Touring
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Mexican pop band RBD, which scored five top 10 hits on the Hot Latin Songs chart in the early 2000s, performed its last show in 2008, during which the act announced it was disbanding. Its members — Anahí, Dulce María, Christian Chávez, Maite Perroni and Christopher von Uckermann — haven’t stepped onstage together since. And yet, when RBD recently announced it was reuniting for 40-plus shows in arenas and stadiums around the world, dubbed the Soy Rebelde Tour, over 1.5 million tickets were sold in just 24 hours, according to RBD’s manager, Guillermo Rosas.
RBD is the latest in a string of Latin reunion tours that are raking in millions of dollars. The trend started in 2020 when bachata supergroup Aventura reunited after 10 years for its Inmortal Tour. Its first leg posted $24 million after 14 shows, according to Billboard Boxscore. And in 2021, iconic ’80s Mexican grupero band Los Bukis reunited after 25 years for its own stadium trek; the nine-date stint entered at No. 6 on Billboard’s Top Tours of 2021 with nearly $50 million in grosses.
“What makes these nostalgic touring concepts powerful is that it’s multigenerational,” says Hans Schafer, senior vp of global touring at Live Nation, the promoter behind RBD’s upcoming trek. In 2006, RBD — conceptualized from the Mexican telenovela Rebelde — had the No. 1 Latin tour, with a gross of nearly $31 million across 51 shows. “The music has been passed down generations and continues to live on. Now we are seeing more artists interested and excited to tap into the nostalgia of fans.”
But, as Rosas notes, it’s also risky, considering the uncertainty in booking acts that haven’t toured in decades and don’t have massive streaming numbers. “Just because you have 50 million listeners doesn’t mean you’re going to sell 1.5 million tickets at the box office,” he says. “It takes a lot more than streams to become part of culture. As managers and promoters, you learn how to cross those bridges and not go blindly based on numbers.”
When Adolfo Romero, vp of programming for SoFi Stadium, Hollywood Park and YouTube Theater, booked Los Bukis for their back-to-back shows at the SoFi, it never crossed his mind that a nostalgia act wouldn’t be able to sell over 70,000 tickets. “I come from [major league] soccer. If we can sell 70,000 plus for soccer here, what’s the difference?” he previously told Billboard. “It’s the same demographic. We have disposable income. A lot of our community was working in the service industry. Now, many of their kids are college grads.”
L.A.’s Bésame Mucho (like the nostalgia-fueled When We Were Young festival) inaugural event last year sold out in 12 minutes when the 2000s-inspired lineup — which included Juanes, Hombres G and Los Tigres Del Norte — was announced. Come December, Los Bukis will headline the fest’s second edition.
“We focused only on what the fans wanted to see and not what was playing on radio,” says John Frias, producer of Bésame Mucho and president of Frias Entertainment. “A ton of people brought their parents to the festival. It was a smash.”
Frías is hesitant to label these shows as simply “nostalgia” tours since they’re not only appealing to an older generation of fans. There’s a new generation that’s discovering and embracing these bands, too. “In this day and age, fans won’t be subjected to only today’s music. They liked yesterday’s music and they like today’s music,” he says categorically.
Music discovery could be a significant contributing factor to RBD’s massive success on the touring front. In September 2020, RBD’s catalog became available for the first time ever across digital streaming platforms, including Spotify. “Context is so important for data,” says Schafer. “You have to understand where things come from. And tours like these, they’re an emotional response to something that was lived years ago and you’re now able to inspire and remind people of those moments.”
A version of this story will appear in the April 1, 2023, issue of Billboard.
As Luke Combs’ booking agent, WME partner Aaron Tannenbaum, began plotting the European leg of the country star’s massive 2023 world tour, he encountered some promoters, in places like Hamburg, Germany, and Zurich, who were skeptical that a country act would sell tickets in Europe. So he repeated a kind of mantra to them: “You can always count on Luke Combs.”
He was right: Combs sold out all nine European dates he booked (and in substantially larger venues than initially planned). But the mantra — a testament not only to Combs’ dependability as a global touring act but to his rock-solid character — has plenty of less glamorous applications, too. Today, Combs, 33, is sitting in his manager’s Nashville office (a memento-filled monument to, well, him) at the beginning of our interview when a staffer pops her head in. “Nicole [Combs’ wife] needs your keys,” she says. The base of his 9-month-old son Tex’s car seat is in Combs’ truck, and Nicole needs to take the little guy to daycare.
“Do you know how to get it out?” Combs asks hesitantly. He starts to explain, then jumps up. “I’ll just do it, it takes literally one second.” He turns to me. “Baby stuff!”
You can always count on Luke Combs, and that is basically his brand. Without a shtick beyond “everyman,” Combs now fills stadiums nationwide as the Country Music Association’s reigning entertainer of the year, hot off his 15th No. 1 single on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart. Just your neighborhood consistent, reliable global sensation, on the cusp of bringing country to one of the widest non-pop crossover audiences it has ever had, signature red Solo cups in hand and fishing shirt on as he constructs a kind of fame that’s built to last.
“He’s just Luke, our friend, you know?” says his longtime tour manager, Ethan Strunk, who has been with Combs since he pitched himself to the singer when Combs walked into the Opry Mills Boot Barn in Nashville, where Strunk was working in 2016. “How little Luke has changed is baffling to me. There’s no way I could do it. He’s the same funny, funny guy. People say that all the time, but it’s just the truth.”
With his fourth studio album, Gettin’ Old (which arrived March 24 on River House Artists/Columbia Nashville), and an ongoing 16-country international tour, which kicked off at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, on March 25, Combs not only wants to cement his place at the top of the country heap but prove that he can transcend it — without changing anything about himself or his music. As Combs puts it, “The music has the ability to reach a lot more people than the marketing behind it does. We have a little bit of something for everybody, and that’s the way I want it to be.”
HB shirt, Harbor Bay T-shirt, Joe’s Jeans jeans, M.L. Leddy boots, Miller Lite vintage hat.
Eric Ryan Anderson
The North Carolina native has colored outside of country’s lines from the start. He built buzz on social media and through local live shows before signing with Lynn Oliver-Cline of River House Artists, and though he did eventually do some conventional radio circuits and a little time in the opening-slot trenches, it only took him two years to go from playing 250-capacity clubs to headlining his first arena tour.
His team, which has remained more or less the same since he started touring heavily in 2015, attributes his massive and rapid success in part to the unorthodox approach it has taken from the beginning. “The strategy was, ‘Let’s play the rooms that a rock act would play,’ ” says his manager, Chris Kappy, of the early days. “We didn’t play all the honky-tonks like everybody else did.”
“We had the mentality that we needed to push the limits of what you would think a country artist can and would do,” adds Tannenbaum. He booked Combs outside the genre at festivals like Lollapalooza (2018), Bonnaroo (2017) and Austin City Limits (2017) — and out of the country (in the United Kingdom and Australia), building a foundation for the international draw he has now. “Everything we’re doing as far as expanding globally, it’s not really off-script,” Tannenbaum says. “It’s just a different iteration of the same thing we’ve been doing since the beginning.”
That thing is an ever-growing iteration of Combs, the singer-songwriter, which, to the outsider, hasn’t changed all that much from his 250-person club dates. “Even when we started out in arenas, we didn’t want any fire or any crazy stunts,” says Combs. “You just come out and do the show, right? I think sometimes that can be so powerful in and of itself.” (He adds with jovial self-deprecation: “I’m not running around like Kenny Chesney.”)
Combs started sprinkling in stadium dates when he resumed touring following the pandemic pause in 2021, starting with Kidd Brewer Stadium at Appalachian State University in Boone, N.C., his would-be alma mater had music not come calling. Some initial trial and error was necessary because no one on his team had ever been part of a stadium tour.
“We always wanted the show to be about the music and to feel intimate somehow — which is a mega challenge in a stadium,” says Combs. “How do you entertain that many people? How do you make it an experience worth coming back to? There are people traveling a long way to come to this.”
Yet so far he has resisted the temptation to entice return customers by adding more eye-popping elements to his set. The show is Combs and seven band members, with strategically positioned video monitors to make everyone in the stadium feel as close to Combs as possible — and that’s basically it.
“I’m not flying in on a motorcycle,” he quips. “Live band, no tracks. Everything going out of the speakers, we’re f–king playing it when you hear it.”
That’s not to say Combs doesn’t see the value in elaborate stadium production — it’s just not for him. “Taylor Swift is like going to see Ringling Bros., and my show is like going to a demolition derby,” he jokes. “You’re coming to drink beer and be like, ‘Hell yeah.’ ”
Luke Combs photographed on March 14, 2023 at the Nashville Municipal Auditorium.
