Music
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Lay Bankz’s “Tell Ur Girlfriend” sounds as if someone sliced up Ginuwine’s “Pony” and Omarion’s “Ice Box,” tossed them in a blender with a four-to-the-floor kick drum, and served up the results. “It felt like a hit to us,” says Alec Henderson, head of digital at Banks’ label, Artist Partner Group. “But labels never really call the hits.”
In this climate, labels sometimes give up on songs that aren’t immediately greeted rapturously by listeners. But APG stuck with “Tell Ur Girlfriend,” running TikTok campaigns that played on the track’s saucy lyrics: “Should tell my boyfriend what I been doin’/ Been thinkin’ of you every time I screw him.” “We really believed in that song,” Henderson says.
Their faith was rewarded when two creators developed a dance set to the track. On TikTok, where trends bloom and die out rapidly, dance trends are ancient history — they were more common back in the platform’s early days, 2019 and 2020. But the “Tell Ur Girlfriend” dance “just went crazy,” according to Henderson. The song cracked the TikTok Billboard Top 50 chart in April. A week later, “Tell Ur Girlfriend,” debuted at No. 58 on the Billboard Hot 100 (dated April 27), thanks to nearly 9 million official U.S. streams, according to Luminate.
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Lay Bankz’s hit was one of 24 songs that appeared on the TikTok Billboard Top 50 before jumping to the Hot 100 in the first 11-ish months of 2024. (“Tell Ur Girlfriend” ended up spending three weeks at No. 1 on the former chart.) That’s a considerable number, but still ultimately a small percentage of the platform’s biggest 2024 hits: More than 600 songs appeared on the TikTok Billboard Top 50 during this period, showing that even hard-won virality on the massively popular app does not necessarily correlate with widespread listening activity.
Even so, marketers say it remains an essential plank of most campaigns — sometimes the only plank. “All roads lead back to TikTok at this point, in some capacity,” says Amy Hart, who worked at the digital marketing agency Flighthouse and the label 10k Projects before co-founding prairy, a new indie label. This remains true, she continues, even though “the odds of actually starting something from scratch are so small.”
TikTok is usually portrayed as an initiator, the platform that kicks off the chain-reaction that later creates a hit. The potential power of this approach can be seen when looking at the songs that made the leap from the TikTok Billboard Top 50 to the Hot 100 this year: They often climbed to the upper reaches of the chart — their average peak position was No. 18 on the Hot 100 — and they spent a healthy 20 weeks on the chart. (In total, 88 songs appeared on both the TikTok Billboard Top 50 and the Hot 100, including 37 that appeared on the two rankings the same week, and 27 tracks that did a reverse crossover, showing up on the Hot 100 first and then appearing on the TikTok Billboard Top 50.)
Digital marketers who focus on TikTok will face additional challenges in 2025. Most important, the future of TikTok is an open question (again). Federal judges recently upheld a law requiring Bytedance to sell the app by January 19th or face a ban in the U.S., where some 170 million people use TikTok.
The outcome of that fight is outside of marketers’ control. But closer to home, “the biggest thing that I’ve noticed is influencer campaigns just don’t work,” Hart says.
In TikTok’s early days, paying a creator with a following to make a video with an artist’s song was common, relatively cheap, and occasionally effective. While it’s still common, it’s now expensive and often worthless. “I’m starting to put less and less faith in influencer marketing as a vehicle for the distribution of and marketing of music,” says Sam Alavi, who co-manages the artist bbno$. (bbno$’s “It Boy” hit No. 10 on the TikTok Billboard Top 50 this year.)
Some marketers have instead looked to contest platforms, which recruit a pool of creators and offer them cash prizes to make videos with specific songs, awarding the money to the clips that get the most engagement. This ties performance to payment, in contrast to traditional influencer approach — most influencers charge a flat rate, so they get paid the same whether their video gets two views or 2 million.
The contest platforms offer “a much easier way to get a volume of sound uses” compared to reaching out to one influencer at a time, explains Marisa Kurtz, vp of marketing at Fearless Records. “And the contest element does encourage creators to make thoughtful videos in the hopes of getting the most views.”
Other executives haven’t seen as much success with this approach, however. “We’ve actually been working on moving away from contest-style campaigns in the last seven or eight months,” says Rafael Rocha, CEO of the marketing agency NuWave Digital. “Those are, in our view, also becoming inefficient and oversaturated.”
