Touring
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This story is part of Billboard‘s The Year in Touring package — read more stories about the top acts, tours and venues of 2022 here.
Since opening in April, the Moody Center in Austin, has reshaped touring in central Texas, welcoming a bevy of star talent, including John Mayer, George Straight, Roger Waters, The Killers, and Boxscore record-breaker Harry Styles, to name a few. Over 36 shows, the building now tops Billboard’s year end Top Venues (10,0001-15,000 capacity) chart, grossing more than $62.7 million in the process according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore. Averaging $1.7 million per show, the Oak View Group-owned arena took in more than $5 million more than its closest competitor, OVO Hydro in Glasgow, Scotland, which reported more than 110 concerts.
Moody Center general manager Jeff Nickler says the arena’s success is, first and foremost, due to the city of Austin. Dubbed the live music capitol of the world, Austin was without a proper arena prior to Moody Center and Nickler says the growing population had tons of pent-up demand for big name acts.
“A lot of major tours and artists were skipping the market due to the lack of a premiere venue. So, Oak View Group, Live Nation, [Live Nation-owned] C3 Presents, and [actor] Matthew McConaughey came into the market and we privately financed this building,” says Nickler. “We believed in the music in this market and that investment has paid off in a huge way.”
Moody Center does not have a professional sports team tenant (though the Texas Longhorns basketball programs play there after the arena took over the space from their former home, the 45-year-old Frank Erwin Center on University of Texas’ campus) and has been able to fill its calendar with major artists, many of whom regularly fill larger venues. According to Nickler, the arena’s draw is an amalgam of factors. First, venue partner Live Nation (who has had a record-setting year in revenue and could see its biggest year yet in 2023) has incentive to route their big tours through the new building like Post Malone, Florence + The Machine and Kendrick Lamar. But Moody Center remains an open building, meaning it books tours with any and all promoters including Live Nation competitor AEG.
“Then there is the Irving Azoff effect,” adds Nickler. Azoff is a co-owner of OVG and The Azoff Company manages acts including Styles, Eagles, and Lizzo – all of whom played the arena in 2022.
Styles conducted a six-night run at Moody Center in September and October selling 86,000 tickets and grossing $19.2 million. The multi-night stint was one of many from big artists who could easily fill larger capacity venues in competing markets including Dallas and Houston.
“We see this trend of continuing for artists to do multiple nights in the market,” says Nickler. George Strait and Willie Nelson, the Eagles, Styles and Mayer all did multiple night stints at the arena this year. There is an incentive for artists and promoters to play consecutive nights since it cuts down on bills from labor, marketing and more can cut a budget in half.
Another major advantage to playing Moody Center comes from its floor space. Unlike most arenas designed for sports, Moody Center can hold up to 3,000 fans on its floor compared to an industry average of 2,200, according to Nickler. An artist can significantly boost their grosses with the roughly 800 extra premium seats.
“Even though we have less seats, we can out punch our weight class because of the design of the building, the viability of the market and the ability to charge higher ticket prices,” says Nickler. “That’s a huge factor in why you see that giant number for those tour grosses.”
This story is part of Billboard‘s The Year in Touring package — read more stories about the top acts, tours and venues of 2022 here.
The touring industry’s comeback from the pandemic brought record revenues and ticket sales for the world’s largest promoter, Live Nation, No. 1 on Billboard’s year-end Top Promoters ranking.
Driven by mega tours by Bad Bunny (who had the highest grossing tour of the year), the Red Hot Chili Peppers and The Weeknd, Live Nation grossed $4.19 billion and sold 42.3 million tickets from 4,789 in the 2022 tracking period, according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore covering a Nov. 1, 2021 – Oct. 31, 2022, collection period.
Live Nation’s reported gross was more than the combined $3.9 billion reported by the promoters ranked from Nos. 2-10.
While Live Nation benefitted from strong demand for arena shows, Cowen and Company analyst Stephen Glagola says Live Nation’s global distribution scale, customizable platform for event managers and its ability to finance artists add to their competitive edge.