Eric Ryan Anderson
There has been something of a learning curve as Luke Combs Inc. has adjusted to a stadium-size setup. For example, the thrust stage used at Combs’ first stadium shows — Kidd Brewer in 2021 and Atlanta, Denver and Seattle in 2022 — was 8 feet tall, making it nearly impossible for Combs to see, much less connect with fans in the pit.
“Especially coming off doing the 360 arena thing, where you’re right in the middle and everybody feels pretty close, you go out in the stadiums and man, once the spots hit you out there, you almost can’t see anything,” says Combs. “You can see two rows of people, and then there’s just like infinite blackness.”
This time, the thrust will be both larger and at a lower level than the main stage. “You’re more in the crowd,” Combs adds. “I really wanted to feel that. I love playing small clubs, and feeling like people are right there is really nice.”
“Fans first” is the slogan of Kappy’s Make Wake management company, and one that permeates its decisions. Combs’ fans, called the Bootleggers, are so named for one of his early “hits” (his scare quotes), “Let the Moonshine,” and its ties to his Appalachian upbringing. He and Kappy started a private Facebook group for Bootleggers in 2015, the same year Kappy began managing a then-unsigned Combs; today, it has over 175,000 members, despite being entirely separate from the official Bootleggers club that fans can now sign up for on Combs’ own site to access perks and presales. One of those perks is the VIB (Very Important Bootlegger) meet-and-greet giveaway — which is the only VIP offering on Combs’ tours and completely free.
“I’ve always just felt really weird about, like, charging people to meet me,” he says. “Maybe that’s just me feeling like, ‘Well, it’s not worth it.’ ” By making meet-and-greets almost completely random (25 fans are chosen per show through a lottery on Combs’ site), Combs gets to see “a real representation of who’s there,” as he puts it. “I just want to meet people who came to the show, whether it’s their first show or their 50th show. It’s like people who would have never gotten the chance to meet me or could never have afforded it. Because I couldn’t have afforded that growing up.”
His manager is willing to put it more bluntly. “That’s not the type of people we want,” Kappy recalls telling a banker when turning down a $5,000 offer to meet Combs at the AT&T Stadium show. “I’d rather have the guy who can barely afford to come to the show because that’s more of a real fan than you wanting a picture with Luke for your Instagram.”
“I always want my fans to understand that I’ve never made any decisions based off how much money I can get out of them,” Combs says. “It already costs so much to do anything, right? I want them to love the music and feel like they saw a great show that someone put a lot of f–king thought into and did it at a price that was affordable to them.”
Asos shirt, Harbor Bay T-shirt, Joe’s Jeans jeans, Bass Pro Shops hat.
Eric Ryan Anderson
That’s why he has kept ticket prices at pre-pandemic levels (an average of $88) and has a section of $25 tickets at every show; why he has free preparties and tailgates attached to most of his stadium dates; why he refunded fans after a set in Maine last year because he felt like his voice wasn’t up to snuff (despite the fact that he did perform a shortened set); why he doesn’t only tour in the places where it’s most straightforward and lucrative. Combs is playing the long game.
“We’re trying to build a career so people can meet at a Luke Combs show and then eventually bring their kids to it and be like, ‘This is how it all happened,’ ” Kappy explains.
“Could I have gone out and done super-mega platinum tickets at even more stadiums and made an assload of money? Probably so,” Combs adds. “But I think eventually the fans will be like, ‘I’m not doing that again.’ ”
And it’s still more efficient for him: nearly 1 million tickets sold for 2023, for the fewest dates (39) he has worked in years. For 16 weeks, he’ll bus into North American cities on Thursday night, rehearse Friday, play Saturday and return to his home outside Nashville on Sunday. Then, after three weeks in Australia and three weeks in Europe and the United Kingdom (with a sizable break in between), he’s done for the year, without needing to bring Nicole and baby Tex along for the ride. “One show a week is like … dude!” he says. “People dream about doing one show a week.”
Combs’ international appeal is rooted in that same fans-first ethos. He went to play in Australia when it wasn’t profitable; now, the only reason he’s not booking multiple nights at stadiums there is because his trip coincides with the Women’s World Cup and all such venues are booked.
“There was a trust factor between he and I,” Kappy explains. “I said, ‘Look, I need you to do this, and you’re going to lose money. But instead of going and playing Raleigh every July at the amphitheater, you’re going to build markets.” Now Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, Australia, are among Combs’ top 10 streaming cities worldwide; some of the cities in Oceania where Combs is selling out arenas on this year’s tour, he has never even played before.
“People in our genre have always been so content with just doing [the] lower 48 because that has been good, that has been great. That has been safe. That’s where the money is,” says Combs. “But I feel like country music has such a place in the world outside of just the States.”
Luke Combs photographed on March 14, 2023 at the Nashville Municipal Auditorium.
Eric Ryan Anderson
There is no template for what Combs has been able to accomplish internationally, and the biggest hurdle, according to his management team, has been getting promoters on board without any comparable artists to reference — mostly by insisting repeatedly that the demand is nearly insatiable. “We didn’t come here to punt,” Kappy says. “So the goal is like, ‘Let’s throw a Hail Mary.’ And a lot of our Hail Marys are getting caught.”
A favorite anecdote among Team Combs is about when the singer played Quebec City’s multigenre Festival d’Été last summer — a booking that apparently made some of the event’s organizers nervous.
“I had personally been aggressively pursuing that opportunity for Luke for five years, and I kept getting back, ‘No, country doesn’t really work up here. He’s not a headliner,’ ” says Tannenbaum. Combs drew upwards of 70,000 people.
“Everybody was singing every word to every song — even the deep cuts — but then he would stop and everyone was speaking French,” Kappy recalls.
“He’s a unicorn,” says Tannenbaum. “I don’t really know how else to say it.”
That Quebec City date helped raise their expectations for this international tour. “We believed we had something really big with this,” Tannenbaum explains. “However, there wasn’t much precedent for the promoters to calibrate their expectations on, and the comps the promoters did have didn’t perform very well.”
So Tannenbaum and his colleagues at WME agreed to book European venues they felt confident Combs could fill several times over, because those were the ones they could get promoters to sign on with, and were prepared with options to upgrade all of them to larger rooms if tickets sold well enough. Every single European date got upgraded. Combs’ Copenhagen show in October, for example, was initially booked in a 1,500-capacity club; due to demand, it was upgraded to a 12,000-seat arena. “We’re not stopping there — South America is our next big, big goal,” says Tannenbaum. “By and large, this is virgin territory for artists coming from the world Luke has established himself in. But we’ve overcome similar barriers and precedents elsewhere in the world, and we expect to achieve the same success in these markets.”
And incredibly, Combs has been able to reach pop star levels of global success with nary a whiff of pop crossover, aside from a CMT Crossroads special with Leon Bridges and a cover of Ed Sheeran’s “Dive.” (He does cover Tracy Chapman on his new record, a decision made partly out of his personal fear that some people today might not know “Fast Car.”)
“Luke Combs is a country artist, and Luke is very happy being just a country artist,” says Kappy. “If the opportunity presented itself to do something in that world, sure, but we’re not looking to take a song to [adult top 40] or something like that when we’re still reaching new ears. Three chords and the truth work everywhere.”
Though he might make it look easy, taking over the world as Luke Combs, regular guy, has its challenges. “I think what has been one of my biggest assets has also been one of the things that was the hardest for me,” Combs says. “I am just me. There’s not, like, an act. My driver license says ‘Luke Combs’ on it. I’m 300 pounds with a neck beard. I can’t go out and not wear a hat and people don’t know who I am.
“I struggled with that a lot because I almost felt trapped, like a zoo animal or something,” he continues. “Now I don’t even think about it anymore.”
So Combs signs the autographs and takes the pictures, accepting them as a sometimes invasive part of the job he signed up for, and reminding himself that he would much rather people hate his music and think he’s a “pretty sick dude” than the opposite. He would prefer to insulate his son (and, soon, Tex’s little brother: Combs and Nicole just announced they’re expecting) from the craziness that comes with superstardom but knows that it’s only a matter of time before he has to explain why people come up to them in the grocery store.
“I don’t want him to be like, ‘My dad’s so great because he’s a country singer,’ ” he says. “I want him to be like, ‘My dad’s so great because he gives a f–k about me and goes fishing with me and listens to my problems and helps me when I’m scared.’ ”
It’s hard to find a chink in Combs’ grounded armor, a reason not to buy in the way that hundreds of thousands of fans now have — trusting that whether or not they speak his language, or relate to his songs’ Southern touchstones, or also wear hunting gear and cowboy boots and Crocs (with whom he has collaborated on a comfy clog), they can count on him to make them feel something. They can do that without spending their savings because accessibility is a top priority for Combs and his team, right after the music. “Look at how much money we’re making,” he says. “Does it really even matter if we make double? What’s the difference between having $5 million and $500 million? How much happier are you? Is it that much? Or is it like 1% happier?”