Another strategy that has caught on with marketers is to create and oversee their own artist fan pages, which can shotgun posts onto TikTok at a low cost. These accounts operate as if you had “a media outlet at your disposal at all times,” Laura Spinelli, digital marketing manager for Shopkeeper Management, told Billboard earlier this year. Tim Collins, co-founder of the digital marketing agency Creed Media, noted that fan pages “can tell the story of an artist without the artist having to be the voice.”
One thing is certain: Whatever approach works now is unlikely to work in three to six months. “Tik Tok is always moving and changing,” Hart says. As a result, marketers have to continuously adjust their approach.
“As much as we all like to think that we can sit down at this table and be like, ‘This is the thing that’s going to go viral,’’ Alavi adds, “none of us f–king know.”
12/16/2024
“Gata Only,” “La Diabla,” and more Latin hits took over 2024. See the list below.
12/16/2024
Coldplay crowns Billboard’s year-end Top Tours chart. Not far removed, Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, The Rolling Stones, U2 and Metallica follow in the top 10. Half of the ranking’s upper tier is made up of rock acts, allowing the long-dominant genre to have the biggest piece of the Boxscore pie. Among all dollars earned by 2024’s top 100 touring acts, rock is responsible for 36%, more than any other genre.
Rock’s rule is easily explained by its five acts in the top 10. But among artists between Nos. 11-20 on Top Tours, there is just one more name to add: Eagles at No. 19. Dominated by classic rock acts with chart-topping albums from the 1960s and ‘70s, the genre’s towering lead on stage has shrunk considerably over the course of the 21st century.
For every year but one between 2000-2010, rock acts represented more than 50% of Top Tours revenue, peaking at 68% in 2003. It’s only managed that once in the years since, when U2, Guns N’ Roses and Coldplay lined up at Nos. 1, 2, and 3, respectively, in 2017. Throughout the 2010s and into the 2020s, rock’s share bumped up and down year-to-year, but generally shifted from the majority to the mid-40% range, and now to the mid-30% range.
Watch the clip below to see how the genre makeup of Billboard’s top 100 tours has evolved over the course of the 21st century.
Rock’s share of the top 100 tours is actually up from last year, bumping from 32.4% to 36%. Still, it’s been below 40% for four of the last five years (excluding 2020 and 2021 because of venue closures due to COVID-19), off from an average of 57% throughout the 2000s decade. The genre’s reliance on legendary bands has left a gap as younger acts from other styles elevate to stadium status.
Pop is next in line, with 16.4% of 2024’s top 100 grosses. P!nk, Madonna and Olivia Rodrigo lead the charge, ticking up from last year’s 15.8%. One major caveat is the absence of Taylor Swift and the gargantuan grosses of The Eras Tour. While overall tour figures were published by The New York Times, data was not submitted to Billboard Boxscore for chart eligibility, which means that its earnings are excluded from this equation. It’s estimated that if this year’s grosses were reported, pop would reign supreme with 27-28%, sending rock into the 20%s in both 2023 and 2024.
Pop and rock have been the top two touring genres for every year this century, with the lone exception of 2003, when country music narrowly out-paced pop, 13% to 12.2%. But while they remain on top, the spread has become significantly more even in the post-pandemic years.
Latin music and rap both posted record highs this year, up to 15.8% and 5.7%, respectively. The former hit a new peak in 2022, when Bad Bunny had the year’s biggest tour, becoming the first artist who doesn’t primarily perform in English to earn top year-end honors. While no Latin act has reached those heights since, his stadium success is no longer an anomaly. Luis Miguel grossed $290.4 million this year, and four other Spanish-speaking artists crossed the $100 million threshold. At 5.3% in 2019, Latin artists returned from the pandemic at 12.1% in 2022, then 11.5% in 2023, and now approaching 16% in 2024.
Rap artists have yet to scale their touring business to the extent of their streaming prowess, but this year made quite a dent. The genre’s top-100 share shot from 2.7% to 5.7%, more than doubling its representation and eclipsing its prior peak from 2019. Four women helped push hip-hop’s boundaries, with Doja Cat, Missy Elliott, Megan Thee Stallion and Nicki Minaj outnumbering male rappers on the Top Tours chart for the first time. Plus, Travis Scott scores the genre’s biggest year-end gross ever, at $168 million.