“The $9 billion in artists’ fees paid this year is one of their biggest advantages,” Glagola tells Billboard, referencing money Live Nation collects through ticketing and other business areas that it returns to the artist.
As a promoter, Live Nation also gives artists financial guarantees as much as 10 months in advance of events. While that makes Live Nation vulnerable to sharp declines in attendance due to sudden events like a COVID-19 outbreak, it is also a persuasive tool to lock in the biggest artists’ tours.
Live Nation had three of the top 10-highest grossing tours of 2022: Bad Bunny was No. 1, grossing $373.5 million; Red Hot Chili Peppers were No. 6, grossing $177 million; and The Weeknd was No. 10, with $131.1 million.
While promotion is considered a low-margin business for Live Nation, Glagola says, it “drives the flywheel” of the company’s overall economics.
“By getting more artists to promote and tour, it drives some of their higher margin, ancillary revenue, such as food and beverage and hospitality within their owned and operated venues, and the expansion of ticketing,” says Glagola.
On the company’s most recent earnings call, Live Nation executives said the busy 2023 touring season is fueling high demand for live music, despite ongoing questions about the potential impact high inflation and tighter consumer budgets may have on ticket sales.
So far, the company is seeing surging demand.
“Ticket sales for shows in 2023 are pacing even stronger than they were heading into 2022, up double-digits year-over-year, excluding sales from rescheduled shows,” said Rapino. Through the third quarter, Ticketmaster sold over 115 million tickets, up 37% from the same period in 2019. (Live Nation uses 2019 as the most recent year comparable to just its current business.)
Contrary to many industries, supply fuels demand, analysts at Cowen said.
“It has to do with the fact that Taylor Swift only comes on tour every few years,” Glagola says. “When she comes through your hometown you want to see her.”
However, popularity has its pitfalls. Live Nation faces lawsuits and a U.S. Senate hearing next year related to the Nov. 15 Ticketmaster pre-sale for Swift’s 2023 Eras Tour, which saw widespread service delays and website crashes as hundreds of thousands of fans tried — and many failed — to buy tickets.
It’s been a whirlwind 18 months for Måneskin. After nabbing the trophy at Eurovision in May 2021, the Italian rockers notched a win that’s eluded most of that contest’s victors: they scored a Stateside hit on the Billboard Hot 100, via a furious garage rock revamp of the Four Seasons’ “Beggin’” no less. After that went on to top the Alternative Airplay and Rock & Alternative Airplay charts, they followed it up with another Alternative Airplay No. 1, the RHCP-flavored “Supermodel.”
Now, amidst their American leg of The Loud Kids Tour, the quartet is pulling off another trend-flaunting feat: They’re making teenagers care about a new rock band for the first time in years. Of course, this isn’t to say there aren’t rock concerts attracting Gen Z crowds or worthy newcomers netting fervent followings. But Måneskin are one of the few young rock bands making mainstream headway in America — especially among audiences that see the CD as a retro artifact.
Hell, if you Google “Måneskin concert,” the search engine’s first “people also ask” suggestion is, “How old do you have to be to go to a Måneskin concert?” And sure enough, for two sold-out nights at New York City’s Hammerstein Ballroom (Dec. 2-3), a predominantly teen and twentysomething crowd slathered in glitter gave a rabid response to the glam-sleaze rockers.
With good reason. Frontman Damiano David might pull you in with his lithe hip swings and shirtless stage prowling (the band puts the ‘skin’ in Måneskin), but he seals the deal with a controlled earthy growl that comes across like masterful auditory edging – particularly during “Touch Me,” a live highlight that has yet to see release on Spotify.
Similarly, while in NYC, guitarist Thomas Raggi ripped off a mesmerizing guitar odyssey during the encore that conjured up the shades of Eddie Hazel’s expressive, electric soloing on Funkadelic’s classic “Maggot Brain.”
But it’s not just technical prowess that makes Måneskin come across with crowds: simply put, they know how to put on a goddamn show. Whether it’s Raggi lying on the ground while slithering under bassist Victoria de Angelis or David feeding off drummer Ethan Torchio’s ominous and propulsive drumming during sinuous songs like “I Wanna Be Your Slave,” it’s hard to take your eyes away from the quartet as they feed off each other. And when “Slave” segues into a cover of the Stooges’ spiritual predecessor “I Wanna Be Your Dog” on stage, it’s a fittingly ferocious homage to the Italian band’s American god.
