State Champ Radio Touring
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It’s no secret that Taylor Swift and Beyoncé staged the two biggest tours of 2023, with Swift even continuing the Eras Era throughout 2024. But not only did both artists earn record-breaking grosses and affect local economies with their treks, the stage shows also juiced each artist’s recorded music consumption.
Luminate and Billboard partnered to dig deeper into the connection between touring and streaming, capping a colossal year of headline tours. Beyoncé and Swift proved perfect examples of artists’ abilities to capitalize on their concert calendar to not only score a local bump in each city but sustain long-term national interest throughout the duration of their tours and beyond.
Both Beyoncé and Swift saw expected bumps to their consumption totals upon their respective tour kick-offs. When The Eras Tour launched, Swift’s U.S. on-demand audio streaming count increased by 59% in the week ending March 23, according to Luminate. For Beyoncé, the effects were teased out, as the tour’s first leg in Europe allowed domestic streaming to build slowly before her North American arrival. By the end of their U.S. runs, streams were up – from the week before each tour began through the release of each artist’s concert film – by 106% and 34%, respectively.
Initially, these bumps could be explained by the analysis of touring’s local short-term impact on consumption. In each city that Beyoncé and Swift played, market-level streams immediately grew by 89% and 95%, respectively, on average. But as their tours continued, isolated regional bumps compounded on one another, with particular narratives and trends aggregating to a mountain of consumption at the national level.
The mere announcement (Feb. 1, 2023) of Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour – coupled with the 65th Annual Grammy awards, where she did not perform but accepted two record-breaking trophies – spurred three weeks of gains, as the tour’s on-sale kept excitement alive. The beginning of Beyoncé’s domestic dates naturally fueled consumption in dramatic fashion with six consecutive weeks of increases (July 7 – Aug. 17).
Beyoncé stretched out her summer streaming bump with intention, focusing on individual moments of choreography and arrangements within the setlist. For “Energy,” a deep cut from Renaissance, she made a meal out of the lyric, “Look around, everybody on mute.” She took it literally, pausing the song and freezing alongside her dancers and band, teasing the audience before resuming, “Look around, it’s me and my crew/ Big energy.”
The Mute Challenge soon became an integral part of the show. By the time “Energy” hit its own streaming peak of 1.7 million clicks (week ending Sept. 7), it had nearly tripled its consumption from before the tour.
When Beyoncé performed “My Power,” a non-single from The Lion King: The Gift, she was joined by daughter Blue Ivy Carter on stage. Their much-memed and much-imitated dance routine entered the cannon of iconic Beyoncé choreography, with fans tracking Blue’s progress throughout the tour. The track posted explosive streaming gains over several months, ultimately up 449% by its peak (the week ending Aug. 17) from before the tour’s launch (the week ending May 4).
Spotlights for under-the-radar tracks like “Energy” and “My Power” yielded organic, drawn-out increases in consumption that snowballed alongside a parade of guest stars, controversy over the Queens Remix of “Break My Soul,” and a constant influx of social media content showcasing Beyoncé’s rotating wardrobe from local designers.
Swift’s catalog soared as soon as her tour began on March 17. Even before the July 7 release of Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), which warped her streams beyond the impact of The Eras Tour, consumption had almost doubled, at 372.9 million clicks in the week ending June 1. After the new release receded, her catalog maintained, at 391.4 million by the U.S. leg’s end in the week ending Aug. 10.
Like Beyoncé, Swift found songs within her ever-expanding catalog to highlight, particularly those that weren’t already world-conquering hits. Even with a nightly setlist of more than 40 songs, she left room each night to perform two rotating “surprise songs.” On average, the surprise songs got a 27% bump the week of their performance. Removing performances of songs from Speak Now after the release of the Taylor’s Version set, more affected by new-release streaming patterns than the typical tour impact, the average gain bumps to 31%.
After the exposure and subsequent streaming increase, the typical next-week drop was just 5%, indicating that inclusion in the surprise-song section encouraged sustained streaming action.