The oscillations of each genre’s performance from one year to the next often comes down to scheduling. Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour was impactful enough to shift R&B artists from 5.3% in 2022 to 15.2% in 2023 and back to 5.9% in 2024. But the progression from pop and rock owning a combined 78.5% in 2000 to 52% in 2024 is indicative of gradual growth from a wide variety of diverse artists harnessing the power of their global audiences.
Dua Lipa’s list of 2024 musical accomplishments is comically long. In this year alone she’s done — deep breath — the following: released her third studio album, Radical Optimism; kicked off her biggest global tour yet; played a coveted Glastonbury Festival headline slot, the first British woman to do so since 2016; filmed a TV special at London’s Royal Albert Hall; performed onstage with Cher, Elton John and Chris Stapleton; and made a playful cameo on Charli xcx’s remixed version of brat.
“It’s honestly been the best year of my life. I’ve done things that I’ve wanted to do for so long,” Lipa tells Billboard U.K. with a laugh on a video call. She’s in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, when we speak, where she’s playing two nights at the city’s Axiata Arena. The run of dates in Asia, which has included stops in Tokyo, Singapore, Seoul and Bangkok, is her first in the region in six years. The crowds have been so “loud and fun,” she says, and she’s been “blown away” by their enthusiasm.
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“There came a point in the year where I was thinking, ‘I’ve got to sit down and write some new dreams and new plans and other things I wanted to do,’ ” she says. “I feel like I ticked so many of my boxes this year. It’s amazing.”
In May, the British Albanian artist released Radical Optimism (Warner), which peaked at No. 1 on the United Kingdom’s Official Albums Chart upon release and had the biggest opening week by a British female artist since Adele’s 30 in 2021. The record went to No. 1 throughout mainland Europe in Spain, France, The Netherlands and more, and hit No. 2 on the Billboard 200, her highest debut on the U.S. charts to date. Lead single “Houdini,” meanwhile, enjoyed a 17-week reign on Billboard’s Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart.
The 29-year-old is a fitting entry for Billboard U.K. in Billboard’s inaugural Global No. 1s series celebrating the biggest and most successful artists internationally over the past year.
Seven months after the album’s release, Lipa looks back fondly on recording it with the stellar house band that included Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker, hyperpop hero Danny L Harle, superproducer Andrew Wyatt and star songwriter Tobias Jesso Jr., along with her accomplished previous collaborators Caroline Ailin and Ian Kirkpatrick. Lipa has said it was inspired by Parker’s Tame Impala work and, speaking to Rolling Stone in February, dubbed it a “psychedelic-pop-infused tribute to U.K. rave culture.” A noticeable shimmy away from her disco-infused single “Dance the Night,” which appeared in the 2023 blockbuster Barbie film, Radical Optimism showed flashes of the turn-of-the-millennium French touch scene (“End of an Era”) and Parker’s signature psych-pop (“Training Season”).
Lipa sketched the blueprint for Radical Optimism following the success of her monster second album, 2020’s Future Nostalgia, which later spawned several hits, including “Levitating,” which was named the biggest song of 2021 on Billboard’s year-end Hot 100 chart. The set, which found an enthusiastic worldwide audience with its playful disco sheen during the COVID-19 lockdown, won best pop vocal album at the Grammys in 2021.
“Future Nostalgia doing what it did allowed me to grow as an artist, to push boundaries and change. It allowed me to have the confidence to make Radical Optimism,” Lipa tells Billboard U.K. “It gave me the freedom and confidence to be like, ‘You know who I really want to make an album with? Kevin Parker. And I want to do something a bit different; I want to work with Danny L Harle and experiment with my sound, do a different vocal performance and make pop music but allow that to live in another sonic world.’ It’s been fun to shape-shift.”
Dua Lipa backstage at the Axiata Arena in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on Nov. 24.
Elizabeth Miranda
In October, the songs received the ultimate stress test with a performance at London’s Royal Albert Hall, where she enlisted the 53-piece Heritage Orchestra, conducted by Ben Foster; 14 choristers; and her regular touring band for a bombastic, glitzy night at the capital’s most iconic music venue. She performed Radical Optimism in full, utilizing the brass section to give new heft to songs like “Houdini,” while elegant strings added another dimension to “French Exit” and “These Walls.” The in-the-round performance was captured for a TV special, An Evening With Dua Lipa (which aired Dec. 8 on ITV in the United Kingdom and will air Dec. 15 on CBS in the United States), and a live album, Dua Lipa Live at the Royal Albert Hall (out now).