The band’s live prowess is no surprise for anyone who caught their performances at this year’s VMAs or SNL. But in a world where unimpugnable veteran rockers struggle to make their live show seem sexy and dangerous, it’s a bit of a godsend to find a band like Måneskin who remind us that rock can be unpredictable, sensual and showy – both onstage and onscreen.
With so much time between the tours of 2019 to early 2020 and late 2021-22, new arena stars were minted in the in-between, ready to play the biggest stages of their career despite a possibly limited tour history. Bad Bunny, Billie Eilish and Dua Lipa transferred the goodwill of chart-topping hits into juiced-up arena tours, now suddenly reliable for sell-outs due to the ghost of success during the pandemic.
Also transforming from a club-level up-and-comer to a global touring powerhouse is Rosalía. The Spanish singer-songwriter’s Motomami World Tour — named after her album released in March of this year — earned $28.1 million and sold 343,000 tickets across three continents, according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore. With more dates to come, she lands at No. 7 on the year-end Top Latin Tours chart.
Before Rosalía became an arena-conquering superstar, she was playing scattered headline shows in clubs in North America. Her April 2019 shows at New York’s Webster Hall, San Francisco’s Regency Center Grand Ballroom and L.A.’s The Mayan all sold less than 1,500 tickets while she built her base via festival sets around the world. She finished that year with theater shows in London and Paris, and a few arena shows in Barcelona and Madrid.
A sludge of one-off singles, award show performances, and ultimately, the release of 2022’s Motomami helped fill the gap between tours. Since then, she and her team scaled her live business.
Rosalía’s 2019 concerts in Barcelona and Madrid transformed into a 12-date tour in her native Spain. Those shows grossed $13.4 million and sold 154,000 tickets.
Performances at the ‘19 Argentina and Chile installments of Lollapalooza became 11 shows on the Motomami World Tour, adding $7.5 million and 114,000 tickets.
And her North American club shows ballooned into 13 shows in large theaters, earning $7.3 million from 75,000 tickets.
The Motomami World Tour has played 36 shows so far, already a fuller run than 2019’s El Mal Querer Tour. And with increased venue capacity and ticket prices, Rosalía’s pace is that of a completely different artist than her pre-pandemic touring. Her North American shows in ’19 averaged $52,000 and 1,369 tickets. Fast forward to her recent domestic leg, and she’s earning $558,445 and 5,781 tickets – more than 10 times her last tour.
The Motomami World Tour has a string of nine European arena dates left before the end of the year. Even without those grosses or attendance totals reported yet, the venues and routing is already outsized compared to the pair of major-market shows in Europe in 2019.
Rosalía joins the aforementioned club of acts that include Bad Bunny, Eilish, Lipa and more, who have leveled up to arenas between tours separated by the pandemic. But unlike those acts’ top 10 albums (on the Billboard 200) and songs (on the Billboard Hot 100), Rosalía’s crossover success remains relatively limited. She has spent one week in the top 40 of the Billboard 200 and has yet to crack the region on the Hot 100.
Elsewhere, Rosalía has received widespread critical acclaim for Motomami (as with her previous albums), engaged on TikTok, and built a name as one of the most exciting new live acts of the last decade. As the monogenre continues to fracture, it only makes sense that this pop-Latin-electro Spanish-singing hybrid artist is one of the most vital touring acts of the year.
Back on the road after a three-year break following his record-breaking The Divide Tour, Ed Sheeran tops the year-end Top Ticket Sales chart after playing to more than 3 million fans in Europe in 2022.
This is not the first time that Ed Sheeran has won a year-end Boxscore trophy. The Divide Tour made him the first artist to repeat atop Billboard’s annual Top Tours ranking, winning the gold in 2018 and 2019. The first of those two victories was the biggest year-end total in Boxscore history, with $429.5 million. Further, that tour ended in 2019 with the highest gross and biggest attendance of any tour ever, at $776.4 million and 8.88 million tickets.