Instead, he wants to chart a career, and a life, that’s extraordinary in its very ordinariness.
“I didn’t get into music to be famous or rich,” Combs concludes. “I got into music because I love singing. I love singing for big crowds of people, and I feel like I’m good at it. People like to hear me do it. And I want to continue to do that as long as possible.”
This story will appear in the April 1, 2023, issue of Billboard.
As Luke Combs’ booking agent, WME partner Aaron Tannenbaum, began plotting the European leg of the country star’s massive 2023 world tour, he encountered some promoters, in places like Hamburg, Germany, and Zurich, who were skeptical that a country act would sell tickets in Europe. So he repeated a kind of mantra to them: “You can always count on Luke Combs.”
He was right: Combs sold out all nine European dates he booked (and in substantially larger venues than initially planned). But the mantra — a testament not only to Combs’ dependability as a global touring act but to his rock-solid character — has plenty of less glamorous applications, too. Today, Combs, 33, is sitting in his manager’s Nashville office (a memento-filled monument to, well, him) at the beginning of our interview when a staffer pops her head in. “Nicole [Combs’ wife] needs your keys,” she says. The base of his 9-month-old son Tex’s car seat is in Combs’ truck, and Nicole needs to take the little guy to daycare.
“Do you know how to get it out?” Combs asks hesitantly. He starts to explain, then jumps up. “I’ll just do it, it takes literally one second.” He turns to me. “Baby stuff!”
You can always count on Luke Combs, and that is basically his brand. Without a shtick beyond “everyman,” Combs now fills stadiums nationwide as the Country Music Association’s reigning entertainer of the year, hot off his 15th No. 1 single on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart. Just your neighborhood consistent, reliable global sensation, on the cusp of bringing country to one of the widest non-pop crossover audiences it has ever had, signature red Solo cups in hand and fishing shirt on as he constructs a kind of fame that’s built to last.
Read Luke Combs’ full Billboard cover story here.
Image Credit: Eric Ryan Anderson
Asos shirt, Harbor Bay T-shirt, Joe’s Jeans jeans, Bass Pro Shops hat.
Image Credit: Eric Ryan Anderson
Asos shirt, Harbor Bay T-shirt, Joe’s Jeans jeans, Bass Pro Shops hat.
Image Credit: Eric Ryan Anderson
HB shirt, Harbor Bay T-shirt, Joe’s Jeans jeans, M.L. Leddy boots, Miller Lite vintage hat.
Image Credit: Eric Ryan Anderson
Luke Combs photographed on March 14, 2023 at the Nashville Municipal Auditorium.
With NF gearing up for his fifth studio album, HOPE, slated for an April 7 release, the Michigan rapper is building anticipation for his upcoming effort by announcing his latest tour.
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The massive 47-show trek will cross through North America, Canada, Europe and the U.K. Beginning July 12 at Schottenstein Center in Columbus, Ohio, NF’s North American leg will feature special guest Cordae as the two rappers will coast through the U.S. while making stops in cities including Boston, Philadelphia and Anaheim, Calif. After completing the U.S. and Canadian portion of their tour, NF will embark on his 16-date European leg, beginning Sept. 23 at the Fabrique in Milan.
Fans in the U.S. and Canada can now register for the Verified Fan system. Registration closes April 2 at 11:59 p.m. ET. General on-sale tickets will begin Friday, April 7, at 10 a.m. local time and can be purchased here.
NF’s last body of work came in 2021 with Clouds (The Mixtape). The 11-track effort debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 and included its Hot 100 hit “Clouds.” Before that, he netted two No. 1 Billboard 200 albums, including 2017’s Perception and 2019’s The Search. As for his upcoming effort, NF previously released several singles, including “HAPPY” and “MOTTO.” The project will also have features from Julia Michaels (“GONE”) and Cordae (“CAREFUL”).
Take a look at the dates for the HOPE TOUR below.
U.S. + Canada tour dates:
Wed Jul 12 — Columbus, OH — Schottenstein Center *
Fri Jul 14 — Rosemont, IL — Allstate Arena
Sat Jul 15 — Minneapolis, MN — Target Center
Sun Jul 16 — Lincoln, NE — Pinnacle Bank Arena
Tue Jul 18 — Grand Rapids, MI — Van Andel Arena
Thu Jul 20 — Newark, NJ — Prudential Center
Fri Jul 21 — Boston, MA — Agganis Arena
Sat Jul 22 — Philadelphia, PA — The Liacouras Center
Mon Jul 24 — Greensboro, NC — Greensboro Coliseum Complex
Tue Jul 25 — Huntsville, AL — Propst Arena at the Von Braun Center
Wed Jul 26 — Nashville, TN — Bridgestone Arena
Fri Jul 28 — Orlando, FL — Addition Financial Arena ^
Sat Jul 29 — Duluth, GA — Gas South Arena
Mon Jul 31 — North Little Rock, AR — Simmons Bank Arena
Tue Aug 01 — Tulsa, OK — BOK Center
Wed Aug 02 — Fort Worth, TX — Dickies Arena
Fri Aug 04 — Glendale, AZ — Desert Diamond Arena
Sat Aug 05 — Anaheim, CA — Honda Center
Sun Aug 06 — San Francisco, CA — Bill Graham Civic Auditorium
Tue Aug 08 — Portland, OR — Veterans Memorial Coliseum
Wed Aug 09 — Seattle, WA — WAMU Theater
Fri Aug 11 — Salt Lake City, UT — Vivint Arena *
Sat Aug 12 — Denver, CO — Ball Arena
Wed Aug 23 — Vancouver, BC — Rogers Arena
Fri Aug 25 — Calgary, AB — Scotiabank Saddledome
Sat Aug 26 — Edmonton, AB — Rogers Place
Sun Aug 27 — Saskatoon, SK — SaskTel Centre
Tue Aug 29 — Winnipeg, MB — Canada Life Centre
Fri Sep 01 — Toronto, ON — Scotiabank Arena
Sat Sep 02 — Ottawa, ON — Canadian Tire Centre
Sun Sep 03 — Laval, QC — Place Bell
^Without support from Cordae
Europe and U.K. tour dates:
Sat Sep 23 — Milan, Italy — Fabrique
Sun Sep 24 — Zurich, Switzerland — Halle 622
Tue Sep 26 — Vienna, Austria — Gasometer
Wed Sep 27 — Munich, Germany — Zenith
Fri Sep 29 — Düsseldorf, Germany — Mitsubishi Electric Halle
Sat Sep 30 — Amsterdam, Netherlands — AFAS Live
Sun Oct 1 — Paris, France — L’Olympia
Tue Oct 3 — Frankfurt, Germany — Jahrhunderthalle
Thu Oct 5 — Hamburg, Germany — Sporthalle
Fri Oct 6 — Berlin, Germany — Max-Schmeling-Halle
Sun Oct 8 — Brussels, Belgium — Forest National
Tue Oct 10 — Manchester, UK — O2 Victoria Warehouse
Wed Oct 11 — Glasgow, UK — O2 Academy
Thu Oct 12 — Dublin, Ireland — 3Olympia Theatre
Sat Oct 14 — Cardiff, UK — Great Hall
Sun Oct 15 — London, UK — Eventim Apollo
Last July, fans fumed over the high cost of Ticketmaster’s dynamic pricing — the model that responds in real time to consumer demand and can cause prices to skyrocket, especially at on-sale — for Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band’s 2023 tour.
Then, in November, Ticketmaster’s presale for Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour sold over 90% of the trek’s inventory — breaking the record for the most tickets sold in a single day by a touring artist — but online traffic stranded millions of infuriated fans in digital queues and caused website outages. Ticketmaster canceled the general on-sale for the remaining inventory, and Swift lambasted the company in a statement: “We asked them, multiple times, if they could handle this kind of demand, and we were assured they could. It’s truly amazing that 2.4 million people got tickets, but it really pisses me off that a lot of them feel like they went through several bear attacks to get them.”
Soon, politicians were calling for accountability, and in January, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on competition within the ticketing industry, including whether the 2010 consent decree governing the merger of Live Nation and Ticketmaster has worked — or if the company has monopolized the sector.
Ticketmaster effectively controls major live-music events in many North American arenas and stadiums: It’s the primary ticketing system for 27 out of 32 NFL stadiums and Live Nation-promoted arena shows across the continent. But since its merger with Live Nation, viable alternatives have emerged.
“With ticketing systems, you may not know who they are, and that’s a good thing. Frankly, when a ticketing system makes the news, usually something went wrong,” says International Ticketing Association president/CEO Maureen Andersen, who adds that millions of tickets for music, sports and other live entertainment are sold every day on various platforms in North America without a hitch.