“When we were in rehearsals, there was nothing quite like it: Those orchestral instrumentations just shook me to the core,” Lipa recalls. “Feeling my music in such a way that was so moving, it made me fall in love with music all over again.”
During the concert’s encore, John joined Lipa — the first time they performed live together — to sing their collaboration, “Cold Heart,” which topped charts globally upon release in 2021 (in its PNAU remix) and interpolates multiple John songs.
“Obviously Elton is no stranger to the Albert Hall himself and it felt like such a chic and elegant night, so I needed my most chic and fabulous friend to come and join me. He immediately said yes,” she says. “One thing about Elton is that he always shows up for his friends. He’s super loyal… he’s just always been there, lending his ear and being so supportive.”
Dua Lipa backstage at the Philippine Arena in Santa Maria, Philippines, on Nov. 13.
Elizabeth Miranda
The defining Dua Lipa performance of 2024, however, was not in the austere, lavish Albert Hall but in a Somerset field in southwest England. Worthy Farm, where Glastonbury Festival is held, is usually full of dairy cows gently grazing in the lush greenery, but on June 28, they were replaced with a sea of sequined spectators for Lipa’s headlining slot on the festival’s Pyramid Stage. The impassioned, fun, formidable set (during which Parker joined Lipa onstage) aired live on BBC One and globally on the broadcaster’s website.
The show marked her second Glastonbury appearance, following a 2017 mid-afternoon performance that attracted one of that weekend’s biggest crowds — and, following on the heels of her self-titled debut album’s release, helped catalyze her star turn.
Returning as a Pyramid Stage headliner (on Friday, so she could party the rest of the weekend at the festival with her partner, actor Callum Turner, and some pals) had been on her agenda ever since. “I try not to let these moments pass me by so I made sure that when I was standing up there I took as many mental pictures as I could,” she says. At one point, she headed out toward the crowd and turned to face the stage, focusing on its apex: a shining white tip sending a beam of light into the starry night sky.
Prior to the performance, Lipa had switched off her phone to get in the zone. When she got back to her dressing room afterward, she had a deluge of texts.
“It was so beautiful. I had so many messages from previous headliners,” she says. “You sort of earn this badge of honor in that moment, and it felt like I joined the coolest club in the world.” One came from Adele, the last female British act before Lipa to top the bill in 2016. “She said, ‘I’ve been thinking about you all day and just wanted to wish you luck for tonight. Don’t forget to soak it all in.’ Looking back at that Pyramid was me trying to do that.”
Dua Lipa backstage at MMRDA Grounds in Mumbai, India, on Nov. 30.
Elizabeth Miranda
Radical Optimism is the first album Lipa has released since striking a deal with TaP Music, her former management and publishing group, to acquire ownership of her songs, music, masters and publishing rights. The move dovetailed with news that Lipa would now be managed by her father, Dukagjin Lipa, and in 2024, she expanded her nonmusic offerings: Her company Radical22 produced the Disney+ documentary Camden, about the north London borough and its music scene; she starred in the action-comedy Argylle; and her Service95 newsletter — which compiles recommendations for food, literature and more — grew in stature. No surprise, then, that The Sunday Times featured her on its annual Rich List, estimating a $113 million (90 million pounds) net worth.
“This is really me stepping into my role not just as a creator but as a businesswoman,” she says. “It comes with the understanding that as much as I want to stay on the creative side, I have to be knowledgeable about all aspects of my career if I want to have longevity.
“I think for every artist that’s really important — and as much as we might not want to, as the easiest thing is to go into the studio and write the songs and whatever happens, happens — it just can’t be that way,” she continues. “Every artist should be educated on that. It’s really important for us to be in control or at least know what’s happening with our careers and not turn a blind eye.”
Elsewhere, she’s consistently voiced support of Gaza during the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, and she was also named a champion for the Trevor Project, the suicide prevention charity that supports LGBTQ+ youth. “Anything I can do as a supporter to help out in any way with the platform that I have, I’m fully willing and open to all of that,” she says.
But, despite her many achievements, something noteworthy eluded Lipa on this cycle: Radical Optimism did not receive any nominations for the upcoming Grammys, a surprise given her 10 career nominations in years past (including a win for best new artist in 2019) and the fact that her performance kicked off the 2024 ceremony.
