Music

The Rolling Stones haven’t had a hit on the Billboard Hot 100 for two decades, but they continue to perform well on Billboard’s Top Tours chart. This year, the band, led by 80-year-old Mick Jagger, came in at No. 6 on the list of tours reported to Billboard Boxscore from Oct. 1, 2023, to Sept. 30, 2024, with $235 million in ticket sales. Perhaps more impressive, the group brought in that much money for playing just 18 concerts, less than any other act in the top 10. Its secret? Charging a lot for tickets.

By comparison, Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, which edged out the Stones to come in at No. 5, grossed $235.5 million from 39 shows with an average ticket price of $147.25. Coldplay, which came in at No. 1 with $400.9 million, played 51 shows. Luis Miguel played 128 shows — the most of anyone in the top 10 — and grossed $290.4 million to come in at No. 4. With an average ticket price of $277.16, the Stones made an average of $13.1 million a show. Miguel played to more people — 2 million instead of 848,000 — but his tickets sold for an average of just over $143.37 and he made $2.3 million a show.

Since top acts typically sell out most dates, three major factors influence tour grosses: number of performances, size of venues and ticket prices. And 2024 was the year that price mattered more than ever. This year’s top 100 tours took in $9.1 billion, a 21.6% increase in revenue over the previous year. But those shows were seen by an audience of 69.8 million, an increase of 10.7% — only half as much. At a time when many promoters use dynamic pricing to maximize revenue without leaving seats empty, more pricing power meant more money.

Some of these increases come from changes in the way the chart is calculated. Last year, Billboard shortened its Boxscore reporting period from 12 months to 11 in order to make some one-time changes to eligibility for the Billboard Music Awards. This 2024 chart is once again based on a 12-month reporting period, so apples-to-apples comparisons are difficult. But the change is still easy to see. If one annualizes last year’s 11-month reporting period, attendance for the top 100 tours would be up about 4% and revenue would be up nearly 14%.

One more caveat: For the second year in a row, the Top Tours chart does not include figures for Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour. Final figures were published by The New York Times on Dec. 9, but a show-by-show breakdown has yet to be submitted to Billboard Boxscore for chart eligibility. Given the tour’s two-year $2 billion gross, its 2024 sum would have pushed ticket sales totals for the year’s top 100 tours over $10 billion for the first time.

ROAD WARRIORS

A look at the top 10 tours shows the power of pricing. Overall the average ticket price for the top 100 tours was $132.30, up from $119.64 last year. The top touring act of the year, Coldplay, brought in $400 million from stadium shows in the United States, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. (Coldplay, promoted by Live Nation, was No. 2 last year with $342 million from 37 shows.) And it did so with an average ticket price of $132.79, the second-lowest among the top 10 acts.

P!nk, whose shows were promoted by Live Nation and the independent Marshall Arts, is No. 2, taking in $387 million from 73 concerts with an average ticket price of $139.47; she played more shows but to fewer people in total. (Last year, P!nk was No. 6 with $226 million from 37 shows.) Zach Bryan is No. 3 with $321.3 million from a 64-show tour promoted by AEG Presents. Bryan charged an average of $196.38.

The top ticket price in the top 10 was $367.13, for U2’s 38 shows at Sphere in Las Vegas, which took in $231.1 million, good for No. 7. Madonna came in at No. 8 with $225.4 million. Bad Bunny is No. 9 with $211.4 million and the second-highest average ticket price: $280.67. Metallica rounds out the top 10 with $175.2 million and a fan-friendly average price of $116.80.

One question the touring business has to deal with is, how high is too high? The $132.30 average ticket price for the top 100 tours is up 9.1% from 2023, when it had risen 10.5% from 2022. That’s an increase of 20.6% in two years. For most of the decade before the pandemic, ticket prices rose about 2% or 3% a year, close to the pace of inflation.

What happened? Over the past five years, the concert business has completely changed its view on pricing. Until around 2000, most promoters seemed to price tickets by calculating the cost of a show, adding a reasonable profit margin and then charging enough to reach that number. That changed over the following decade with the rise of resale sites like StubHub — and the accompanying realization that fans were willing to pay far more for tickets than promoters thought, especially for the best seats. To raise revenue, promoters and ticketing companies started using the same kinds of variable pricing and dynamic pricing strategies as hotels and airlines — in some cases opaquely. The idea, as in those businesses, is to maximize overall revenue without leaving empty seats. Over the past few years, companies like Live Nation’s Ticketmaster and AEG’s AXS have invested millions in software to price seats dynamically, in real time, according to demand.

A common reaction is that this puts concert tickets out of reach for many consumers. But a substantial part of the increase in average prices comes from the skyrocketing price of the best tickets. Also, dynamic pricing should adjust downward the price of unsold tickets to ensure that they, too, get sold.

It’s also worth noting that concertgoers have had sticker shock for decades. In 1969, according to an article in Rolling Stone, Jagger was asked at a press conference at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel if the Stones were gouging their fans by charging up to $8.50 a ticket at the Los Angeles Forum. “Is that a lot?” Jagger replied. “You’ll have to tell me.”

Adjusted for inflation, that $8.50 would have buying power of $67.34 today, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics — and the price of Stones tickets is up more than four times that. Then again, the average Stones fan has much more money, as well as a sense that the band can’t keep touring forever.

FESTIVAL FUNK

As ticket prices increase, business is becoming harder for festival organizers, who have to pay more for compelling headliners. Festivals that used to make competitive offers for top-tier talent have seen their buying power diminished as more artists realize they have the pricing power to earn more revenue from traditional shows.

Only a few festivals report ticket sales revenue to Billboard Boxscore. But most promoters or festival ticketing experts agree that festival ticket sales declined in 2023 and 2024 for both flagships like Coachella and Bonnaroo, as well as smaller and independent events.

Artists that play festivals generally agree to increasingly rigid radius clauses that restrict how close to the event they can perform and when they can promote their nearby shows. They agreed to those deals because festivals could pay headliners $3 million to $5 million for a 90-minute set — more than the $1.5 million to $2.5 million most could make for an arena show. That was before average ticket prices rose so much.

This does not bode well for the long-term future of festivals, at least the way they currently operate. But festivals only represent a fraction of the business of Live Nation and AEG, the global concert promotion giants. Live Nation promotes Coldplay, Miguel and Madonna, among others. AEG handles Swift, Bryan and George Strait, the No. 24 touring act. On June 15, Strait performed the stadium concert with the highest attendance in Billboard Boxscore history at Texas A&M University’s Kyle Field in College Station, Texas, in front of 110,000 fans.

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Music Business Year In Review