“There is a lot of ticketing technology available,” says Andersen. “A lot of ticketing companies [are] coming to the U.S. to test the waters and see what kind of market share they can get. That rings to me as healthy competition.”
Artists looking for ticketing alternatives in 2023 will fare better than Pearl Jam did nearly 30 years ago when the band tried — and failed — to route a tour without using Ticketmaster in protest of the company’s service fees. In December, country singer Zach Bryan released his album All My Homies Hate Ticketmaster (Live at Red Rocks) — the Denver-area amphitheater is ticketed by AXS, the Ticketmaster rival owned by the second-biggest North American promoter, AEG Presents — and took to social media: “I am so so tired of people saying things can’t be done about this massive issue while huge monopolies sit there stealing money from working class people.” Within weeks, he announced and sold out a 28-date tour, exclusively ticketed by AXS. “We sold all the tickets in 3 waves to actual fans, we hired teams to limit bots, and we sacrificed a lot of personal things to give real people, real seats,” Bryan posted afterward.
And in March, when fees for some dates on The Cure’s Ticketmaster-ticketed arena tour exceeded face-value prices, frontman Robert Smith called on the company to correct the matter — which it did in short order, issuing $10 credits to many purchasers.
Ticketing platforms in both the primary and secondary markets — which facilitate sales from rights holders and resale from other consumers, respectively — are experimenting with new features and working to keep prices in check. Billboard highlights some of the notable companies increasing competition in the sector.
AXS (primary and secondary markets)
Founded: 2011The Gist: Ticketmaster’s most significant U.S. competitor duplicates many of Ticketmaster’s strengths, including its ability to handle high-volume on-sales and a lottery system called Fair AXS. (AEG previously licensed Ticketmaster technology as a condition set by the U.S. Department of Justice in its approval of the 2010 Live Nation-Ticketmaster merger, but used other software to build AXS.) Following the 2019 merger of AEG Facilities and SMG, AEG now owns, manages or operates more than 350 venues, many of which use AXS for ticketing.
CashorTrade (secondary)
Founded: 2009The Gist: With roots in the jam-band community, CashorTrade eschews a first-come, first-served model, instead allowing buyers to plead their case to sellers, who are required to upload receipts to prove they’re selling at face value. Buyers can’t offer more than face value for tickets but can “creatively barter,” most often by pitching trades of other concert tickets or artist merchandise, in order to be selected. After The Cure’s tour went on sale, the band publicly endorsed CashorTrade and Twickets, a U.K.-based resale platform operating in the United Kingdom, Europe and the United States, for resale of its tickets.
DICE (primary)
Founded: 2014The Gist: DICE entered the U.S. market in 2019 with a bold promise: to help eradicate scalping. Digital tickets are locked to a buyer’s smartphone, and back-end technology prevents the resale of tickets above face value. DICE also blocks tickets from the secondary market by allowing fans to return them to sold-out shows, which are then redistributed to customers on waitlists.
Lyte (supplementary)
Founded: 2013The Gist: Lyte works with primary ticketing platforms to eliminate scalping and get in-demand tickets to actual fans. Partners like See Tickets integrate Lyte’s technology to field ticket requests and credit card information prior to on-sales, allowing fans to return tickets that are then offered to preregistered fans at fair market price (which can exceed face value).
SeatGeek (primary, secondary)
Founded: 2009The Gist: SeatGeek established itself as a secondary ticketer similar to resale giant StubHub — and continues to expand its reach in that market, including through new resale deals with MLB and college-athletics ticketing giant Paciolan — but has since become the primary ticketer for a handful of NFL and NBA teams, Broadway theaters and other venues. (Major League Soccer and Brooklyn’s Barclays Center recently ended partnerships with SeatGeek in favor of Ticketmaster.) The ticketer also introduced SeatGeek Swap in 2021, which allows the return of eligible tickets, no questions asked, for credit at 100% of the purchase price.
See Tickets (primary, secondary)
Founded: 1991The Gist: Since opening a Los Angeles office in 2014, the U.K.-based ticketer has steadily grown, including working with boutique North American festivals and independent clubs and theaters. After becoming a National Independent Venue Association sponsor in 2020, See signed deals with 100 new indie venues and promoters in a 12-month period. The platform’s tools include fan-to-fan resale technology.
This story will appear in the April 1, 2023, issue of Billboard.
In August 1989 — 26 years after releasing their first single, and seven years since their last tour — The Rolling Stones hit the road. Over the next calendar year, the Steel Wheels/Urban Jungle Tour took the rock legends around the world, playing over 100 shows and reaffirming their commercial clout.
Two similarly epic yearlong treks — 1994-95’s Voodoo Lounge world tour and 1997-98’s Bridges to Babylon tour — followed; the three outings grossed $661.7 million combined, according to Billboard Boxscore, or roughly $1.3 billion today, adjusted for inflation. In the process, the Stones defined what middle age could look like for rock artists and proved that established acts with deep catalogs and legions of fans still had touring potency.
As the Stones crisscrossed the globe in the ’90s, new rock heroes like blink-182 and Weezer were making names for themselves. Now, three decades later, those acts are as deep into their careers as the Stones were into theirs in the ’90s. And as older touring stalwarts like Paul McCartney, Elton John and the Stones stare down their golden years, alt-rock’s now middle-aged lodestars have started to assume the mantle of reliable, top-grossing arena and stadium artists (and at roughly the same time that their most loyal fans, who’ve aged along with them, have deeper pockets to afford such tickets). But the blueprint they’re using isn’t identical to their precursors.
The 2021-22 Hella Mega Tour took Green Day, Fall Out Boy and Weezer to stadiums in the United States and Europe — proving along the way to fans and industry insiders alike that alt-rockers of the ’90s and early aughts could now fill the kinds of venues that were once only the provenance of pop stars and classic rock acts.
“Hella Mega obviously laid some framework for, ‘Hey, these rock tours are still really, really big; these songs are still so relevant,’ ” says Live Nation global tour promoter Steve Ackles, who worked on the team behind the stadium run. “Green Day, blink-182, a lot of those bands in that genre, the songs really never went away. I think there’s an authenticity in their songwriting that has just created timeless music.”
With a gross of $92.2 million, according to Billboard Boxscore, the bill also proved the commercial viability of package tours, the format that forgoes lesser-known openers in favor of support artists who themselves can drive substantial ticket sales. “It was one plus one plus one equals five,” says Crush Music co-founder Bob McLynn, whose company manages Hella Mega’s three marquee bands. “I definitely know it influenced a lot of the different tours out there. A package is nothing new, but I think a package of that nature was definitely groundbreaking.”
On Hella Mega, Weezer played before Fall Out Boy and Green Day, but this year, the band will headline amphitheaters on its Indie Rock Roadtrip, a package offering with rotating support from Modest Mouse, Spoon, Future Islands, Momma, Joyce Manor and White Reaper. “I think their touring is stronger than ever,” McLynn says of Weezer, which toured the United States every year from 2008 to 2019. “I think the fan base is stronger than ever, and I think continuing to put out great new music is a part of that.”
Since 2019, Weezer has released four albums and four EPs, which have spawned four No. 1 hits on Billboard’s Alternative Airplay chart. McLynn recognizes that “there’s legacies tied to all these acts” but emphasizes the importance of “not just playing defense with the brand, [but] playing offense with it.”
“There’s definitely acts out there that just kind of rest on their brand and their catalog, and they go out and they do successful tours,” he continues. “But most of the acts we work with really are about innovating, and they’re still hungry to make new and better music.” In doing so, a band like Weezer can remain front of mind for existing fans while, critically, reaching new ones — who, thanks to the accessibility that streaming offers, can become superfans in short order.
Pop-punk legends blink-182 co-headlined the Bleezer Tour with Weezer in 2009, and this year will set out on a hotly anticipated trek of its own. While blink-182 toured in the latter half of the 2010s, it hasn’t hit the road with founding member Tom DeLonge since 2014, making its 2023 arena outing — which coincides with an upcoming new album by the original trio and a 13-week Alternative Airplay No. 1 in October’s “Edging” — a must-see for fans.
“This was by far the fastest-selling tour of their career,” says CAA co-head of North American touring and music agent Darryl Eaton, who has booked the band since 1999. “We’ve done the numbers in the past, but we’ve never done the numbers at this velocity.” For Eaton, while blink-182 has a strong foundation of classic hits and longtime fans, it’s far from a nostalgia act, narrowly defined. “I’ve always marveled at how they absolutely regenerate a young fan base,” he says.