“I’m so proud of Radical Optimism and where it’s brought me. I love that album and I’m having the time of my life performing it live, and I’ve been able to do things that I thought I could only dream of this year, so I’m really grateful,” she confidently says of the record’s impact on her career. “Although it would have been nice to be recognized by your industry, especially as a woman, I’m so proud seeing so many incredible female artists nominated at the Grammys this year.”
Dua Lipa backstage at the Singapore Indoor Stadium on Nov. 6.
Elizabeth Miranda
Lipa has particular love for Charli xcx, a longtime pal who received several Grammy nods for brat. She had a cameo on the remix of Charli’s “Talk talk” alongside Troye Sivan, with Lipa speaking in French and Spanish on the track.
“I love her so much and she’s always been a really good friend of mine and been so supportive from day one. She deserves all the flowers,” Lipa says of Charli. “She’s worked her arse off, and it’s so beautiful to see her get the recognition she deserves. She’s really stuck to her guns and allowed herself to be creative in her own way, and it’s paid off. That’s the best thing that can ever happen to an artist. She’s so deserving of every moment.”
As for where her own career is, “Overall I’m really happy with where I am,” Lipa says. “I don’t think it really matters in the grand scheme of things where I am, where I want to be and where I’m going. It doesn’t change the way I feel about the record at all.”
Now, as 2024 comes to a close, Lipa is enjoying some well-earned rest before her biggest tour yet. In March 2025, her Radical Optimism tour kicks off its next leg in Australia and New Zealand before heading to Europe and the United Kingdom, which includes two sold-out nights at London’s 90,000-capacity Wembley Stadium and Liverpool’s historic Anfield Stadium. Then in September, she’s off to North America with 24 arena dates including a whopping four nights at New York’s Madison Square Garden and another four at L.A.’s Kia Forum.
She speaks about manifestation, the idea that she must imagine her biggest goals and achievements for them to become a reality. In fact, Lipa’s use of the word contributed to the Cambridge Dictionary naming “manifest” its word of the year. She remains coy, however, of what’s next on the agenda. “I can’t really tell you, as they have to be a secret to come true…” she says. If her past year is anything to go by, we’ll know it when we see it.
Get ready to toss your beads. On Feb. 8, Diplo and Dom Dolla will co-headline Sports Illustrated‘s annual Super Bowl weekend event, SI The Party, in New Orleans.
The event will go down at Mardi Gras World, a 300,000-square foot facility and local institution where some of the floats for the city’s annual Mardi Gras parades have been made for the last 80 years.
In addition to the music, the event will feature activations from brand partners. Premium and VIP tickets go on sale Friday, Dec. 20, with pre-registration open now. VIP passes start at $499.99 and include access to the performances, a five-hour open bar and more.
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SI The Party has become a Super Bowl weekend tradition, with artists including Kygo, The Chainsmokers and Jack Harlow headlining the show in years, and Super Bowl-hosting cities, past. The party typically draws a crowd of sports stars and other heavy hitters, with past attendees including Alex Rodriguez, Shaquille O’Neal, Justin and Hailey Bieber, Kim Kardashian, Miles Teller, Machine Gun Kelly, Kevin Hart, Leonardo Di Caprio and more.
“From the very beginning, our goal has been to create the best experiences at the world’s biggest sports stages,” EVP of entertainment and special projects at Authentic Brands Group, Sports Illustrated’s parent company, said in a statement. “We’ve built SI The Party into a must-attend event, where sports and culture converge in a celebration that is second to none.
“With New Orleans as our backdrop and our unparalleled lineup of talent,” he continues, “this will be the most exciting SI The Party yet.”
The 2025 Super Bowl happens Feb. 9 at New Orleans’ Caesars Superdome. Competing teams will be determined during the NFL Playoffs, which begin Jan. 11.
See the flyer for SI The Party below:
Sports Illustrated The Party 2025 flyer
Courtesy Medium Rare for SI The Party
For the first time in Boxscore history, four female rappers land among the year’s top 100 touring artists. Further, women rappers outnumber male rappers for the first time on the all-genre list. Nicki Minaj (No. 30), Doja Cat (No. 61), Missy Elliott (No. 70), and Megan Thee Stallion (No. 76) finish on the year-end Top Tours chart, while closing at Nos. 2, 5, 6, and 7, respectively, on Top Rap Tours.