Now back with The Mathematics Tour, Sheeran winds up at No. 3 on the 2022 Top Tours chart with $246.3 million. But separated from gross revenue, his current tour is No. 1 on the Top Ticket Sales chart, ranking the top tours by total cumulative attendance. According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, Sheeran moved 3,047,696 tickets in the 2022 tracking period.
Sheeran played 63 shows between Dec. 13, 2021, and Sept. 25, 2022, averaging out to 48,376 tickets per night. But that is a misleading number, as the first 11 of those shows were “rehearsal” dates, setting the British singer-songwriter in small clubs and theaters in London and Dublin. Those shows ranged from 357 tickets at Dublin’s Whelans on April 19 to 5,230 tickets at London’s Royal Albert Hall on March 27. All 11 shows combined to 16,810; even at the top of that range, he was still selling less than 15% of the year’s average.
Removing those rehearsal shows from the equation, the picture of The Mathematics Tour comes into focus. Sheeran’s 52 “proper” tour dates in 2022 paced 58,287 tickets.
Almost every market – each one except for Helsinki, Finland – required multiple shows. Sheeran mostly played double-header weekends, moving from city to city and maximizing audiences with Friday and Saturday shows. He topped off with a five-show run at London’s Wembley Stadium, moving 420,269 tickets.
And while there is no attendance-based chart for Boxscores, the Wembley streak does have the highest attendance total of any engagement this year, beating Coldplay’s four shows at Paris’ Stade de France by more than 100,000 tickets.
Elsewhere, Sheeran broke the 200,000 threshold with four shows at Manchester’s Etihad Stadium and Munich’s Olympiastadion.
These numbers are huge, but even compared to his record-setting predecessor, The Mathematics Tour is ahead of schedule. The Divide Tour included three European legs in 2017, 2018 and 2019. Those runs averaged 14,321 tickets (the 2017 leg was in arenas), 54,485 and 51,898, respectively. Sheeran’s ’22 stadium pace is 7% in front of Divide’s strongest year, setting him up quite well as he prepares to leave his home base.
The Mathematics Tour is scheduled for 12 shows in Australia in February and March, followed by 24 shows in North America throughout the summer. Whether or not Sheeran can match (or even approach) The Divide Tour’s three-year total may be entirely up to him. Fans showed up in droves to his European shows, but the expanse of his pre-pandemic tour was so huge. And not only did the tour last, it went wide, including shows in Asia, South America and South Africa. If Mathematics routing remains modest, it will be difficult to triple the tour’s current totals.
Based on his scheduled 36 shows in 2023, The Mathematics Tour should pick up another 1.5 million to 1.75 million tickets as it approaches the 5 million mark. Should more dates be added, the sky’s the limit.
Morgan Wallen‘s stacked 2023 tour just got even busier, with the singer-songwriter adding 14 new shows across 13 cities to his massive 2023 One Night at a Time World Tour, making for back-to-back nights at 10 stadium shows.
The outing will visit 26 stadiums, plus arenas, amphitheaters and festivals over four countries and two continents. The tour launches overseas March 15 with concerts in New Zealand and Australia (featuring HARDY), before the trek returns to the United States starting April 14 with a show at Milwaukee’s American Family Field (also featuring HARDY).
The tour will also visit New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium, Chicago’s Wrigley Field and Boston’s Fenway Park with Parker McCollum, before concluding Oct. 7 at Tacoma Dome in Tacoma, Wash. ERNEST and Bailey Zimmerman will open shows across all tour dates, U.S. and internationally.
Wallen also recently released the three-song sampler One Thing at a Time, which includes the tracks “One Thing at a Time,” “Tennessee Fan,” and “Days That End in Why.” He also has a new single at country radio, with “Thought You Should Know” residing in the top 20 on Billboard‘s Country Airplay chart.