Blink-182 hasn’t embarked on its tour yet — drummer Travis Barker sustained a gnarly finger injury in rehearsal, forcing a postponement of the run’s first leg, in South America, until 2024 — but Eaton makes informed predictions about its audience today based on the success of 2022’s pop-punk-focused Las Vegas fest When We Were Young, which blink-182 will headline along with Green Day this fall. At When We Were Young, “it was a lot of young kids,” he says. “Yeah, a lot of people in their 30s and 40s [were] going and reliving it, but it was also a huge amount of energy and interest in a much younger audience.”
Death Cab for Cutie debuted slightly later than Weezer or blink-182 — its first album, Something About Airplanes, dropped in 1998 — but has followed a similar path to becoming a road fixture: consistent touring, reverence for its catalog, commercially successful new material and a big-tent approach that welcomes returning fans along with new ones. This fall, Death Cab will embark on one of its biggest tours to date, and one that was informed partly by industry trends — albeit with a twist.
“COVID-19 happened, but even before then, we started seeing the proliferation of these package tours,” says Brilliant Corners founding partner Jordan Kurland, who has managed Death Cab since 2003, citing Hella Mega as an example. But for Death Cab frontman Ben Gibbard, this fall’s package tour will be an unusual co-headline — one with himself. Shortly before the pandemic, Gibbard had broached the idea of a tour featuring Death Cab and The Postal Service (his one-off project with producer Jimmy Tamborello and singer Jenny Lewis), pegged to the 20th anniversaries of their respective 2003 classics, Transatlanticism and Give Up, to Kurland and longtime agent Trey Many of Wasserman. “It took a little while to settle in, and then as we started seeing this trend, touring these packages, we’re like, ‘Holy sh-t, this is a great idea,’ ” Kurland says.
The tour announcement earned an immediate and passionate response as elder millennials cheered the sentimental bill — Gibbard will play the entirety of both albums at a mix of arenas, amphitheaters and theaters — and younger fans delighted in the opportunity to see The Postal Service, which has only toured twice (in 2003 and 2013) for the first time. But while the rare Postal Service outing, along with Death Cab’s decision to play Transatlanticism, make this tour unique, the latter band has, through reliable performances and consistent releases (including 2022’s acclaimed Asphalt Meadows, which yielded the Alternative Airplay No. 1 “Here to Forever”), cultivated the kind of loyal live following that transcends nostalgia. When Death Cab played Denver-area Red Rocks Amphitheatre in September 2021, “there were a lot of high school kids,” Kurland recalls. “Death Cab has now become a band that gets handed down, whether it’s from parents or older siblings. The band is still finding new people.”
“Gen Z, millennials, Gen X, boomers; it’s a little bit of everybody,” Many adds. “Death Cab has continued to gain those younger fans as they continue to work and play great shows and make great records.”
That may ultimately be the key to touring longevity for rock’s new classics. Acts like Weezer, blink-182 and Death Cab have matured without sacrificing creative vitality or commercial relevance; by comparison, consider Billy Joel, who hasn’t released a rock album since 1993 but still tours a beloved catalog that spanned 22 years in stadiums and arenas, or other peers whose token new songs have long been derisively classified as fodder for bathroom breaks.
“Songs will outlast any sort of genre spike,” Many says. “Great songs go beyond the initial scene that maybe helped make them popular.”
“These catalogs have always stood the test of time,” notes Live Nation’s Ackles. “And now, I think you might have more and more of these bands saying, ‘Hey, let’s go out on a tour.’ ”
This story will appear in the April 1, 2023, issue of Billboard.
Usually when Lyle Lovett performs, the stage does not move. But the 2010 Cayamo music festival took place on a luxury liner in the Caribbean — and 14-foot waves shook him out of his usual stoicism. “I grew up being the carsick kid. Couldn’t ride in the back seat,” says the Texas singer-songwriter. “I was doing an interview with Steve Earle for his Sirius radio show [while on board], and I had to step out of the room and come back in.”
Cayamo is one of 18 festivals this year run by Sixthman, an Atlanta-based company founded in 2001 when Sister Hazel’s then-manager, Andy Levine, invited 400 of the rock band’s superfans to take over 200 cabins of the Carnival Jubilee. It ended up kicking off an appealing new concert-business model: Music cruises gave artists the rare opportunity to play intimate shows for core groups of well-off devotees — all while enjoying access to high-end meals, luxury hotel rooms and slot machines (the occasional need for Dramamine notwithstanding).
Since then, Sixthman (which is now a subsidiary of Norwegian Cruise Line) has paid hundreds of acts to perform on various cruise-ship decks — at first, late-1990s stars like Edwin McCain and Tonic; then a relatively unknown Zac Brown; then bigger names ranging from Lynyrd Skynyrd to Kid Rock to KISS to Paramore. Today, Sixthman focuses on booking veteran acts with loyal, affluent fan bases — big enough to fill a 2,500- to 4,000-passenger cruise, but generally not an arena.
Lovett is one of dozens of artists, from Broadway divas to metalheads to EDM DJs, scheduled to headline Sixthman cruises over the next year. That’s because, unlike traditional, tightly curated festivals like Bonnaroo or Coachella, the company is open to booking acts of any genre — as long as their fans can afford roughly $600 to $5,000 for a cabin over four to seven nights.
In 2023 and 2024, Sixthman’s headliners include 311 (which just finished a cruise from Miami to Mexico and Honduras), guitar hero Joe Bonamassa (whose two Keeping the Blues Alive at Sea voyages per year include a trip from Greece to Croatia in August), Stevie Van Zandt (who curated this year’s eighth installment of Outlaw Country Cruise, topped by Blackberry Smoke, Lucinda Williams and Steve Earle) and Lamb of God (which headlines the Headbanger’s Boat on Halloween, along with GWAR, Mastodon, Hatebreed and others). “If it’s a passionate community, that is an opportunity for us,” says Jeff Cuellar, Sixthman’s vp of events, community management, marketing and branding. “We’ve done our research. We know their numbers.”
Performers aboard Cayamo 2023 in February 2023.
Will Byington
Although the COVID-19 pandemic dealt music cruises a one-two punch in 2020, when both cruises and concerts were shut down, the sectors have returned to full strength. Almost every event sells out quickly, according to Cuellar; some, like the old-school hip-hop Rock the Bells festival, even before their lineups are announced.
“You’ve got a really dedicated fan at your fingertips that artists get to be in front of for three, four, five, seven days,” says Lindsey Myers, a CAA music touring agent whose team has handled cruise bookings for artists including KISS and Kesha. “They wouldn’t necessarily have the same sort of avid fan at your average festival.”
Cruise attendance in general has boomed since the lockdowns: According to the latest Cruise Market Watch report, passenger numbers rebounded in 2021 with more than 13 million (though that’s still nearly half of 2019’s pre-pandemic attendance). The top company, Royal Caribbean, recently reported that yearly revenues jumped from $1.5 billion in 2021 to over $8.8 billion last year (due to high operating expenses, the cruise line did experience a net loss of $2.2 billion in 2022). Norwegian, according to its fourth-quarter 2022 results, disclosed a higher-than-expected loss (mostly due to $13.6 billion of debt), but overall revenue was up 225%, to $1.6 billion, and revenue generated from each passenger rose 23% compared with the same period in 2019.
Joe King Carrasco on the Outlaw Country Cruise 7 in January 2023.
Will Byington
Many cruise companies have music events — Royal Caribbean’s annual ’80s Cruise starred Devo, The Church and Living Colour in March, and Celebrity Summit’s Disco Cruise recently had Kool & The Gang and KC & The Sunshine Band. But Sixthman excels at lineups that feel contemporary — not like Sailing With the Oldies. “Sixthman have really become masters at determining which artists will work and which ones won’t,” says Cory Brennan, founder/CEO of management company 5B, which represents perennial Norwegian headliners like Flogging Molly and 311. “There’s a lot of homework and research that goes into this.”
And for such headliners, a ship is one giant marketing and branding opportunity. Train, which has its own wine company, holds tastings on its Sail Around the Sun cruises; singer Hayley Williams has sold her Good Dye Young hair color on Paramore’s Parahoy! cruises in recent years; and Melissa Etheridge raised money for her charitable foundation, which supports scientific research on opioid addiction. “That’s invaluable advertising,” Cuellar says. “Now everybody who’s there is converted: ‘I’m not only a fan of Hayley, I’m going out and spreading the word.’ ”
Artists who headline cruises participate in an economic “host model” as opposed to a standard flat-fee festival model, according to Cuellar. Part of their income is usually a guaranteed payment, similar to what they might receive at any land-based event. But they might also share some of the revenue from food and alcohol sales, which is not part of the deal for most concerts and festivals.
