Touring
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Since the business of Christmas music is growing so fast – it occupies five of the top 10 places on the Billboard Hot 100 this week – we are re-presenting some of our stories from Christmas past. This piece, the touring success of Trans-Siberian Orchestra, originally ran in 2019. Since then, TSO’s touring success has continued. In 2019, the group’s 109-date tour sold 1,016,000 tickets for a $66.8 million gross. In 2021, it sold 767,000 tickets to 98 shows for $54.6 million. And, this year, as of the end of November, TSO sold 223,000 tickets to 27 shows for $15.6 million.
To date, TSO has grossed $683.2 million and sold 13.5 million tickets.
The Mid-America Center in Council Bluffs, Iowa, which is located in an industrial park down the street from the Cresline Plastic Pipe Company, looks from the outside like any other 8,000-capacity arena. Next week, the Council Bluffs Kennel Dog Show will take place there, followed by a charity bubble-soccer face-off between firefighters and cops from the state and neighboring Nebraska. But every year for three weeks or so in late October and early November, Trans-Siberian Orchestra management turns the venue into a high-tech assembly line and launch pad for the act’s perennial tour.
In one room, storage buckets hold portions of the stage; in a larger space stocked with forklifts and work benches, carpenters weld those portions together. A large mixing board sits inexplicably in one of the arena’s bathrooms, and in separate rehearsal suites, two iterations of the 18-piece orchestra — one that will play dates east of this central U.S. location and one that will head west — go over, and over, this year’s set.
In the main arena space, two rehearsal stages are set end to end. On a Thursday night, one stage sits dormant while the East group runs through its nearly two-and-a-half-hour set, complete with dozens of fiery explosions, webs of crisscrossing green and red lasers, floating video screens, dueling long-haired metal guitarists and elaborate classical and progressive-rock songs engineered from, among many other things, Beethoven riffs, Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze” and “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.” At one point, a 24-foot metallic contraption on the side of the stage spews out tiny lightning bolts timed to lead guitarist Joel Hoekstra’s solos. It is the show’s latest upgrade: a double-Tesla coil. “Well,” says Al Pitrelli, 57, the tour’s musical director and lead guitarist for the West group, as he stands near the soundboard. “That doesn’t suck.”
For years, the two orchestras played slightly different arrangements of the same songs — the deviations so fine that they were apparent only to the musicians — but that proved unnecessarily complicated for such a large undertaking, especially for the backup drummer who had to learn both versions. Now, both follow the same script and sheet music, more or less. “Each band has a different personality,” says longtime drummer Jeff Plate. “So there are some spots that have a different vibe.”
Trans-Siberian-Orchestra
Jason McEachern
Not that there’s any kind of East-West rivarly. About 85 percent of the crew worked on the previous TSO tour, as have most of the musicians. “We have an expanded family out here,” says Plate of the group that has gathered in Council Bluffs — not surprising for a group that has spent years celebrating the Christmas holidays on the road. Although most of the cast, crew and musicians return home when the tour breaks briefly for Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, on work days they bond over meals catered by topline servers, many customized according to family holiday traditions. For good measure, Pitrelli years ago taught the catering department’s head chef the recipe for his grandmother’s “Sunday sauce.” The musicians spend hours after every evening concert — there are usually two performances a day — greeting fans. “I wouldn’t know what to do without it, honestly,” says Joel Hoekstra, who has toured with the orchestra for 10 years and also plays with Cher and Whitesnake.
The tour — which is slated to hit 66 cities in seven weeks for a total of 109 shows — kicked off on Wednesday. The West orchestra plays its first show in Council Bluffs, while the East contingent debuts in Green Bay, Wis., ushering in the 20th year of an unlikely live-music concept that, despite such a compact itinerary, consistently ranks among the top live outings of the year. According to Billboard Boxscore data, to date, TSO has grossed $546.1 million and sold 11.5 million tickets over 1,484 shows. It is one of only 32 acts in the history of the database to gross more than $500 million as a solo headliner — the orchestras do not co-headline with other acts or even use openers — and one of only 15 solo headliners to sell in excess of 10 million tickets. And for an act that is not a radio staple — even during the holidays — TSO has charted nine albums on the Billboard 200, four of them reaching the top 10; sold 10.1 million albums and 4.9 million downloads; and generated 273.5 million on-demand audio and 177.5 million on-demand video streams, according to Nielsen Music.
Green Bay Press Gazette reviewer Kendra Meinert describes the East orchestra’s opening night as “a little like a family reunion” making a “warm and welcome return.” Noting that the concertgoers in her row included “two teens, a Harley rider and senior citizens talking about their bus trip to Branson, Missouri,” she writes: “That’s how you get to be a top-grossing touring act year after year by touring only for a few weeks.” A loyal fanbase is also a big part of TSO’s perennial success: Management says that 60 percent of this year’s ticket-holders are repeat customers.
In April 2017, Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s extended family was rocked — and the future of the family business suddenly put in doubt — when the orchestra’s founder Paul O’Neill, a driving, dreaming perfectionist who had once played guitar in a touring production of Jesus Christ Superstar and later worked as a promoter and a manager for AC/DC and Def Leppard, died unexpectedly at the age of 61 from a reaction to prescription medicine he was taking. O’Neill’s family made the decision that the show would go on, and when the touring company hit the road again that November, it quickly dispelled any doubts that Trans-SIberian Orchestra had lost its luster without its creator and chief cheerleader at the helm. In 2017 and 2018, TSO went on to score the two biggest Boxscore grosses of its history: $50.2 million and $56.7 million, respectively. (The latter figure also reflects, in part, the highest ticket prices of the act’s history.) The orchestra also finished at No. 20 on Billboard‘s Money Makers ranking of the top-earning acts of 2018, with $18.5 million in collective sales, streaming, publishing and touring income.