This year marks the first year with more than one female rapper among the top 100, let alone four. In fact, there had only been four instances of women in hip-hop ever making the all-genre list, dating back to the first year-end roundup in 1991.
Salt-N-Pepa did it first, at No. 53 in 1994 with a gross of $3.9 million, according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore.
Five years later, fresh off five Grammy wins for her R&B-rap-hybrid The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, the titular rapper was No. 43 with $7.1 million.
Then, two of this year’s group made their debuts: Missy Elliott in 2004, as a co-headliner alongside Beyoncé and Alicia Keys on the Verizon Ladies First Tour ($21.8 million), and Nicki Minaj in 2015 on The Pinkprint Tour ($15.5 million).
That means that representation for female rappers across 34 year-end editions has doubled with just this year’s tally. This count excludes year-end appearances by pop and R&B acts who occasionally rap, such as Beyoncé, Lizzo or SZA.
2024 goes down as a banner year for the touring industry overall, with record grosses surpassing $9 billion among the top 100 artists. And amid that enormous success, rap makes up a bigger piece of the pie than ever before, responsible for 5.7% of those dollars, up from 2.7% last year. The genre’s seven tours in the top 100 matches 2019’s high and improves upon last year’s count of three. Nicki, Doja, Missy and Megan made that possible, not only disrupting hip-hop’s gender monopoly — it’s been nine years since a woman was among rap’s top-100 finalists — but taking over and pushing hip-hop over the edge, outnumbering male rappers for the first time on the all-genre list. Travis Scott (No. 15), $uicideboy$ (No. 48) and 50 Cent (No. 49) round out rap’s representation on the chart.
Minaj is No. 30 on Top Tours with $99.8 million and 712,000 tickets, marking all-time highs for year-end rank, gross and attendance among female rappers, barely outdoing the No. 31 finish for Elliott’s Verizon co-headline 20 years ago. Notably, the Pink Friday 2 World Tour continued beyond the confines of the 2024 tracking period (Oct. 1, 2023 – Sept. 30, 2024), finishing in mid-October with a final gross of $108.9 million from 788,000 tickets, making it the first tour by a female rapper to cross the nine-figure milestone.
Doja Cat and Megan Thee Stallion each made their mark on their debut arena tours. Both acts experienced major breakthroughs in 2020 while concert venues were closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. They scored their first No. 1s on the Billboard Hot 100 just two weeks apart, as “Say So,” hot off a remix with fellow arena titan Nicki Minaj, topped the chart dated May 16, 2020, and “Savage,” boosted by a re-up with rare rap verses by Beyoncé, hit the summit on May 30.
Doja and Megan’s tours reported earnings of $46 million and $40.2 million, respectively, both primarily in the U.S. and Canada, with a sprinkle of European headline shows.
This year also marked the first solo headline tour for Missy Elliott, though it comes nearly 30 years after her debut studio album. Though she wasn’t a road warrior, she amassed major chart success, with six top 20 albums on the Billboard 200 and 10 top 10s on the Hot 100 from 1997-2005.
Beyond hip-hop’s year-end elite, a small handful of female rappers provide promise for the years to come. Ice Spice sold thousands of tickets in Boston, Oakland, and Washington, D.C., while Sexyy Red graduated from clubs last fall (972 tickets in Boston; 1,580 in Richmond, Va.) to arenas, approaching 10,000 tickets in Fort Worth, Texas (9,703 at Dickies Arena on Aug. 30), and Brooklyn (9,631 at Barclays Center on Sept. 17). GloRilla, with eight Hot 100 hits this year, spent hot girl summer as direct support on Megan Thee Stallion’s sold-out trek.
Nicki Minaj, Doja Cat, Missy Elliott and Megan Thee Stallion grossed a combined $227.8 million from 1.7 million tickets across 148 shows in the 2024 tracking window.
After announcing that he’ll be back on the road after seven years with his Importante Tour 2025-2026, Miguel Bosé is preparing to return to the United States next fall, with seven dates in as many cities.
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Ahead of his U.S. dates, Bosé will launch the trek in February in Mexico and will travel across Spain in the summer.
The U.S. leg of the tour, produced by Live Nation, is set to launch on Oct. 2 in New York City at The Theater at Madison Square Garden, according to a press release sent in advance to Billboard. The Spanish pop icon will also make stops in Rosemont, Ill.; Irving and Houston, Texas; and San Diego and Inglewood, Calif., where the trek will conclude on Nov. 8 at the YouTube Theater.