Most music cruises offer all-inclusive meal packages as part of the cost, but attendees pay extra for what Deb Klein, Etheridge’s manager, calls “onboard revenue” — including casinos, excursions in destination cities, art auctions and alcohol. Etheridge, whose most recent Sixthman headlining date was last fall, takes a guarantee, then participates in a 50-50 “rev share” deal for the rest of her salary, Klein says. (Transporting band, crew and freight to the cruise docks and on and off ships costs artists out of pocket.) “It’s really a joint venture,” Klein says. “Believe me, it’s a lot of work. For us, it’s about the community and the connection. And the finances, too.”
A crowd-surfing fan of Jericho’s.
Troy Walsh
Overall music-cruise revenue, Bonamassa says, can be 30% to 50% higher than what a club promoter might pay for a Wednesday-night gig. So an artist making $10,000 for a dry-land festival date might make $15,000 for a cruise. (Nonheadliners’ salaries are comparable to traditional festivals, artist representatives say.) “Why does it cost more?” Bonamassa asks. “You’re doing multiple shows. You have the band and crew out there, you’re paying salaries for a week. By the time you add it all up, it’s an expensive undertaking.”
But other artist reps say expenses are low compared with traditional arena, amphitheater and festival dates. “The narrative you are going to hear from agents and managers is a justification for charging outrageous guarantees, because ‘you are locking up our band for a week and asking them to play multiple times,’ ” says Mark Willis, host partner for pro wrestler Chris Jericho’s Rock ’N’ Wrestling Rager at Sea, a Sixthman cruise that sails every January and stars Jericho’s own metal band, Fozzy. “But that agent/manager will never admit how much money their budget saves in accommodations and meals and drinks and backline and crew and staging and production and runners and bus drivers and hotels.”
Pro wrestler Jericho at his Rock ’N’ Wrestling Rager at Sea: Four Leaf Clover cruise in February 2023.
Troy Walsh
As for the cost of admission, the ticket price is in line with a Bonnaroo or Coachella VIP experience, with Sixthman more like a travel agent than a box office, helping fans coordinate advance planning for food, lodging and transportation in addition to the concerts themselves. Attendees are what land-based concerts and festivals might call “super VIPs,” Cuellar adds — they pay extra to experience artist meet-and-greets, unexpected musical collaborations and glimpses of, say, The Beach Boys participating in a Family Feud game somewhere on deck or singer Mike Love bowling (as they did on their own cruise). Lovett has spied his bandmates playing poker in the ship’s casino. Headlining artists can “curate” their own festivals, too: Flogging Molly, for its cruise in November, will offer “the only floating skate ramp that I’m aware of,” says Brennan, and during its cruise, 311 plays basketball with fans. “Every aspect of the cruise is a chance for you to be involved financially and creatively,” he adds.
When cruises restarted in mid-2021, they required proof of vaccination and conducted COVID-19 testing on board — which worked for early music-cruise headliners such as Etheridge, who was doing the same for her own shows at the time. For Norwegian, COVID-19 remains a concern: In its December financial filings, the organization predicted the virus will still have “a significant impact on the company’s financial results and liquidity.”
But from a concert-business perspective, cruise-ship life is back to normal. “For a while, it seemed like, ‘Were people going to want to do these things anymore?’ ” says Bob McLynn, whose management clients include Train. “Just like the live industry, as far as I’m concerned, it’s fully back.”
This story will appear in the April 1, 2023, issue of Billboard.
Robert Smith still hasn’t found a permanent cure for Ticketmaster’s ill-priced fees. After blasting the company earlier this month for applying exceptionally costly service charges to ticket sales for The Cure‘s upcoming tour, the frontman is now calling out the entertainment giant once again.
This time, the issue comes with the discovery of some tickets labeled by Ticketmaster as being “face value” in spite of the fact that they cost a lot more money than a standard ticket normally would, much less one supposedly charging a minimum amount. “I AM ASKING ABOUT THE WEIRD OVER PRICED ‘FACE VALUE’ TICKETS THAT ARE POPPING UP HERE AND THERE… X,” Smith tweeted on Tuesday (March 28).
For reference, one fan commented on the guitarist’s tweet with a screenshot of two “face value” tickets that cost nearly $1,400. “That’s nuts,” someone else replied to the fan. “I gave almost the same seat for Toronto and paid $160. In USD, that’s around $115!!!”
On Ticketmaster’s website, the face value ticket exchange is defined as “an artist-driven marketplace where fans can sell their tickets to other fans at face value.”
As the band gears up for its first trek in seven years, The Lost World North American Tour, The Cure had hoped to keep seat-buying fair and simple for their fans by opting out of dynamic pricing and shielding against scalpers with non-transferable tickets. But when the sale opened mid-March, customers were disappointed to find that the Ticketmaster had tacked on sky-high fees to tickets that totaled more than the price of the actual tickets themselves.
Afterward, Smith went on a similarly all-caps Twitter rant, writing that he was “AS SICKENED AS YOU ALL ARE BY TODAY’S TICKETMASTER ‘FEES’ DEBACLE” before promising to investigate what went wrong. Soon after, he took to social media again to announce that Ticketmaster would be offering refunds and lower fees.
See Smith’s tweet below.
I AM ASKING ABOUT THE WEIRD OVER PRICED ‘FACE VALUE’ TICKETS THAT ARE POPPING UP HERE AND THERE… X— ROBERT SMITH (@RobertSmith) March 29, 2023
That’s nuts. I gave almost the same seat for Toronto and paid $160. In USD, that’s around $115!!!— mejane🇨🇦🎶📈 (@mejanetoo) March 29, 2023
Rauw Alejandro sold out two in-the-round shows at Miami-Dade Arena March 11-12, moving over 30,000 tickets and more than doubling his 2022 ticket sales at the same venue, according to Billboard Boxscore. The feat highlights North America’s growing Latin touring market as an increasing number of acts across genres tour more cities, play bigger venues and sell more tickets.
The top 25 Latin tours of 2019 grossed $251.3 million and sold 2.8 million tickets, while the top 25 Latin tours of 2022 grossed $990.8 million and sold 8 million tickets (based on Boxscore’s reporting period of Nov. 1, 2021-Oct. 31, 2022). Bad Bunny, who grossed $373.5 million during that time, obviously did some heavy lifting, but he’s far from the only force driving the boom. Six Latin tours in 2022 out-grossed the top Latin tour of 2019. And even if those six tours were removed from the top 25 tally, 2022’s numbers would still beat 2019’s.
“There’s no limitation when you look at Latin,” says Hans Schafer, senior vp of Latin touring for Live Nation. “You see high-demand artists who can command high-demand tickets. You see other artists who are coming in and are offering accessible ticket prices, and people are paying them. Latin is also seeing more non-Latin fans come to their shows versus other genres.”
Likewise, concert promoters who were once only marginally interested in Latin touring, if at all, are now embracing it. Case in point: Nashville-based Outback Presents, which is entering the Latin market for the first time by partnering with Rauw’s manager, Eric Duars, and his live-entertainment arm, Duars Live, to promote Rauw’s U.S. tour.
The embrace of Latin extends to the highest echelons of the American concert industry: Coachella, long a bellwether for broader live-sector trends, booked its first Latin headliner this year in Bad Bunny, and its lineup features several prominent and rising Latin acts, from newcomer DannyLux to veterans Los Fabulosos Cadillacs.
“Latin is more mainstream now,” says CAA agent Bruno del Granado, whose client list includes Luis Fonsi and Gloria Estefan. “Everybody wants to be in Latin, not just the small mom-and-pop promoters.”
Regional Mexican music, for example, was for many years the realm of indie regional promoters. But it’s now being eyed by the likes of Live Nation, which last year presented massive tours by Los Bukis and is currently producing outings by Pepe Aguilar and Alejandro Fernández. “That music is crossing over into other communities in a way we’ve never seen before,” says Schafer.
Independent promoters see it, too. Pedro Zamora, founder of Michigan-based Zamora Entertainment, typically presents 500-600 shows each year, including club dates and casinos. This year, it will likely be between 700 and 800 shows, including arena tours by Los Tigres Del Norte and Los Temerarios, acts who a decade ago were playing festivals and rodeos. “The population has grown, and those fans are older. They’re more affluent, and they want to go to theaters or arenas,” says Zamora.
Younger fans are also flocking to arenas to see new acts like Rauw. In 2021, the Puerto Rican star was playing clubs in secondary markets like the Carolinas and Connecticut, a strategic decision that was made so he could develop stage chops and open markets. By the end of 2021, he was doing arenas. Now he’s in the midst of an 80-plus-date tour (including a 34-city U.S. leg) where the smallest venue is an 8,000-seat theater in Brazil.
“This is summer camp for everyone,” says Duars of the learning curve. “We want this to be amazing.”
This story will appear in the April 1, 2023, issue of Billboard.