Based on ticketing trends for the act, Billboard estimates that TSO’s 2019 box office could approach $60 million this year, thanks, in part, to the decision to revisit in its entirety the orchestra’s debut album, Christmas Eve and Other Stories — and that continued success has the organization already thinking how to top itself next year.
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In the early ‘90s, O’Neill began to plot a holiday-themed live spectacle that combined progressive rock, heavy metal and classical music with elaborate stage productions. He had been producing a struggling Tarpon Springs, Fla., metal and prog rock band called Savatage when its label, Atlantic Records, encouraged him to pursue his idea of a holiday-themed rock opera with a Pink Floyd-style light show. The Queens, N.Y., native mined Savatage for talent, including Pitrelli, who has played with Alice Cooper, Blue Oyster Cult and Megadeth and auditioned after O’Neill rejected what the axman calls “great guitar players all over the planet.” O’Neill asked Pitrelli to play excerpts from Mozart’s Symphony No. 24, and when the guitarist transposed the complex piece into a different key on the spot, he hired him.
Together, O’Neill, Pitrelli and Savatage composer Jon Oliva — who remains a constant presence at TSO rehearsals, clapping and snapping from a chair beneath the stage and bantering with the musicians about key changes and fantasy football — worked out arrangements for original compositions like “Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24.” The instrumental became the heart of Christmas Eve and Other Stories, which told the story of an angel who responds to a father’s prayer to see his daughter for the first time in years. Released in 1996, the album eventually went triple-platinum.
In 1999, O’Neill took his vision on the road, and in 2004, Trans-Siberian Orchestra became the 19th highest-grossing tour of the year, according to Boxscore. It would finish among the top 25 for eight of the next 14 years.
Success did not satisfy O’Neill. “Paul wanted more and more and more,” Plate says of TSO’s shaggy-haired, bearded founder, who wore a leather jacket and sunglasses pretty much everywhere. “He would be almost unrealistic and so adamant.” O’Neill pushed everybody, from musicians to pyro wizards, and during rehearsals could be found “running around the floor” like a rock ‘n’ roll Bob Fosse, Plate adds, “stopping the song in the middle because somebody’s not in the right spot or the singer didn’t have the right inflection on a certain word or the lighting cue was off.” Although he died more than two years ago, managers and musicians still speak of O’Neill in the present tense.
O’Neill’s brand of ambition did not come cheap then — and doesn’t now. Although touring and production director Elliot Saltzman declines to reveal the cost of putting two touring companies — consisting of 120 people and 20 trucks each — on the road (a practice O’Neill initiated in 2000 to meet demand for bookings), he does allow that he budgets $1 million for pyrotechnics alone. (“It’s like being in Iwo Jima [onstage],” Pitrelli says. “But it works.”) “Our startup costs are more than The Rolling Stones — and we have to recoup in seven weeks,” Saltzman says of the double-tour, which runs through Dec. 30 this year.
When O’Neill was alive, he would demand more pyro, lasers and special effects for each successive tour, while Saltzman, Adam Lind and Kenny Kaplan, who oversee the band as partners of Castle Management, played the budget scolds. Since his death, the trio has reversed roles. “Now we have to push a little,” Lind says. Ten years ago, Pitrelli might have attended rehearsal and thought, “It’s pretty good.” Now he “looks for stuff to fix.” Adds the guitarist: “He was my big brother. I’m keeping myself on my toes now. In the back of my mind, I hear Paul always pushing me, but I’ve learned to do it myself.”
At one point, walking through the arena, Saltzman, Lind and Kaplan encounter pyro specialist Doug Adams, who promises imminent Cryo-Jet fog-machine functionality. Pitrelli says Adams frequently tells him, “Wait till you see what I designed this year!” and, anticipating being barbecued onstage, thinks to himself, “Oh, kill me.” Adds Saltzman, who also manages Joan Jett and consults with other tours: “We have fire coming out of everything. We’ve got a lot of mad scientists here.” Kaplan, though, says the managers are experienced enough to know when a piece requires just 15 explosions rather than, say, the pyro team’s preferred 30. “They’re just thinking ‘big is big,’ but we’re trying to measure where it’s spent best,” he says.
Trans-Siberian-Orchestra
Jason McEachern
TSO’s first tour in 1999 played seven shows in five cities and drew 12,000 concertgoers. By 2004, its itinerary had expanded to 100 shows — often two a day — that attracted 1 million ticket-holders. (From 2010 through 2012, TSO took its only non-holiday album, 2000’s Beethoven’s Last Night, on the road in the spring and reps say the orchestra is considering similar tours in the future.) The shows are family-friendly and celebrity attendees include Eddie Van Halen, Kid Rock, the New York Mets’ Noah Syndergaard and The Band Perry, who once drove from Nashville to Knoxville to see the show, parents and grandparents in tow.
When the news broke of O’Neill’s death, the organization was stunned. O’Neill’s imagination and drive to innovate had kept TSO evolving for 20 years. “Paul always had a knack for being one step beyond what anybody could envision,” says Hoekstra. “He would whip everybody into a frenzy.”
“He would come into our dressing room and talk about dreams and mystical ideas and fantasies,” recalls Mee Eun Kim, a keyboardist since 2000. “By the time he leaves the room” — there’s the present tense again — “the girls would all whisper to each other: ‘That’s never going to happen.’” But, Mee Eun adds, “After our first arena show, we looked at each other like, ‘Oh my God, he did it.’ From then on, any time he said anything crazy, we said, ‘OK, Paul!’”
With O’Neill gone, the doubts arrived. “There was a moment when I was like, ‘Oh, what’s going to happen?’” says Mee Eun. Plate and Hoekstra called each other to discuss what a future without the Trans-SIberian Orchestra would look like. They did not have to wonder for very long. O’Neill’s wife, Desiree, and his daughter, Ireland — who, as a young girl, used to shadow her father during rehearsals — quickly decided the show would continue. They declined to comment for this story, and while Lind calls the first tour after O’Neill’s death “very difficult,” he adds, “Paul talked long before his passing of TSO outlasting us all.”