A presale for Citi card members starts Tuesday (Dec. 17) at 10 a.m. ET and ends Thursday (Dec. 19) at 10 p.m. ET through the program Citi Entertainment, with general tickets going on sale Friday (Dec. 20) at 10 a.m. local time at miguelbose.com. There will also be VIP packages available for purchase here.
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After dealing with voice issues that kept him away from the stage for several years, Bosé announced his Importante Tour 2025-2026 on Nov. 18 through a series of posts on social media.
“It’s the reborn BOSÉ. It’s the fully matured BOSÉ. It’s the warrior of the NEW ERA, the family man, the CONSCIOUS, the CONNECTED, the SPIRITUAL. It’s the IMPORTANT one,” he wrote.
A month earlier, on Oct. 18, Bosé hinted that something big was coming by posting a video on Instagram featuring his perennial song “Bandido” as the soundtrack.
“Fantastic. We are all happy, and it will be an honor,” he said at the end of the clip, which included a collage of images of him smiling, posing in a photo shoot, and singing live at past massive shows.
With more than 30 million albums sold throughout a five decades career, Bosé is one of the most recognized Latin pop artists globally. On the Billboard charts, he has placed hits like “Nena,” “Morena Mía,” and “Como un Lobo” on Hot Latin Songs and Latin Airplay, and multiple albums in the top 10 of the Top Latin Albums ranking, including Papito, Cardio, and Papitwo.
Bosé’s influence extends beyond music. Awarded with accolades such as the Latin Recording Academy 2013 Person of the Year, the Global Gift Humanitarian Award and Telemundo’s El Poder en Ti, as a philanthropist, Bosé is deeply involved in causes such as Patrimonio Indígena Mex, Fundación Lucha Contra el Sida, and National Geographic’s Pristine Seas.
Check out the dates and venues announced in the U.S. for Bosé’s Importante Tour 2025-2026:
Oct. 2: The Theater at Madison Square Garden (New York City)Oct. 4: Kaseya Center (Miami)Oct. 11: Rosemont Theatre (Rosemont, Ill.)Oct. 24: The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory (Irving, Texas)Oct. 25: Smart Financial Centre at Sugar Land (Houston)Nov. 7: Cal Coast Credit Union Open Air Theatre (San Diego)Nov. 8: YouTube Theater (Inglewood, Calif.)
Sphere rules Billboard’s Top Venues (15,001+ capacity) chart for 2024, with a monstrous gross of $420.5 million from 1.3 million tickets sold. Not only does that secure the top spot among venues in its capacity range, but it’s also the highest gross for any venue of any size this year. Beyond the scope of the year-end charts, it’s the biggest annual gross for any venue in Boxscore history.
Sphere is the first venue to register a year-end gross of more than $300 million and $400 million. Only four artists ever grossed more than Sphere’s total in one year-end period: The Rolling Stones in 2006, Ed Sheeran in 2018, Beyonce in 2023, and, based on overall finals for The Eras Tour, Taylor Swift in 2023 and 2024.
The Las Vegas room attracts residency acts just like The Colosseum at Caesars Palace or Dolby Live, pushing high ticket prices for stadium artists in a more intimate setting. But unlike those theaters’ four-digit capacity, which ultimately keeps total grosses within the stratosphere, Sphere is a full-sized arena, selling 15,000-17,000 tickets per show. With a floor-to-ceiling wrapround LED screen, 4D physical effects and immersive audio, it’s a high-ticket attraction for once-in-a-career productions.
U2 launched Sphere’s calendar in September 2023, kicking off with a 17-show run that brought in $109.8 million from 281,000 tickets sold. Two more legs followed on U2: UV Achtung Baby Live at Sphere, ultimately closing in March with $244.5 million and 663,000 tickets. That makes it the fourth highest-grossing residency in Boxscore history, despite running for just six months with 40 shows. Billy Joel’s Madison Square Garden tenure, above it at No. 3 on the all-time tally, played for 10 years with 104 shows.
Phish followed with a long weekend of shows from April 18-21, bringing in $13.4 million and selling 66,700 tickets.
Dead & Company was next, with a seasonal residency, playing 30 shows between May 16 and Aug. 10. Ultimately, it earned a spot in the top 10 of the all-time residency list, with $131.8 million and 477,000 tickets. That’s a bigger gross than any of Dead & Co.’s annual tours, dating back to its 2015 inception.