As the lights dimmed for Rauw Alejandro’s sold-out show at Miami’s FTX Arena in April 2022, Rosalía — wearing head-to-toe black, eyes hidden behind enormous shades — was quietly ushered to a second-row seat. For once, the spotlight was not on the stylish Spanish artist, but on her boyfriend: a compact, wiry dynamo who, for the next two hours, steamrolled relentlessly from hardcore reggaetón to ’90s-inspired dance bops, supported by a troupe of dancers performing dazzling choreography.
“What Raúl does — sing and dance in a show from beginning to end — no other Latin artist does that,” Rosalía whispered, her voice low but bursting with pride.
A year later, the moment still encapsulates the dynamic of perhaps the most fascinating couple in music right now. Rosalía and Puerto Rican reggaetón star Rauw, both 30, have been together for nearly four years. But even as their relationship and individual careers have flourished — he was No. 3 on Billboard’s 2022 year-end Top Latin Artist chart (behind only Bad Bunny among men), she No. 14 — they’ve rarely appeared in public or given interviews together, and have yet to perform or even collaborate together. Until now.
On March 24, the duo released RR, a three-track EP that is as public and passionate a declaration of love as it gets. On the trio of songs — “Beso,” “Promesa” and “Vampiros” — both artists manage to sound like themselves, while creating an entirely different, beautifully intertwined sonic mix of techno pop with urban beats that moves from dreamy romantic to ’90s dancefloor. At the end of the recently released “Beso” video, Rosalía tearfully displays a diamond ring — confirming the two are now engaged.
Out jointly on Columbia/Sony Music U.S. Latin (Rosalía is signed to Columbia; Rauw to Duars Entertainment, which releases his music through a joint venture with Sony Music U.S. Latin), RR arrives as two of the top recording and touring acts in the world have launched separate outings. Rosalía’s 20-date festival tour, which kicked off at Lollapalooza Argentina on March 17 and includes prominent billings at Coachella and Primavera Sound, follows her Motomami world tour, which grossed $33.7 million and sold 443,000 tickets worldwide, landing her at No. 65 on Billboard’s year-end Top Ticket Sales chart and No. 7 on the year-end Top Latin Tours list, according to Billboard Boxscore.
“Rosalía is truly a global artist, and we focus on markets all over the world. Anywhere where her music is played, anywhere where there is a fan, is important to us,” says her mother, Pilar Tobella, who has always been part of her management team.
Rauw’s ambitious 80-plus-date global arena tour, which kicked off March 4 in Tampa, Fla., and already included back-to-back sold-out dates at the Miami-Dade Arena, comes on the heels of his Vice Versa tour, where he played 100 smaller shows globally between July 2021 and July 2022, grossing $24.5 million and selling 327,000 tickets across 54 of those shows.
Both artists’ growth in capacity underscores their individual appeal and the growing global appetite for Latin music. But the concurrence of their individual treks and RR’s release is a happy accident — the culmination of intense personal and artistic commitment finally ready to be unveiled.
“We wanted to make our relationship solid and build its foundations, and then, if music was meant to come, it would come,” says Rosalía.
“Plus, we were in different stages in our careers, and we wanted to make our fans focus on what we were doing, which was our individual projects,” adds Rauw. “People love drama in the entertainment world, and a romantic relationship will always take precedence. We felt if ours came to light, the effort we’ve both done toward our projects and our music would come second.”
On Rauw: Ludovic de Saint Sernin scarf and pants. On Rosalía: Ludovic de Saint Sernin coat.
Kanya Iwana
Seated side by side in matching black Gucci suits and starched white shirts, Rauw and Rosalía look, and act, symbiotic. In conversation, their speech patterns mimic their musical collaboration: They finish each other’s sentences, pick up where the other leaves off and fill the tiny pockets of breath that remain open.
“I love the absolute independence they have with their creations, their careers and their ideas,” says Sony Music Latin Iberia chairman/CEO Afo Verde, who has been close with both artists throughout their careers and who invited them to record portions of RR at the label’s 5020 recording studio in Miami. “But you clearly hear both of them in what they’ve done together.”
Rosalía has gained a cult-like following — not just for her genre-defying blending of flamenco with hip-hop, reggaetón, electronica and Latin dance rhythms, delivered with her ethereal yet powerful vocals, but also for conceptual concerts that straddle performance art and more traditional music and dance shows.
In Rauw, she has found an artistic kindred spirit, albeit one who occupies a slightly different lane. He is reggaetón to his core, but like her, he pushes his genre’s boundaries — in his case, by incorporating ’90s pop, house and club influences.
Okane coat, Phoebe Pendergast sunglasses, Marco Panconesi jewelry.
Kanya Iwana
And so, when Rauw (real name: Raúl Alejandro Ocasio Ruiz) and Rosalía finally met at a Las Vegas hotel lounge during the 2019 Latin Grammys after months of Instagram DMs, their mutual reflection of each other’s innermost artistic essence unsurprisingly sparked a romantic flame.
She wore a black Alexander Wang jumpsuit, he a blue and yellow bomber jacket; she drank water, he had whiskey. It was love at first sight, says Rauw: “100%.” Behind-the-scenes collaboration quickly ensued, with Rosalía co-writing two tracks for his 2020 album, Afrodisiaco. Still, their careers remained on separate ascending paths. On the road, Rosalía scored key marquee festival bookings like Lollapalooza and Coachella, while Rauw worked his way from clubs to theaters to his current in-the-round arena setup.
Rauw, who is more prolific in the recording studio than Rosalía, has placed five top 10s on Billboard’s Top Latin Albums chart, including 2021’s No. 1 Vice Versa. Rosalía, signed to Columbia Records, has two top 10s on the chart, but two Grammy Awards and 11 Latin Grammys (compared with his two), including two for album of the year.
Finally, last year, they began recording together. “One day, out of the blue, Rosalía sent me the three tracks, and I loved them,” says Rauw’s manager, Eric Duars, who also books and promotes his tours. “People may think it’s a couple’s project, but I see it as two artists coming together to do something very special. I’m always involved in the production of Rauw’s music, but here, they knew exactly what they wanted.”
“I think this will raise the bar for both of them across the globe,” says Jen Mallory, president of Columbia Records. “It’s not as if it was two labels saying, ‘You should collaborate.’ It’s something they did together in a very special, safe, creative space. I think there’s a beautiful symbiotic opportunity.”
As Rosalía prepares for her European tour and Rauw crisscrosses the United States, onstage appearances together seem inevitable and should be an additive for both artists: Rosalía has a bigger following in Europe and among English speakers, while Rauw is firmly entrenched in the Latin American and U.S. Latin markets. But both say their respective fan bases have gradually warmed to each other.
“Many people who only listened to you before now listen to me, and the other way around, too,” says Rosalía. Much like their music together, “It wasn’t planned, but it’s a blessing.”
You’ve jointly released music and have often prepared for your tours together. What have you learned from each other?
Rauw Alejandro: Rosi has a more solid music base than I do in the sense that I’m more extroverted in my music, but she’s far more disciplined. When you work with someone so disciplined, it’s impossible not to take something from that. And I’m disciplined, mind you; otherwise, I wouldn’t be here.
Rosalía: You are, baby.
Rauw: But she’s a freak-crazy workaholic. Piano lessons, dance lessons, voice lessons; what else can you learn when no one sings like you? At the beginning, I didn’t really get it, but after some time, I said, “OK, let me try to follow her lead and see.” And the difference is huge. If doing something is positive for her career, why can’t I also absorb that if it adds to my career?
Rosalía: You are far more relaxed. You’re someone who really lets go. It’s as if you have a lot of faith and just an organic feel. You’re always telling me to relax, to let go more. And just telling me that teaches and helps me. You balance me.
Rauw: I tell her my secrets, and she tells me hers. The same energy I put into my things, I put into hers.
Rosalía: Same.
Rauw: And we watch each other’s backs. At a visual, stage level, we share ideas; also styling, outfits. We’re two individual, independent artists, but we’re a couple. And we kind of represent each other mutually. If I’m going to go out there and do something crazy, I sometimes think, “Heck, no: I’m Rosalía’s boyfriend.” I need to raise the bar, understand? We’re taking care of our prestige and our work and ensuring it always looks the part. We motivate each other to keep rising to an infinite level.
Rosalía: For example, he’ll be out there during my sound check, and when I’m done, he’ll say, “I noticed this or that.” It’s as if he were my ears. (To Rauw) When you’re taping a video, I’m there, and I’m not there as your girlfriend. I’m literally there as the stylist or the stylist’s assistant, or whatever they need me for. I’m there because I love you and I want to help. How can I help? And if I can help being your stylist’s assistant, well, that’s what I’ll do.
Rosalía and Rauw Alejandro photographed by Kanya Iwana on February 11, 2023 at Ace Studios in Miami. On Rosalía: Gucci suit, shirt, tie, gloves and shoes. On Rauw: Gucci suit, shirt, tie, gloves and shoes, Maria Black jewelry.