For Trans-Siberian Orchestra to remain relevant to future generations, new music will almost certainly have to be composed for coming tours. Conceivably Oliva and Pitrelli, who were there at the beginning, could carry the torch at least part of the way, and Saltzman, Lind and Kaplan say are always thinking ahead — but right now, they have a tour to do. “That kind of decision comes a little later,” says Kaplan. “We get through this one, then we look at how this played out, what we liked about it, how it will change, what we learned along the way.”
The O’Neill family’s decision to revisit Christmas Eve and Other Stories for this year’s tour has ratcheted up the emotional quotient again for the musicians who date back to the early days of TSO. Pitrelli, whose shoulder-length mane is streaked with gray, says he has a hard time “keeping it straight” while playing songs from the album.
There’s another reason performing TSO’s first album and its story of a father praying for the safe return of his child resonates with the guitarist. Pitrelli’s oldest son, Jesse, is a Coast Guard sniper and his youngest, Zach, a nuclear-submarine engineer “somewhere under the Indian Ocean.” “When I recorded these [songs] for Paul back then, I was in a different head,” Pitrelli adds. “Listening to these songs at this point in my life, I’ve become the older character. I can’t help inserting my name into that story: Where are my boys now? I miss them.”
O’Neill used to tell the musicians and crew the music should last not decades but for centuries, and, for their part, they are determined to fulfill that prophecy. “I’m fairly positive he’s watching it, going, ‘You’re doing good, guy, keep going’” Pitrelli says. “He used to tell me every tour: ‘Just get me through January.’ I’m gonna get him through another January.”
Additional reporting by Eric Frankenberg.
A second person has died after a crush at a London concert venue last week, British police said Monday (Dec. 19).
Gabrielle Hutchinson, 23, was working as a security guard at the O2 Brixton Academy, where Nigerian singer Asake was due to perform Thursday. Hutchinson was one of eight people hospitalized after being caught in mayhem at the venue, and died on Monday, the Metropolitan Police force said.
Rebecca Ikumelo, 33, died on Saturday morning. A 21-year-old woman remains in critical condition. All three were in the foyer of the concert hall when they were caught up in a throng of people.
The police force said emergency services were called to reports of a large crowd and people trying to force their way into the venue.
The force said detectives were reviewing security camera and phone footage, speaking to witnesses and conducting forensic examinations as part of a “large and complex” investigation. It said it was too early to say whether any crimes were committed.
The Brixton Academy in south London is one of the city’s most famous music venues. Built as a movie theater in the 1920s, it has a capacity of just under 5,000.
Wynonna will once again welcome a slate of her fellow artists and friends for the upcoming 2023 leg of The Judds: The Final Tour.
Ashley McBryde, Brandi Carlile, Kelsea Ballerini, Little Big Town and Tanya Tucker will join her for select dates on the tour, while Martina McBride will return to open all upcoming tour dates. The Judds: The Final Tour dates for 2023, produced by Sandbox Live and Live Nation, will launch Jan. 26 in Hershey, Penn.
“What I can think of to say is that I am looking so forward to being out on the road again, and that I am absolutely thrilled to have my friends joining me for this next tour,” Wynonna said via a statement. “I’m so grateful to the fans that they want more, and I’m anxious to be with everybody again.”
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The country star opted to continue with the tour as a tribute following the death of her mother and musical partner Naomi Judd. The country legend died at age 76 on April 30, just one day before The Judds were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. The Judds: The Final Tour had been initially announced prior to Naomi’s passing.
Several of the artists chosen joining Wynonna on the tour previously joined her and her sister Ashley Judd to honor their late mother during a public memorial service that aired on CMT, and was held at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium. McBride spoke during the memorial, while McBryde performed “Love Is Alive,” and Little Big Town delivered “Grandpa (Tell Me ‘Bout the Good Old Days).” During the service, Carlile teamed with Wynonna for a stirring rendition of “The Rose.”
One of the most successful duos in country music history, The Judds notched 14 No. 1 hits on Billboard‘s Hot Country Singles chart.
See the full list of The Judds: The Final Tour 2023 showdates below:
Jan. 26, 2023: Hershey, PA – Giant Center *Ashley McBryde
Jan. 28, 2023: Bridgeport, CT – Total Mortgage Arena *Ashley McBryde
Jan. 29, 2023: Worcester, MA – DCU Arena *Ashley McBryde
Feb. 2, 2023: Tulsa, OK – BOK Center *Kelsea Ballerini
Feb. 3, 2023: Kansas City, MO – T-Mobile Center *Kelsea Ballerini
Feb. 4, 2023: St. Louis, MO – Chaifetz Arena *Kelsea Ballerini
Feb. 9, 2023: Omaha, NE – CHI Health Center Omaha *Little Big Town
Feb. 10, 2023: Moline, IL – Vibrant Arena at THE MARK *Little Big Town
Feb. 11, 2023: Dayton, OH – Wright State University Nutter Center *Little Big Town
Feb. 16, 2023: Greenville, SC – Bon Secours Wellness Arena *Tanya Tucker
Feb. 17, 2023: Fairfax, VA – EagleBank Arena *Tanya Tucker
Feb. 18, 2023: Charleston, WV – Charleston Coliseum *Tanya Tucker
Feb. 23, 2023: Savannah, GA – Enmarket Arena *Brandi Carlile
Feb. 24, 2023: Tampa, FL – Amalie Arena *Brandi Carlile
Feb. 25, 2023: Hollywood, FL – Hard Rock Live at Seminole Hard Rock Hollywood *Brandi Carlile
AJ Capital Partners, the new owners of revered Nashville music venue Exit/In, have named a new talent buyer for the iconic entertainment hub and plan to re-open the shuttered venue as early as this Spring after it temporarily closed in late November.