Within the show’s routine set pieces, Swift turned a fan-favorite into a Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hit. Lover’s “Cruel Summer,” from 2019, was the first properly performed song each night at The Eras Tour, helping to reignite Swifties’ passion for the album cut. Without an official music video or announcement, even as Swift launched the 2022 Midnights track “Karma” as a single with its Ice Spice remix, “Cruel Summer” showed unstoppable growth from the tour’s launch. Steady between 1.9-2.1 million streams in the early months of 2023, the song ballooned to 16.7 million by the final U.S. show (in the week ending Aug. 10).
The prolonged championing of “Cruel Summer” and the one-after-another success of Swift’s surprise songs underlined The Eras Tour’s ability to transform her from superstar to stratosphere. Her relationships, philanthropy and seemingly every move during the tour continued to fuel her consumption, consistently more than double the streams she drew from earlier that year.
Both Beyoncé and Swift extended their good fortunes with the release of record-breaking concert films, each delivering profits for distributor AMC and more consumption boosts for their catalogs. The seeds they planted with “Energy, “Cruel Summer” and more took full bloom, even inside movie theaters, with audiences singing and dancing along — except when they had to be on mute.
Months after each tour wrapped in the U.S., Renaissance: A Film By Beyoncé scored the pop-dance-R&B(-country) chameleon a streaming increase of 54% the week of its Dec. 1 release, while Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour earned its once-country-now-pop star a 20% boost upon its Oct. 13 release.
Beyoncé and Swift are, of course, enormous stars that were likely to attract some amount of attention for going on tour even if they didn’t plan and work for these kinds of long-term rewards. But this kind of long-term, national growth isn’t only reserved for top-of-the-line megastars, as Maluma, ODESZA and Weezer experienced similar touring impact last year.
Both five years removed from their last stadium tours, Beyoncé and Swift designed their shows for maximum impact and staged campaigns that turned each trek into an era of its own.
Click here for more on the symbiotic relationship between touring and streaming.
The Oak View Group (OVG) will soon enter a key phase of its long-planned pivot to international markets with the opening of Coop Live in Manchester, United Kingdom, next month.
After its record post-pandemic run — which included opening seven arenas in 16 months, including Climate Change Arena in Seattle, UBS Arena in New York and Acrisure Arena in Palm Springs, Calif. — the Tim Lewieke-led management and development company will transition from U.K. venue developer to U.K. venue operator in one of Europe’s largest concert and live entertainment economies.
First Manchester, then the world, says Francesca Leiweke-Bodie, OVG’s COO (and Leiweke’s daughter). She explains the United Kingdom will be the launch point for expanding the company’s private-public partnership model, which looks to government groups to aid in land acquisition in exchange for fully private financing and development work. Leiweke-Bodie says the model is key to driving expansion opportunities into Africa, Asia and the Middle East, where huge gaps in the world’s touring infrastructure prevent popular arena and stadium tours from accessing hundreds of millions of fans.
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Billboard recently caught up with Leiweke-Bodie to discuss the opening of Coop Live and detail OVG’s near-term expansion plans around the globe.
Why did OVG decide to begin their international expansion efforts with the Manchester project?
London and the U.K. have always been a frontrunner for where we as a company want to plant a flag and show the other countries and municipalities that we’re speaking to about public-private partnerships and prove what is possible when the private sector can step in and invest. That doesn’t happen as much overseas, where the market is really heavily driven by municipal financing. Having this project in the U.K., a $375 million privately funded arena with huge community support and more than $1 million going back to the local business — when other potential partners come to Manchester and see what we are doing, there is no doubt that we’re the real deal and will deliver on our promises.
What’s the biggest challenge OVG faces in its efforts to expand internationally?
I think the hardest thing to come by, whether it’s domestically or internationally, is land. We want to build in the urban core. We want to be where the fans want to be — in the city centers. We can do everything else. We’ll build it. We’ll finance it. We’ll book it. We’ll take the risk. But the partnership that we’re always looking for is the land opportunity. Most of these cities are much older than the United States with dense urban cores that we can’t even fathom. To find four or five acres available to build these types of projects with access to public transit is the crux of what we’re trying to create with these city partnerships. There’s also inbound opportunities from local owners and developers that see an opportunity to take land that they might have identified for retail and say, “Let’s rethink this.”