Sphere’s current residents are the Eagles, in the middle of an ongoing stint that is scheduled well into 2025. The band’s first eight shows scored $42.2 million and sold 131,000 tickets.
The Top Venues chart is not the only place where Sphere shines on Billboard’s year-end report. U2 lands at No. 7 on the Top Tours list, exclusively from its Vegas shows. Bono’s boys are joined by Dead & Company on Top Rock Tours, with both acts in the top 10 — U2 at No. 4 and Dead & Company at No. 8. On Top Boxscores, which measures individual shows, or a run of shows at the same venue, U2 blocks out the top three with its Sphere legs.
In all, including shows by U2 and the Eagles that fit into the 2023 and 2025 Boxscore tracking periods, and an additional non-music event, Sphere’s 83 reported shows have brought in $452.3 million and played to 1.4 million fans.
Coldplay has broken world records on the Music of the Spheres World Tour, even with almost 50 more shows still scheduled for next year. According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, the global trek has sold more tickets than any tour in history since its launch in March 2022, at 10.3 million — so far.
The Music of the Spheres World Tour has been a global event, selling out stadiums on five continents. Half of the tour’s 175 concerts have been in Europe, where it sold 5.2 million tickets over 87 shows. It has added 1.8 million in South America, 1.6 million in North America, 884,000 in Asia and 848,000 in Australia.
Not only has Coldplay performed around the world, but demand has also been neatly spread. Among the tour’s top 10 marks, all five continents are represented, from São Paulo, Brazil, to Gothenburg, Sweden, to Singapore.
The tour’s biggest report so far was a run of 10 shows from Oct. 25 – Nov. 8, 2022, at Buenos Aires’ Estadio Unico Ciudad de la Plata. Those dates sold 627,000 tickets, marking the best-selling engagement in Boxscore history.
In more than half of the stops on the Music of the Spheres World Tour — 39 of 64 — Coldplay has sold over 100,000 tickets. In 51 of those cities, the band played multiple shows. Notably, 10 of the 13 cities where it played just one night are in the United States, while just eight of its top 10 markets are primarily non-English-speaking locations.
Watch the clip below to see Coldplay traverse the globe on its way to record-setting ticket sales.
The Music of the Spheres World Tour has sold more than 3 million tickets and grossed more than $300 million in each of the three years since it kicked off. In the 2024 chart year, marked by shows from Oct. 1, 2023, to Sept. 30, 2024, Coldplay brought in $400.9 million and sold 3.02 million tickets, earning the top spot on Billboard’s year-end Top Tours (ranked by gross) and Top Ticket Sales (ranked by attendance) charts. It’s the band’s second straight year at No. 1 on the latter tally.
Dating back almost 40 years, all Boxscore charts are based on figures reported to Billboard. Data is reported from a variety of official industry sources, from artist managers and agents to promoters and venue executives. Reporting is voluntary, and some artists, venues, and promoters opt to withhold data from representation on the charts. Though overall two-year totals for Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour were published by The New York Times — $2.08 billion, making it the highest-grossing tour in history, and nearly 10.2 million tickets — they were not submitted to Billboard Boxscore for chart eligibility, excluding the tour from 2024 year-end charts.
Since its launch, the Music of the Spheres World Tour has grossed $1.14 billion. That separates it by more than $900 million from The Eras Tour, despite Coldplay outselling Swift’s run by more than 150,000 tickets. Both treks have played a similar number of shows (149 for Swift; 175 for Coldplay, so far) and charted familiar routes around five continents.
Evenly distributed across its three-year run, The Music of the Spheres World Tour has averaged a $110.46 ticket price. The tipping point was in Asia, where 16 shows averaged $146.43, while the other end of the spectrum is the tour’s first leg of 11 shows in central America ($77.74).
Coldplay’s 2025 calendar has 48 scheduled concerts, ranging from Toronto to Hong Kong, and Navi Mumbai to London, where the tour will presumably wrap with 10 shows at Wembley Stadium. Already the best-selling tour in history, The Music of the Spheres World Tour will undoubtably extend its lead next year, approaching a total count of 13 million tickets.
Dating back to Coldplay’s first Boxscore report at Commodore Ballroom in Vancouver on Feb. 8, 2001 ($11,000; 900 tickets), the band has earned more than $2 billion and sold 21.1 million tickets.
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