Though there had been local speculation and concern that AJ Capital would turn to a large promoter such as Live Nation to book the 51-year old independent venue, the new owners are utilizing an in-house team with Dan Merker serving as Exit/In’s lead talent buyer. Merker, who oversees talent buying for all AJ Capital properties, has previously worked at Outback Presents, HUKA Entertainment and Tortuga Music Festival.
“We are honored to carry on the legacy of this iconic venue and raise the bar for both the fan and artist experience,” Merker said in a statement to Billboard. ‘We look forward to announcing 2023 shows soon and as the calendar will reflect, restoring Exit/In as a welcoming place for artists that span all genres and everyone within our community.”
After moving their headquarters from Chicago to Nashville in 2020, AJ Capital Partners in July 2021 acquired the beloved Exit/In, located at 2208 Elliston Place, as well as the adjacent Hurry Back bar, for $6.45 million from Anthony Rentals (representing property owners the Nash and Anthony families). AJ Capital says they plan to continue Hurry Back as a restaurant/bar concept. A representative for the Nash and Anthony families declined to speak for this story. AJ Capital Partners officially take over operations of Exit/In on Jan. 1, 2023.
In addition to the Graduate Hotel chain, AJ Capital owns and developed the buildings that house two current music industry entities: Live Nation’s Nashville office in the Nashville Warehouse Co., and newly opened Nashville headquarters for the Academy of Country Music, both in Nashville’s Wedgewood-Houston neighborhood.
AJ Capital Partners also owns the Memphis, Tennessee venue Minglewood Hall. Other venues in AJ Capital Partners’ portfolio include New Orleans’ Joy Theater, The Senate in Columbia, S.C., Houston’s White Oak Music Hall, and Iron City in Birmingham, Ala. AJ Capital also has plans for a 4,500-capacity music venue in Nashville’s Wedgewood-Houston area.
“The Exit/In has been Nashville’s music forum for 51 years, under the stewardship of more than two dozen operators over that time,” Tim Ryan, Principal focused on live music venues, boutique hotels and other experiential real estate, AJ Capital Partners, told Billboard via a statement. “Ultimately, the venue’s history, legacy and soul belong to Nashville. As the next stewards in line, we’re committed to doing whatever is necessary to restore her to good health and set the stage for another legendary half-century and beyond. AJ’s track record of restoring and reviving historic spaces speaks for itself, both here in Nashville and across our portfolio.”
After AJ Capital takes over the venue’s operations on Jan. 1, 2023, it plans to renovate the Exit/In’s bathrooms and green room. Updates will also include refreshing of the building’s west-facing outer wall, which previously showcased a mural featuring artists who have performed at Exit/In. The mural has since been painted over.
Since opening in 1971 with a performance by Jimmy Buffett, the bare-bones, 500-person capacity Exit/In has been one of the city’s most enduring and popular venues, and a mainstay of Nashville’s rock music scene, hosting a diverse slate of artists, including Billy Joel, Etta James, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Linda Ronstadt, Muddy Waters, Jason and the Scorchers, R.E.M and more. On the back cover of The Police’s Zenyatta Mondatta, Sting is seen wearing an Exit/In shirt. Episodes of the CMT series Western Beat with Billy Block — which grew out of Block’s Western Beat Roots Revival — were taped at Exit/In beginning in 2000.
In 2021, AJ Capital filed a request to designate the Exit/In as a historical landmark, and historic overlays were approved for a section of the property.
The switchover in ownership has not been without controversy as the most recent operator, Chris Cobb, had been passionately opposed to the change. Cobb, whose name had grown synonymous with the venue, has been an integral part of Exit/In for 18 years. In 2012, he partnered with Josh Billue to oversee Exit/In, and became its sole operator since 2019 until the last show under his watch on Nov. 23.
In February, as Exit/In went on the block, Chris Cobb and his wife Telisha, partnered with Grubb Properties’ Live Venues Recovery Fund, an entity that helps club operators become owners, to try to buy the property. The Cobbs also launched a GoFundMe campaign that reached its initial $200,000 goal, ultimately raising more than $271,000, but were unsuccessful in buying the club. Cobb pledged to donate the money raised to the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA) and to Music Venue Alliance (MVAN). Cobb was unavailable for comment by press time.
In April 2021 Cobb also filed trademark applications for the name “Exit/In Nashville’s Music Forum,” as well as “Exit/In Nashville Music Forum Fifty Years and Counting 50,” which were subsequently opposed by AJ Capital in October of this year. The opposition filing from AJ Capital contended that according to license agreements, tenants were granted a limited license to use the name Exit/In on the leased premises only, and that the landlord “at all times shall retain sole and exclusive ownership and right to the name Exit/In subject only to the limited license granted herein.”
There is no word on when the patent office will hand down its decision.
The Exit/In has long served as the anchor for the geographic area dubbed The Rock Block, which over the decades has included The End, Elliston Place Soda Shop, Obie’s Pizza and The Gold Rush. The Rock Block was commemorated with a historical marker in 2020.
Ned Horton, whose The Horton Group operated Exit/In from 1998 through 2001, says, “Real estate in Nashville has been going through the roof, home neighborhoods are changing and in rapid fashion. So to be beholden to a landlord in running a business does have its limitations from time to time. AJ controls its destiny by owning the building and the land. But it does seem like the new owners are well-intentioned and have the capital to do somethings that others maybe couldn’t in the past.”
Rick Whetsel, who operated Exit/In from 2003-2006, says, “It’s really exciting to have an owner with deep pockets. As caretakers or stewards of Exit/In, we’ve always kind of financed things out of our own pockets. Taking care of upgrades and fixing various things, we tended to kind of put off repairs or kick things down the road a bit. It’s nice that someone has the money and capital they have to take care of the building and put it on the path to a good future. The Exit/In is such an important part of not just the music industry, but the city of Nashville. There’s such a sense of history and you can feel that energy when you are in there.”
