-American Bitch,” which features the young star floating over the audience on a crescent moon.
“There’s a part of the song where I make the whole audience scream and think of something that you hate or something that really ticks you off, and just let it all out and scream. I think that’s so powerful,” Rodrigo said. “It’s very cathartic. It feels like a rage room or something. There’s something so cool about being able to be in a room with 1000s of people and to be anonymous and get all your emotions out. I just love that aspect of music.”
Her energy onstage matches that of some of her all-time favorite live performers, which she said includes Beyoncé and Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
In October, Rodrigo released her tour documentary Olivia Rodrigo: GUTS World Tour on Netflix, and watching it back in film format, the singer said it was hard not to be critical of herself.
“I was trying not to be too critical the whole time. I’m just like, ‘Be nice to yourself.’ It’s really weird because I know that show like the back of my hand. I’ve done it so many times,” she said. “Watching it I was like, ‘Why are you so nervous? You got it, girl. You got it.’”
When asked if anything surprised her from seeing herself perform for the first time, Rodrigo said, “I was working out so much on tour and I watched things back, I was like, ‘Yeah, I got muscles in my arms for the first time in my life.’ That was surprising.”
Global touring has drastically changed in the last 30-plus years, according to Live Nation Concerts president of global touring/chairman Arthur Fogel. During a conversation at the Billboard Live Music Summit in Los Angeles on Thursday (Nov. 14), the veteran promoter said infrastructure around the globe has drastically improved and opened touring to nearly double the number of countries over that time.
“The first time that I went to South America was in the 1990s with David Bowie, so 35-ish years ago. It was a different world down there. It was a very different world everywhere,” said Fogel. “It was the Wild West. It was very difficult, despite the audience being great, but you fast forward to today and the level of expertise that’s been created. There’s the ability to do business on a very serious level.”
In conversation with Haus of Gaga’s Bobby Campbell, who is Lady Gaga‘s manager, Fogel explained that global touring is “night and day” compared to 35 years ago when North American artists would only have the opportunity to tour 15 to 20 countries. Now, Fogel said there are 60 to 70 countries available to them.
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According to Campbell, touring has become more than just an economic engine for artists; it’s become a marketing driver for the music itself.
“You used to have cycles where you put out the album, promote the album through talk shows and TV performances and award shows, then eventually you go on tour,” said Campbell. “Now tours are becoming a central part of the marketing plan for the album.” He added that artists will now change small aspects of their shows, such as the setlist or certain dance moves, to create new content for each stop.
These small adjustments are a far stretch from the dramatic changes tours would have to make decades ago as they crossed continents, explained Fogel, who said that artists used to create a touring show specifically for North America and then scale back and change it for other parts of the world.
“There are so many new state-of-the-art venues coming online that have really helped propel the ability for artists to go and play all kinds of different places,” said Fogel, who pointed out that Africa, essentially the last frontier on the touring front, has recently opened up.
“South America, Central America, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, India, South Africa, Eastern Europe — all those territories and regions of the world that were once very hard to access in terms of touring have really developed dramatically over the last decade and a half,” Fogel added. “To provide the opportunity for an artist to go basically anywhere in the world at this point and connect with their fans is really a pretty interesting and important piece. Maybe it’s the most important piece in terms of development in our business.”
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