Once the Manchester facility opened, what’s next for OVG?
Hamilton, Ontario is next. It’s an existing 18,000-seat arena we’ve already started work on, taking the building down to its studs and [which] will reopen in late April. It’s the first project in Toronto that was a public-private partnership and ultimately became a renovation project, but it’s effectively a new arena. In North America, there’s only a few strategic markets left where one could make a really big difference with another arena. But overseas, we have a tremendous amount of opportunity because of the growth internationally of global music, from American country music to Latin.
What other metropolitan characteristics appeal to OVG?
Countries or cities that not only attract from surrounding countries but serve as the point of destination for a much broader area. One example is Sao Paulo in Brazil. From a financial perspective, Sao Paulo is an incredible point of destination for not only Brazil, but for Latin America. That’s why we want to plant our flag there because it doesn’t have an arena. Vienna, Austria is the same thing. You know, it is central to continental Europe. You can get to it from six different countries via car. We have about two dozen cities like that we’ve identified.
How does programming and booking drive the OVG strategy?
That’s such a key element. The first domino that we were really thinking about and analyzing from a construction and design perspective is making sure that the building is both turnkey and equipped with all acoustic treatments and back-of-house amenities to accommodate major tours. We talk to local promoters, and figure out what is coming in the rider and work with our partners at the building to alleviate costs. Arenas have to compete with the stadium shows and we have to make the economics work so we’re really looking at the take-home revenue for an artist to make sure that their touring costs are competitive and can exceed the expectations of fans and market partners.
Eight months following an abrupt halt due to “excessive crowds” at Central Park’s SummerStage, Juanes made a grand return to New York City, delivering an unforgettable performance at Radio City Music Hall on Thursday (March 15).
“I can finally see your faces since the last time I was here [in New York] at SummerStage,” Juanes said during his show, reflecting on the history-making moment when, for the first time in 30 years, SummerStage had to stop an ongoing concert because of a non-weather-related problem. “My heart is full thanks to you; I am very happy to be here.”
The sold-out Radio City performance was highly anticipated after the overwhelming attendance of more than 17,000 fans at the Central Park SummerStage in July, which was called off last minute due to “excessive crowds.” Fans in NYC were finally able to see Juanes’ full show Thursday, when he performed some of his greatest hits and tracks from his Grammy and Latin Grammy award-winning 10th studio album, Vida Cotidiana, released in May 2023.
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The Colombian rockstar, clad in black and wearing a denim vest that showed his arm tattoos, kicked off with “Gris” and followed with his classic “Mala Gente” — the only two songs he played in Central Park last year before his show was shut down — electrifying the 6,000-strong crowd at Radio City.
A particularly memorable moment was the medley of “Lo Que Me Gusta a Mí,” “Fuego” and “Hermosa Ingrata,” during which he seamlessly mixed rhythms and melodies. The acoustic version of “Para Tu Amor” stood out as he came off stage to perform it among the audience, creating an intimate and personal atmosphere.
The concert setlist wove a narrative through Juanes’ discography, touching on themes of love, social reflection and personal introspection. Among the most chanted songs were the heartfelt “Amores Prohibidos,” “Nada Valgo Sin Tu Amor” and also the mega catchy “La Paga” and “La Camisa Negra,” during which he showed off his unmistakable guitar riff.
Juanes closed the night with Juan Gabriel’s “Querida,” “Me Enamora” and “La Luz,” encapsulating the essence of his artistry and the connection he shares with his fans.
The Vida Cotidiana USA and Canada Tour, produced by Live Nation, began on Feb. 13 in Portland, Ore., and will end on March 30 in Hollywood, Fla. Upcoming cities include Los Angeles, San Diego, Las Vegas, Chicago, Montreal, Toronto, Houston, Dallas, Boston and more.