“Change is not always a bad thing,” Whetsel added. “Financial security is a wonderful thing. It’s nice to know that the place will be here and able to operate as a venue for a long time. The stewardship of Exit/In, they realize it is a big deal. You have to go out there and build bridges and become part of the community and they are. It’s amazing the work that myself, Chris Cobb, Josh Billue, and others in the past couple of decades have been able to do, to get the Exit/In on the right path. The Exit/In has always been here and it needs to stay here.”
It was a year in which Rammstein blasted plumes of fire from a backpack, The Weeknd destroyed a miniature city in a hurricane of black smoke, Pepe Aguilar sang on horseback amid Aztec warriors and equestrian acrobats and Elton John gave a “Rocketman” tour of space from a video screen that bled into the stage. artists provided fans with endless stadium explosions and other over-the-top spectacles. Even though Inflation and supply-chain issues considerably jacked up expenses for 2022’s biggest tours, cutting corners was not an option. “It’s really important that we don’t short-change anybody,” David Furnish, John’s husband and manager, told Billboard in November, just before the singer’s final U.S. farewell tour show.
And in 2023, stars who continue or return to stadiums after emerging from COVID-19 quarantine are unlikely to scale down. “Our show is evolving,” Aguilar says from his Mexico City home. “Once I experimented with it, it’s hard to go back.”
Here are the stories behind five other ground-breaking concert special effects in 2022:
Bad Bunny’s floating dolphins and live-video merry-go-rounds
Befitting the year’s highest grossing tour, Bad Bunny went big with stadium special effects. The giant dolphins floating above the crowds were the most instantly eye-catching, but Bunny also integrated video into the shows in new ways. During “Callaíta,” he built on the merry-go-round imagery of his 2019 video and projected a 3-D live feed of his performance, as well as captured shots of individual fans and other elements of the show, into the frames of the rotating structure on stage. “There’s a lot more to it than meets the eye,” says Adrian Martinez, creative director for Sturdy, the production company that created much of the tour’s visual imagery. “A lot of shows just use loops and clips here and there and kind of just repeat. We wanted to make sure people were looking at something new pretty constantly.”
Coldplay’s LED spheres
After Coldplay‘s designer approached Frederic Opsomer with the idea for a new effect— hovering spheres festooned with LED strips— his staff at PRG Projects began two months of problem-solving. First, they considered “hardshell with a trussing system inside.” But that could have required seven or eight trucks with a crew of more than 60, which was unsustainable given the band’s mandate to be environmentally conscious. “We have to come up with another way,” Opsomer, PRG’s vp of global scenic, told the staff. So they concocted inflatable spheres, tested lightweight fabric coatings and determined they could fit in a fractional portion of a truck with just one crew member for maintenance. After accounting for rainy and windy stadium conditions, they built structures for the tour that began in March and tested them in factory settings, but didn’t feel fully comfortable until they lit up in bright colors on the first date. “How did we celebrate?” Opsomer asks. “I think we had a big smile on our face.”
Kendrick Lamar’s shadow play
During Kendrick Lamar‘s The Big Steppers tour, which ran from June to December, the rapper hunched over with his microphone, creating a big-screen shadow during “Count Me Out” with arrows wedged into Shadow Kendrick’s back when they did not actually appear in Real Kendrick’s back. “It’s this little photogenic moment that plays with reality,” says Mike Carson, one of the tour’s show designers and show directors, who helped coordinate choreographers, directors, lighting designers and video programmers to make it work. “It’s like a magic track. I read reviews and people describe what it is and still can’t pinpoint how he did it.” (Watch the whole show here.)
Adele’s piano on fire
It was Adele‘s idea last May to light her piano aflame during “Set Fire to the Rain.” That prompted five months of designers and crew members plotting and building a faux white Yamaha grand piano that bursts into flames while Adele sings during a manufactured rainstorm at her Caesars Palace residency in Las Vegas. Those flames spread more than 100 feet across the stage, part of an effect that involves a high-tech fire suppressant and huge troughs of water. The piano, says Paul English, Adele’s production manager, is “like a bath. It contains a load of water, so there’s a moment where [the piano] falls over and the water spills out. Then it sets itself on fire.” The flames heat up to 300 degrees, which means everything around it is at risk of melting or burning – which requires an elaborate rain “curtain” to keep in check. “So, yeah, it’s been challenging,” English adds.
Lady Gaga’s flaming cannons
For her Chromatica Ball stadium tour that kicked off this summer, Lady Gaga contrasted a brutalist-architecture set design inspired by 1920s German expressionism with non-stop explosions. Her “cold, very stark feel” in the set created a gray landscape that allowed her longtime production designer, LeRoy Bennett, to go crazy with orange-and-yellow pyro, aided by Rammstein’s special-effects company, FFP. (The flaming cannons are technically known in the special-effects industry as “liquid flame giga,” or LFGs.) “We’ve always had some pyro here and there, but never really went full-on big metal or Rammstein-style flames,” Bennett says. “She loves those kinds of effects. She’s a big fan of fire and the power and drama of it.”
When Taylor Swift sells the remaining 170,000 tickets for her 52-date Eras tour later this month, the U.S. trek will have generated $591 million in sales, Billboard estimates. The average ticket price is $215, according to concert business sources.
This total will make Swift the highest-grossing female touring artist of all time, according to the Billboard Boxscore chart, topping current title holder Madonna whose Sticky & Sweet Tour (of 2008 and 2009) currently holds the No. 1 slot with a gross of $407 million. Swift’s U.S. tour will also put her in fourth place on the all-time Top Tours chart, which is currently led by Ed Sheeran, whose 2017-2019 Divide shows grossed a total of $776.2 million.
Normally with a tour of this scale, artists share some revenue with a promoter and an agent. In this case, Swift will presumably keep a higher share of revenue, because she’s not represented by one of the major booking agencies and because independent promoter Louis Messina is booking the entire tour and providing some of the services an agency normally would.