Kanya Iwana
In making music, what does each of you bring to the table that the other one lacks?
Rosalía: I’m more of an overthinker in terms of the music process, and it’s helped me a lot [when doing] music with him because he’s super intuitive. His approach and his energy were especially positive to close the songs.
Rauw: Naturally, I help close the songs. Otherwise, we’d never finish. This girl is always looking for …
Rosalía: The twist.
Rauw: The twist. Rosi is very exacting. She can play anything on the piano, and I play more by ear. She has like seven doctorates in music; my doctorates are with my ears.
Rosalía: Your father, your grandfather [are both musicians]. I didn’t come from that, so I had to study. You studied, but in a different way. There are many paths to becoming a musician.
Rauw: But yeah, we complement each other in the studio. In music, we have a few different opinions, but we let each other flow.
You’ve collaborated with others. How is this different?
Rauw: In terms of collaborations, the big difference is you’re collaborating with the love of your life. At least, I am.
Rosalía: Me, too.
Rauw: That alone makes it more special, and it’s easy to open your heart because you’re with that person and the level of commitment to production and lyricism rises.
Was it scary to open up like that?
Rauw: Not for me.
Rosalía: But I understand what you mean. There was a point, for example, when I was writing “Promesa” where I wanted to make a list of all the things I wanted to do with you. And at the end, it’s like a declaration of saying, “I want to be with you my entire life.” Writing that in a way that I can look back at in 40 years and say, “I was honest” — well, that’s a challenge.
Dancing is such a big element in both your shows. What does dance mean to each of you?
Rosalía: It’s another discipline, another extension of my artistic expression. It’s something that helps me feel free onstage. I still don’t dance as well as Raúl, but I’m working on it because Raúl is a whole other level in terms of dance. I always think, “I have to try harder, I have to try harder!”
Rauw: (Laughs.) You dance well! It’s different styles. I also love watching Rosi. She’s so strong, so confident in her show. Her act is very, very heavy duty. She’s one of those people who practices seven thousand times. Rosi’s flamenco segments are very strong. People go nuts.
Rosalía: I practice twice as much as you, and you dance twice as well as I do. Even outside the scope of Spanish-language music, I don’t think anyone does it like you.
Can each of you describe your touring trajectory? How did you begin?
Rauw: I began in clubs, then festivals, then theaters, then small venues and then arenas and now stadiums. And it was all in the Latin circuit, until my [2021] album Vice Versa, which allowed me to tour big venues in the U.S. for the first time. A big departure for me was playing [four sold-out dates] at el Choliseo [Coliseo de Puerto Rico in San Juan] in 2021. It was my first arena, and everything changed after that. Expectations grew, and the perception was immediately different.
Has your audience changed?
Rauw: They’re mostly Latins. But here in the U.S., they’re Latins who speak English. They listen to music in Spanish, but they converse in English. I hear it when my videographers film the crowds here in the U.S. That says so much about the popularity of Spanish-language music.
And you, Rosalía?
Rosalía: Bars. Bars. I started in bars. Then theaters, then arenas and festivals. Arenas only in my country, and at the same time, I was playing festivals around the world.
Rauw: You’re always most popular in your own country. And then the goal is to conquer other places little by little. Used to be I could fill an arena in Puerto Rico but not in Texas. Then I could do New York, but not Ohio. Then, all of a sudden, all you play are arenas.
Ludovic de Saint Sernin coat, Cruda Shoes.
Kanya Iwana
How did you conceive your current tours?
Rauw: My tour changes every year as I learn more as an artist, just as my recordings change. When I went into the studio to record Saturno [released in November 2022], I was thinking about the tour, and I began to plan musically around that. That’s something I didn’t do before. This project is very focused on dance and on musical energy because everything is very upbeat. Obviously, there are a few ballads inside the album, and I’ll sing some of my old hits, but the tour’s backbone is [that feeling of] “Let’s go crazy!” More uptempo, very ’90s. There’s a visual element, but this is a 360 show, so the focus is on the center and on the lighting.
Rosalía: I try to make every tour different. I start with the music; that’s the axis of everything. But at the same time, everything is connected. Everything feeds on itself. There are choreographies that lead me to make different music or music that I develop thinking about a choreography. Music is the spark, but the show gets created from many different points.
What can you tell us about your upcoming shows?
Rosalía: In some ways, it will be similar to Motomami because a lot of the music is electronic, so having musicians onstage is not necessary nor does it make sense. Plus, I very much like the stage as a canvas for movement. That’s where I’m motivated now.
It’s interesting: Both of you are musicians’ musicians, but you’ve opted for more of a spectacle route.
Rosalía: It depends on the projects. If this were like my first album, which was voice and guitar, this staging wouldn’t make sense. There is no better or worse. Sometimes people have prejudices [about] if having musicians is better or not. Joder, I’m singing for an hour and 50 minutes; I’m playing the piano, I’m playing guitar. I think there’s enough music.
Rauw: I, on the other hand, come from a sports background. I’m a soccer player, and that really defined me. Athletes can play at their peak usually up to when they’re 33, 35, because it requires a lot of physicality. I can do these very physical and taxing tours now when I’m young. I don’t think I can play this type of tour when I’m older. I still have time to play concerts with a full band, a little more chill, a little more musical and project another vibe.
As you embark on new tours, what’s one word that describes each of you onstage?
Rosalía: Freedom.
Rauw: Beast mode.
Most people may not realize just how physical both your tours are. Rauw, when I walked in today, you were massaging your shoulders with your Theragun, and you’re still in rehearsal mode. How do you prepare? Do you train together?
Rauw: We have different routines because our bodies are different and our objectives are different, but cardio is always in there. Actually, at this stage [with the tour about to start], I do less cardio because there’s a lot of dancing onstage. We rehearse from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. every single day, with a lunch break. And I travel with a physio[therapist] and a chiropractor.
Rosalía: We also train together at the gym. We combine HIIT and cardio workouts. I train five, six days a week from approximately 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and then I stay till about 10 p.m., making music. I rehearse between five and six months for a tour, but if it were up to me, I’d prep a whole year.
Rosalía, how different is it to play European countries versus Latin America?
Rosalía: I don’t change the show. When all is said and done, a stage is a stage. The way I approach that stage, how sacred that stage is for me, never changes, no matter where I am, big or small. [Audience-wise], there are cultures who demonstrate their appreciation in different ways; some are louder, some are more internal, but that doesn’t mean it’s worse or better. It’s simply different, and I try to always be generous onstage.
So even though your tour is very rehearsed, you take liberties?
Rosalía: There’s improvisation, 100%. That’s the magic.
Rauw: Always.
Rosalía and Rauw Alejandro photographed on February 11, 2023 at Ace Studios in Miami.
Kanya Iwana
In the past three years, do you see a difference in the reaction and perception of Latin tours and music in Spanish?
Rosalía: People are very receptive to music in Spanish. You see its presence around the world, even in festival headliners.
Rauw: The movement has grown so much that today we can tour places we wouldn’t have been able to before. Reggaetón is my base, and countries like Germany and Holland were not available to us before.
Your tours look expensive.
Rosalía: To me, the audience’s experience is more important than the numbers. It’s something I apply to the way I make music and to how I build the tour and a show. Making the show as exciting as possible is more important than being profitable. Plus, people may think artists make lots of money on tours, but many times, you have to invest. Something that looks profitable may not be.
Touring is hard. How do you cope with the challenges of tour life?
Rosalía: Notwithstanding the joy and goodwill, and the love you get from fans, it’s very draining. It’s like constantly building and destroying your home. You arrive at a hotel, you organize everything with all the care in the world, and the next day, you have to dismantle everything and leave. Being a nomad isn’t easy psychologically or emotionally. But it helps me a lot that you and I speak so much over FaceTime.
Rauw: I try to think about the future and be as positive as possible within the sacrifices we make. We’re human. There are days when you really don’t want to do it; you feel that pressure. But thinking about the future helps me: There’s one life to live, it goes by fast, and this is only one little sliver of my life where I’ll be able to enjoy this. Afterward, the cycle of life will take us to another stage, and someone will be in this place, touring and living the moment. I’m just trying to enjoy it to the fullest because it’ll go by fast.
You’re both in such a good moment in your careers. What will happen when one of you is up and the other is down?
Rauw: When I met Rosi, she was positioned much better than me, and that was never a problem.
Rosalía: I’m lucky to be your partner, and I want to be there for you, sabes? And I feel you’re there for me, independent of the careers. For me, our relationship is first, and then there’s everything else. Of course my career is super important in my life, but at the same time, in my life, you’re my companion, and everything else comes second.
This story will appear in the April 1, 2023, issue of Billboard.