Meghan Trainor is all new, unveiling a fresh single, album announcement and tour dates Thursday (March 14) — but somehow, she’s staying timeless at the same time. The Grammy winner revealed that her sixth studio album, Timeless, is set to arrive June 14 via Epic Records, sharing the album cover — on which she poses […]
D.C. Stadium LLC and Grand Rising Curations today announced a multi-year partnership that will expand Audi Field into a Sports & Entertainment complex primed to host concerts and festivals in the Nation’s Capital. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news The deal between D.C. Stadium LLC and Grand […]
AEG Presents, the second biggest live events company in the world, and powerful Latin entertainment company Cárdenas Marketing Network (CMN), have partnered in a deal that will combine both companies under one roof. The partnership, in which AEG acquired an undisclosed stake in CMN and which AEG Presents chairman and CEO Jay Marciano describes as a “full partnership,” will explosively boost AEG’s Latin music business and is AEG’s first Latin partnership of this scope.
CMN ended 2023 at No. 4 on Billboard’s Top Promoter chart, and in 2022, it was No. 3, an enormous achievement for an independent company that CMN founder and CEO Henry Cárdenas self-describes as a “boutique concert promoter.” But it’s a very powerful boutique operation, with a slate that included Bad Bunny’s stadium tour in 2022 and currently Luis Miguel, Marc Anthony and Don Omar, among many other.
On its end, AEG is of course the powerhouse company behind Taylor Swift’s global tour and culturally-defining events like Coachella. Latin, however, was not its strong suit, although it promoted Karol G’s arena tour in in 2023. Now, AEG will have the Latin clout while CMN while have the global reach, and both companies will work together to create elevated and expanded experiences for artists and fans, with each benefitting from the complementary strategic alliance.
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“We are excited to partner with AEG Presents, one of the most powerful global forces in live entertainment. Together we look forward to making an even greater impact on the explosive growth in the Latin market,” said Cárdenas in a statement.
In an exclusive interview with Billboard, Cárdenas added: “We wanted to be bigger and more global. AEG is a giant company that also has venues and I’ve known Jay Marciano for 40 years, since he was president of Radio City Music Hall and Madison Square Garden. Jay knows who I am, and I know who he is.”
Marciano added: “Henry is a true entrepreneur and visionary, and what he and his team have built is simply awe-inspiring. We have been looking to expand our presence in Latin music and concerts for quite some time, and it was important that we took the time to find the right partner; we found it in Henry and CMN.”
The partnership between AEG and CMN has been actively in the works for approximately six months, but it was in both Cárdenas’ and Marcianos’ minds long before then.
“I feel like I’ve been chasing Henry for 40 years,” laughs Marciano. “It’s like the girl I’ve been chasing forever, and she finally said yes […] Henry was in Latin music way before any of us figured out it was an industry. Timing is everything. And I think the timing for us and for him finally, after all these years, aligned perfectly.”
Cárdenas has been in Latin music promotion for 44 years. In 2001, he sold CFA (Cardenas, Fernandez & Associates) — which at one point was the biggest Hispanic-owned event-promotion company in the U.S. — to Clear Channel Entertainment and Grupo Televisa. In 2004, he launched CMN on his own and quickly grew it all over again, eventually becoming the top Latin promoter in the country. In all his years of operation, he says, he has never lost money, save for during the pandemic.
“I’m a boutique concert promoter. I take care of my business. My tours have to be profitable, and we take care of each tour,” he says, emphasizing that his is not a cookie cutter approach to concert promotion.
However, Cárdenas also wanted to grow and become more global and in 2019, he acquired Arena Bogotá in Colombia. At this point, merging made sense, especially with a company like AEG, which has assets and artists that Cárdenas can work with in Latin America, and likewise, offers Cárdenas’ artists an entree into other markets.
The key, however, was the relationship with Marciano.
“It’s about people in this business,” says Marciano. “If you don’t have the right people, chances are you won’t be successful. With Henry we knew he had the foundation for decades and he could teach us a lot that we were missing.”