Other companies involved in the tour won’t do as well as they normally do, either. Ticketmaster and SeatGeek, which handled sales for the tour, normally allow ticket buyers to sell tickets on their secondary markets and take a percentage of that revenue. (Ticketmaster handled sales for 47 shows, while SeatGeek sold seats for the remaining five.) But Swift would not allow the companies who handled primary ticket sales to also sell secondary market tickets. As well, Swift asked Ticketmaster to help make sure tickets went to fans, rather than scalpers, and the company says it used its Verified Fan technology to reduce the number of tickets on resale sites by 75%.
That’s an expensive decision. Ticketmaster makes a much higher margin on resale tickets than primary tickets, since it keeps all of the fees it charges — typically 10% of the sale price for the seller and another 20% for the buyer. The company still charges a 25% service fee for all primary ticket sales. However, it only keeps a small percentage of that money, $3.50 to $5 per ticket, which for this tour will come out to about $7.6 million to $10.8 million. The rest of the fees normally go to venues and promoters. (Ticketmaster, like most ticketing companies, also charges 2.75% for credit card processing, of which it keeps about 10% and pays the rest to credit card companies. The Eras tour generated approximately $13.8 million in these fees, Billboard estimates.) All told, by the time Ticketmaster sells the remaining 170,000 tickets, the company’s total revenue will add up to between $9 million and $12.9 million.
Ticketmaster’s efforts to fight scalpers means that relatively few tickets wound up on the secondary market – but the ones that did are expensive. A month after the presale, on Dec. 14, the average resale ticket price was $1,425, according to TiqIQ, which tracks secondary ticket sales across multiple marketplaces.
TiqIQ estimates that about 1,100 resale tickets are available per show, out of an average of about 50,000. At an average price of $1,425, that would work out to about $1.6 million worth of tickets per show on the secondary market. Assuming that Ticketmaster would have captured about 15%–20% of those purchases, based on 2018 estimates by the United States Government Accountability Office, that means that the company could have brought in an additional $12.5 million to $16.4 million in revenue, of which Ticketmaster would have kept $3.8 million to $5 million in fees, if Swift had allowed the company to sell tickets on its own secondary market.
SeatGeek, which has a 12% share of the secondary market according to its April earnings report, agreed to turn off resale for the five shows it ticketed on the tour, but not the 47 shows sold by Ticketmaster. (Ticketmaster blocked secondary sales for the SeatGeek shows.) That means SeatGeek could make about $9 million from the Ticketmaster shows it lists on its secondary market, although it missed out on about $960,000 in revenue for not allowing secondary sales on the five shows for which it initially sold tickets.
Working with Swift has benefits beyond the financial, of course. In addition to the prestige of working with an artist of that stature — and enduring the embarrassment of the flubs around the Nov. 15 presale — Ticketmaster will presumably see an increase in app downloads and usage of its digital ticket platform, which has been a priority for the company.
After massive technical problems marred the Nov 15. pre-sale for Taylor Swift’s Eras tour, forcing some fans to queue for several hours to buy tickets or fail to buy them entirely, Ticketmaster is changing tactics to sell the remaining 170,000 seats for the artist’s 52 shows. The company, hoping to avoid long fan wait times and site crushing web traffic from bots and Swifties, is going back to an older technology: The 20-year-old Ticketstoday platform, modeled after The Grateful Dead’s own fan club system and still used by jam bands like Phish and Ween. The system has been updated in recent years and even deployed for artists like Ed Sheeran and Madonna, although it’s never handled 170,000 tickets for a single sale.
The move, coupled with Ticketmaster’s agreement to not participate in secondary ticket sales for the Eras tour, shows how eager ticketing companies are to work with a mega earner like Swift while avoiding the crush of traffic that disastrously caused widespread disruptions to her Nov. 15 presale. The record-breaking sale is now the subject of multiple congressional inquires around the Live Nation-owned company. These include a request from Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) to Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate the crash and a call from her counterpart on the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust and Consumer Rights, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), to hold a hearing on the “lack of competition in ticketing markets.”
The decision to use Ticketstoday — originally built for Dave Mathews Band’s fanclub platform MusicToday by manager and Red Light Management founder Coran Capshaw in the early 2000s and sold to Live Nation in 2008 — would significantly reduce fan wait times and the potential for another site crash by gating off the most vulnerable parts of the ticketing platform to uninvited fans and bot attacks thought to be responsible for the disruption issues. Instead of making fans queue up again to order their tickets, this will essentially assign tickets to them based on their preferences.
Despite receiving an unprecedented level of negative publicity, Billboard estimates Swift’s Nov. 15 presale generated approximately $554 million in sales for Ticketmaster (which ticketed 47 dates on the Eras tour) and Seat Geek (which ticketed five dates as the primary ticketing company for the Arizona Cardinals and Dallas Cowboys).
The 170,000 remaining tickets not sold during the presale have a cumulative face value worth $37 million, Billboard estimates. Once Swift completes the sale of her remaining tickets for the Eras Tour, Billboard estimates that she will have generated $591 million in the U.S. alone. Based on projection, Taylor would easily capture the title of Billboard Boxscore’s highest-grossing female touring artist of all time, topping the current title holder Madonna who’s Sticky & Sweet Tour (2008-09) currently holds the No. 1 slot grossing $407 million, and the number four slot on the all-times tour chart, currently topped by Ed Sheeran, whose Divide tour from 2017-2019 grossed $776.2 million.
Typically, Ticketstoday helps artists sell a small portion of their available tickets – usually about 8% per show — directly to their most loyal fans, much like a lottery system. Fans receive an email about a limited number of VIP or high demand tickets available for sale for an upcoming show, and then those who want to buy the tickets select a pricing option and provide their credit card information in advance. If there are more fans wanting tickets than tickets available, a digital lottery is held and the fans selected have their credit cards automatically charged.
While Ticketmaster stayed online during the attack and sold a record 2.2 million tickets in 12 hours, the site could barely handle the traffic created by 14 million fans and billions of bots the company claimed hit the site. This system using Ticketstoday will pace out the sales, and they will be processed away from the public, avoiding any similar potential issues. To determine which fans would get to participate in the upcoming sale, Ticketmaster used its Verified Fan platform . Fans who bought tickets to the 2020 Lover Festival, canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, have been prioritized, as well as those who bought select Taylor Swift merchandise, like a “F— the Patriachy” keychain that went on sale in August. Participating fans will be sent an email requesting their credit card number and choice of tour seating options representing various price ranges and seat locations. Ticketmaster will then work to match fans with their purchase request and charge their card on file. The entire process will take about four weeks and is expected to be completed by Dec. 23.
Latin music is expected to reach the billion-dollar mark in revenues by year-end in the United States for the first time, according to the RIAA. That’s a big deal. But at the pace the genre has been growing over the past decade, it’s not surprising.
“I feel every year we’re talking about the Latin boom and we’re certainly not going ‘despacito,’” says Hans Schafer, senior vp of global touring at Live Nation. “I’d say this is the best year for Latin because we see it in streaming, in the number of tickets we’re selling, grosses in those shows and it’s not only Bad Bunny.”
Of course, Bad Bunny and his record-shattering album Un Verano Sin Ti — which became the first all-Spanish album to be ranked No. 1 on the Billboard 200 year-end albums chart — played a major role in giving the genre a boost. But the Puerto Rican hitmaker isn’t the only factor at play in what has been a years-long slow boil for Latin music, which was often seen as a fad in the past but is now regarded as a cornerstone genre in the U.S. music market.
Spanish-language music has been having a moment in the U.S. ever since Daddy Yankee released his breakthrough single “Gasolina” in 2004. After the Latin explosion of the late ‘90s, when Shakira and Ricky Martin were recording in English to achieve mainstream success in the U.S., the euphoric anthem became the first time a Spanish-language hit went global. Then, there was Luis Fonsi‘s “Despacito,” the Billboard Hot 100 chart-topping song — spending a then-record 16 weeks at No. 1 in 2017 — that changed Latin music forever, spearheading a global Latin movement made possible by streaming.
This year, Spanish-language music in the U.S. and other non-Latin markets has reached new heights across multiple metrics, including on the charts, in market share growth and in global reach. In the U.S. alone, market share for the Latin genre — defined as music sung predominantly in Spanish — was 6.6% of the total market in the first half of the year, up from 5.9% last year, according to the RIAA’s mid-year report in October.
On the Hot 100 chart, a total of 45 Latin songs have entered the tally so far this year, way ahead of 2021’s 25 titles. Among this year’s crop, 22 were off Bad Bunny’s genre-hopping set Un Verano Sin Ti, which powered his extraordinary year along with two history-making U.S. tours. Those back-to-back runs grossed a total of $373.5 million from 1.8 million tickets across 65 shows, allowing the superstar to rank as the top act on Billboard’s year-end Top Tours chart.
Newer acts have also seen success on the touring front this year. Colombian reggaeton artist Feid sold out all 14 dates of his first-ever U.S. tour in a span of 24 hours after announcing it in October. So did up-and-coming sad sierreño act Ivan Cornejo, whose first U.S. trek — supported by local promoters and set to kick off in January for a total of 13 shows — sold out “within minutes,” according to his team, of the pre-sale.
The development of new artists, and understanding how the touring component complements their streaming and music video views, has been key to the continued growth of Latin music in the U.S. Emerging artists across Latin genres, notably in regional Mexican, are more diverse and younger, which has led to a new generation of Latin music fans who are bilingual, tech-savvy and more likely to embrace genre-blurring acts. The rise of Latin also coincides with shifting demographics in the U.S., where Latinos now represent nearly 20% of the population.
Mexican music had a banner year. The legacy genre is reaching a wider audience thanks to a new generation of acts such as Grupo Firme, the first banda outfit to perform at Coachella, who followed up that history-making performance with a stadium tour; Eslabon Armado, whose Nostalgia became the first top 10-charting regional Mexican album ever on the Billboard 200; and artists like Ivan Cornejo and Yahritza Y Su Esencia, to name a few. On Billboard’s year-end Hot Latin Songs Artists chart, seven out of the top 20 are regional Mexican acts. What was once considered music by Mexican artists for a Mexican audience has now become big business in the U.S. market.
“[Regional Mexican] music is a lot more relatable now for a Mexican American kid that lives in the U.S. because the sound and lyrics have evolved,” says Brayan Guerra, label manager at Lumbre Music, whose roster includes Yahritza Y Su Esencia. The sibling trio broke earlier this year with “Soy El Único,” which became the fourth regional Mexican song ever to enter the Hot 100. In November, they signed with Columbia Records in partnership with Lumbre and Sony Music Latin, making them the first Mexican music act to join the Columbia roster.
Streaming has played a huge role in the increase in Latin music consumption, with the RIAA’s mid-year Latin revenue report showing that streaming revenues were the biggest growth driver for the genre. Through the first half of 2022, music streaming formats comprised 97% of all Latin music revenues ($510 million), with paid subscriptions the biggest source of sales at 71%. That amounts to 69% of overall Latin revenues, totaling $350 million in paid subscriptions alone.
“Artists were able to build communities during the pandemic because of the time people spent consuming music during lockdown, and we’re seeing the impact now,” says Carlos Abreu, a London-based music agent at UTA. “Like Karol G when she had all her fans wearing blue wigs, Rosalía with the motomamis and motopapis.”
Success in the U.S. reflects the ever-growing popularity of the genre in other non-Latin markets. “Latin America and the U.S. continue to drive the consumption and engagement, but we do see it becoming more global with bigger acts like Rosalía, Karol G and Bad Bunny being consumed in continents like Africa,” says Maykol Sanchez, head of artist & label partnerships, LatAm & US Latin at Spotify, where 10 Latin artists were within the Top 50 global most-streamed artists this year. “The last few years have been an explosion with our friend Bad Bunny leading the way but a lot of other great artists having big moments too.”