Cárdenas and Marciano had initial conversations several years back, at which time Marciano said: “Henry, I’m not going to hound you. But come the day you feel we’re better together than apart, give me a call.”
Last year he did, and conversations began in earnest.
“I think Henry believes Latin music is not just becoming big in North America but has the potential to become big in Europe and Asia and Australia and he can use our expertise and local offices,” said Marciano. “And we can also use his help because he understands the part of Latin music we’re just getting familiar with.”
Cárdenas will now take over AEG’s Latin activity and touring roster, which includes Carin León. In the spirit of AEG’s existing partnerships, such as the Messina Group or Golden Voice, Cárdenas will run the business, and make decisions on which artists and tours to bring to the business.
“I told Jay, ‘This needs to be fun. If it’s not going to be fun, it’s not interesting.’ I want to run CMN like I’ve always done,” says Cárdenas.
The AEG-CMN merger follows the 2021 acquisition of Mexican concert promoter OCESA Entertenimiento by Live Nation for $416 million for a 51% interest in the company.
No amount or stake percentage was disclosed for AEG’s purchase of CMN. But, says Marciano, “I think I have the Latin partner That I always wanted.”
Megan Thee Stallion is hitting the road. The Houston rapper announced plans for the Hot Girl Summer Tour on Wednesday (March 13).
Meg will be connecting with her Hotties across the globe. Following a North American leg — which kicks off in May — she’ll be heading across the pond for a handful of dates in Europe.
“HOTTIESSS GET READY TO COME HAVE SOME FUN WITH ME AT THEE HOT GIRL SUMMER TOUR Get your outfits ready nowww,” she wrote to social media. “We getting started this MAY I told you what cities today to get yall prepared! Check back in on thee 20th for official dates im so exciteddddd.”
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She’ll be making stops in Minneapolis, New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Atlanta, Dallas, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Las Vegas and more. Look for the full schedule — including dates and venues — to be released next week (March 20).
Megan Thee Stallion is coming off earning her first solo No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 with “Hiss” in February. The scathing track caused quite the uproar, appearing to take shots at Nicki Minaj (who responded with a “Big Foot” diss of her own), as well as Pardison Fontaine, Drake, Tory Lanez and more.
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“Hiss” is still holding on to the elusive chart, where it sits at No. 94 this week. An album may still be on the way before she hits the road for tour, which would be her first LP since 2022’s Traumazine.
Megan is now independent from her deal with 1501 Ent. and 300, but revealed in February she inked a partnership for distribution with Warner Music Group.
Within the structure of the unique deal, the Houston Hottie will have access to WMG’s global services ranging from music promotion to distribution and worldwide marketing, while maintaining ownership of her masters and publishing.
“This is the beginning of an exciting new chapter of my life and career,” Megan said in a statement. “I’m really focused on building an empire and growing as an entrepreneur, so I’m proud to take this next step in my journey and work with Max Lousada and the entire Warner Music Group team in this new capacity. I know we’re going to create history together.”
Find out if Megan is coming to a city near you this summer in her announcement below.
Foxwoods Resort Casino in Mashantucket, Conn., has signed a new partnership with Danny Wimmer Presents (DWP) to book the property’s Premier Theater. “The team at DWP is second to none when it comes to understanding the nuances of booking entertainment for casinos, and we are very excited to work with this dedicated team,” said Christian […]
R&B hitmaker Tank is springing back into tour mode. The singer-songwriter-producer will launch his R&B Money Tour in New Orleans on May 10. Joining him for the tour’s 25-city itinerary — including stops in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta and Houston — will be fellow hitmakers Keri Hilson (“Turnin Me On” featuring Lil Wayne, […]
After excitedly booking her showcase at next week’s South by Southwest music festival, Zoë Mead, the British shoegaze artist known as Wyldest, tried to land other U.S. club and festival gigs to offset her already-high travel expenses.
To do all this legally, she learned, required getting a temporary work visa costing $460 plus another $2,800 for faster processing. Hiring a lawyer or immigration specialist to file the application would have added another thousand dollars minimum to the bill. “It’s just too risky,” she says. “You have to reject a hell of a lot of things, which is really frustrating.”
And beginning April 1, immigration and visa entry costs for international artists playing festivals, concerts or label events in the U.S. are set to rise even higher.
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The fees for filing “O” and “P” visa petitions — the former covers “individuals who possess extraordinary ability,” the latter “internationally renowned performing groups” and music ensembles of up to 25 people — will increase from $460 to maximum costs of $1,655 and $1,615, respectively. That price includes a $600 Asylum Program Fee, which the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will use to offset the costs of adjudicating cases of immigrants seeking asylum from persecution and violence — a process unrelated to the music business.
There are, however, reduced rates for visa applications backed by a promoter, agency, festival or record company (the so-called petitioner) with less than 25 full-time employees. For those companies, the new fee is capped at $830 (including a $300 asylum levy). For non-profit petitioners, the total fee is capped at $530. (Crews and traveling production staff also require either an appropriate O or P visa to work in the U.S., while artists invited to perform at official showcase events like SXSW, such as Mead, maybe able to enter the U.S. using an ESTA/Visa Waiver, which costs $21).
USCIS representatives say the increased fees will cover rising business costs and reduce processing backlogs. They also contend the pricing surge will not affect musicians because promoters, club owners and labels will be paying the fees.
It’s cold comfort for international acts — especially those starting their live careers — who fear those costs will ultimately be passed on to them, making it too expensive for all but established artists to play U.S. dates. “It’s going to have a chilling effect,” says Rita Sostrin, a Los Angeles-based immigration attorney who represents many international acts. “I’m certainly hearing a lot of displeasure from my clients for these higher fees.”
The fear among international artists, especially those at the start of their live careers, is that the extra costs will ultimately be passed onto them, making it too expensive for all but established international acts to play American concert venues and festivals. “That burden of applying for and paying for the visas is shared across the artists, managers, promoters and venues,” says Neeta Ragoowanski, president of the Music Managers Forum U.S., which opposes the fee increases. “It’s going to affect artists’ decisions on how these tours go,” she says.
Last year, USCIS temporarily paused its plans to increase fees following strong opposition from artist and music-industry advocacy groups such as the National Independent Venue Association and UK Music.
The new fees being introduced April 1 are nominally lower than the non-tiered rises first proposed by USCIS, but still represent “a significant extra burden for touring U.K. bands and artists, particularly for emerging acts that operate on the tightest of margins,” says UK Music interim chief executive Tom Kiehl.
Those margins are being squeezed tighter by the majority of international artists needing to pay out for “premium” visa processing, says Andy Corrigan, owner of U.K.-based Viva La Visa, which specializes in immigration services for music acts and has recently work on U.S. touring arrangement for The Damned and former Spice Girl Melanie C. Premium processing fees rose in February from $2,500 to $2,805 with the time for processing applications increasing from 15 calendar days to 15 business days.
“Almost every band that we deal with has to use premium because the standard processing is so uncertain,” he says. “The whole system is loaded against new and emerging artists. It’s grossly unfair.”
Corrigan says he has lowered his company’s visa fees following the price rises “to try and mitigate the increase in costs for everybody,” but fears that some artists will be tempted to enter the U.S. illegally, without the proper visa documentation in place, as a result of the extra financial burden being placed on them.
“People have got to take a longer-term view and recognize the value of cultural exchange and music, and not just think that they can squeeze every dollar out of the sector,” says Jon Collins, chief executive of U.K. industry trade group LIVE. He calls USCIS’s January sudden announcement of the rise in visa fees – following a period of consultation – a “fait accompli” that will have a detrimental impact on the health of the U.K. and U.S. grass roots music industry.
“It just feels like you’re constantly being slapped in the face,” says Mead, who had to turn down an invitation to play a pre-SXSW festival, New Colossus, in New York next month. “It was already expensive, and they put it up even more, and it’s like, ‘how?’”