To name a few, Anitta reached the No. 1 spot on Spotify’s Top 50 – Global chart with “Envolver” in March, making her the first Brazilian artist to do so. The same day, Paulo Londra landed in the No. 2 position with his song “Plan A.” And in July, Argentine producer Bizarrap and Spanish artist Quevedo reached the No. 1 position on the Spotify Global tally with their smash hit “Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 52.”
“It’s more a global business than it ever has been,” says Abreu, whose client Rosalía earned $28.1 million touring on three continents so far this year. Europe is now quicker to embrace Latin music than it did previously, he adds. “I’ve seen the shift in real-time. Especially [when] booking European festivals and tours. Before there was the education that needed to happen, the convincing. Five or six years ago we were trying to convince promoters or buyers that these artists were mainstream. It’s exciting that the world is [finally] catching up and it feels good to say, ‘I told you so.’”
In terms of expanding Latin music’s global reach, the U.S. remains the jackpot market “because it’s the seal of approval” that helps launch Latin artists in other parts of the world, says Bruno Del Granado, head of global Latin music touring at CAA. “When I started working in the label business many years, at the end of the year the U.S. market would generate probably 70% of our revenue and international was 30%. Now it’s the opposite: 30% U.S., 70% international. The U.S. gives you prestige, but you also want China, India and Latin America. It adds into this big puzzle and every artist, the smart ones, always look at the world as their market.”
Chris Lorenzo will serve as headliner for Monster Energy’s annual Up & Up College Festival series.
Launching in the spring of 2023, the series is meant to function like the Final Four college basketball tournament, with student ambassador teams representing more than 100 U.S. colleges leading marketing and influencer campaigns to rally their school to buy pre-sale tickets (with no date or location) to earn the opportunity to produce a festival with Chris Lorenzo.
The top six schools with the most pre-sale tickets after the 48-hour campaign score the opportunity to collaborate with Up & Up producers to produce a Chris Lorenzo show at a nearby venue. Previous winning schools include the University of Alabama, ASU, CU Boulder, Florida State, LSU, University of Oregon, Penn State, San Jose State and many others.
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The Up & Up series has happened annually since 2016 (except in the pandemic years), with previous headliners including TroyBoi, Alan Walker and Slushii. UK producer Lorenzo is a mainstay of the underground house scene and scored a pair of hits in 2022 with his remix of The Mama & The Papas’ “California Dreamin’” and his edit of J Balvin’s “In Da Getto.”
“Ever since I started touring North America, the whole college system has been a big part of my journey,” Lorenzo says. “Whether playing unofficial after parties or the official frat shows over the years, I’ve always loved the energy the crowds have. It reminds me of when I started DJing back in the UK. So, to be able to have 70 colleges in America pitch for me to come play and then actually get to play six huge shows will be a lot of fun. I’m excited to see who wins and then come and smash the shows for the fans.”
Bad Bunny wrapped World’s Hottest Tour over the weekend in Mexico City, closing out a historic year on the Billboard Boxscore charts. Ultimately, his 81 concerts in 2022 – culled from two separate tours – combine for the highest gross for an artist in a calendar year ever, since Billboard Boxscore launched in the late 1980s.
Some may have thought there were no Boxscore records left to break for Bad Bunny. His arena tour in the spring, titled El Ultimo Tour Del Mundo, grossed $116.8 million, according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore. This made it the highest grossing Latin tour of all time. On a city-by-city basis, he broke local revenue records in 13 North American markets.
He then launched World’s Hottest Tour, a stadium run that made him the first artist to ever mount separate $100-million-tours in the same year. That trek broke local records in 12 of its 15 domestic markets, ultimately earning $232.5 million in the U.S.. Its 11 shows in September grossed $123.7 million, breaking the record for the highest one-month gross since Billboard launched its monthly rankings in 2019.
Bad Bunny topped the year-end Top Tours chart with a $373.5 million take, though he was still in the middle of a Latin American leg when the year-end tracking period ended. (Year-End Boxscore charts are based on shows that played between Nov. 1, 2021 – Oct. 31, 2022.) In doing so, he became the first Latin artist, and first artist to primarily perform in any language other than English, to crown the annual ranking.
Finally, Bad Bunny closed out World’s Hottest Tour with two shows at Mexico City’s Estadio Azteca on Dec. 9-10, adding $10.3 million and 116,000 tickets to its total. The Latin American run spanned 21 shows in 15 cities, earning $81.7 million from 910,000 tickets sold. Mexico was the highlight – not only for its two CDMX concerts, but for the $17.1 million out of Monterrey’s Estadio BBVA.
Altogether, the tour grossed $314.1 million and sold 1.9 million tickets, re-setting the record for the biggest Latin tour ever.
Added to his arena tour, plus three hometown shows in San Juan in July that were not a proper part of either of his two tours, Bad Bunny grossed $434.9 million in 2022, narrowly eclipsing Ed Sheeran’s $434.4 million in 2018, for the highest calendar-year gross in Billboard Boxscore history.
Bad Bunny’s gigantic year on the road is just one piece of his 2022 puzzle. He was also named Billboard’s Top Artist of the year, bolstered by the success of Un Verano Sin Ti. Released in May, his seasonal smash spent 13 weeks atop the Billboard 200 and landed seven of its tracks on the year-end Billboard Hot 100 ranking.
That album, plus his two 2020 releases, brought Bad Bunny from arena-contender to stadium-conqueror. His previous touring cycle, 2019’s X100 PRE Tour, earned $45.8 million between two legs, averaging $1.1 million per night. World’s Hottest Tour went stratospheric, pacing $3.7 million per show in Latin America and $11.1 million in the U.S.
Dating back to a Rosemont Theater show in October 2017 — his first show reported to Billboard Boxscore as a headliner — Bad Bunny has grossed $508.7 million and sold 3.3 million tickets. That’s one more broken record — enough to make him the highest grossing Latin artist in Boxscore history.