New 2023 Tour Dates include:
April 14: American Family Field, Milwaukee, WI
May 19: MetLife Stadium, East Rutherford, NJ
June 1: Truist Park, Atlanta, GA
June 8: Veterans United Home Loans Amphitheater, Virginia Beach, VA
June 14: PNC Park, Pittsburgh, PA
June 22: Wrigley Field, Chicago, IL
June 29: Ford Field, Detroit, MI
July 6: Busch Stadium, St. Louis, MO
July 14: Petco Park, San Diego, CA
July 19: Chase Field, Phoenix, AZ
Aug. 17: Fenway Park, Boston, MA
Sept. 14: Budweiser Stage, Toronto, ON
Sept. 15: Budweiser Stage, Toronto, ON
Oct. 3: Rogers Arena, Vancouver, BC
Here’s a holiday gift that Jill Scott fans have been waiting for: The Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter announced Monday (Dec. 5) that the tour on behalf of her Who Is Jill Scott? Words and Sounds Vol. 1 debut album will resume beginning Feb. 28, 2023. Launched in 2020 in celebration of the 20th anniversary of Scott’s critically acclaimed July 2000 bow, the anticipated tour was cut short owing to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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“My band and I were so excited three years ago,” said Scott in a statement, “but that d–n COVID shut us down. Now we outside! Come see me. Come feel again. Relive your favorite moments. Ya’ll ready to settle down and get with this?!? It’s a lot of love here.”
As with the initial tour launch, Scott will perform all 18 tracks from the debut album. The double-platinum project includes career-defining hits and fan faves such as “A Long Walk,” “Gettin’ in the Way,” “He Loves Me (Lyzel in E Flat)” and “The Way.”
Now celebrating the album’s 23rd anniversary, the 20+ market Who Is Jill Scott? Words and Sounds Vol. 1 tour is being produced by Live Nation/Shawn Gee. It will play in auditoriums, theaters and music halls across the country. Pre-sales begin on Dec. 6; tickets become available to the public on Dec. 9 at 10 a.m. local time. Visit missjillscott.com for more details.
Here is the tour itinerary, with additional dates to be announced:
Feb. 28 — Augusta, GA — Bell Auditorium
March 2 — Macon, GA — City Auditorium at Macon Centreplex
March 4 — Columbia, SC — The Township Auditorium
March 7 — Jacksonville, FL — Moran Theater
March 16 — Philadelphia — The Met
March 18 — Philadelphia — The Met
March 23 — Brooklyn, NY — Kings Theatre
March 27 — Newark, NJ — New Jersey Performing Arts Center
March 29 — Boston — MGM Music Hall at Fenway
March 31 — Detroit — Fox Theatre
April 1 — Cleveland — MGM Northfield Park
April 23 — Nashville — Nashville Municipal Auditorium
April 26 — Memphis — Orpheum Theatre
April 28 — Chattanooga, TN — Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Auditorium
May 3 — Savannah, GA — Johnny Mercer Theatre
May 5 — Greensboro, NC — Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts
May 6 — Atlanta — Cadence Bank Amphitheatre at Chastain Park
May 11 — Washington, D.C. — The Theater at MGM National Harbor
May 14 — Washington, D.C. — The Theater at MGM National Harbor
June 22 — Los Angeles — The Hollywood Bowl
In the first full year of tracking since the pandemic, New York’s Madison Square Garden (MSG) returns to No. 1 on Billboard’s year-end Top Venues (15,001+ capacity) chart. But more than that, MSG is the highest-grossing venue of any size or shape, eclipsing all stadiums, arenas, theaters and clubs. According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, Madison Square Garden hosted 124 shows during the tracking period, combining to $241.4 million and 1.8 million tickets.
For those following Billboard’s monthly Boxscore charts, MSG’s No. 1 finish shouldn’t be a huge surprise. The arena led the monthly venue chart in February, August and September, the last of which was a record-setter for the biggest one-month sum for a venue since the monthly rankings launched in early 2019. MSG’s 22 September shows raked in a combined $64.3 million.
MSG appeared on the 10-position chart for 10 of the year’s 12 months, only missing in January and March. Otherwise, including its three months at No. 1, it spent half of the year in the top three.
With 124 shows, MSG’s calendar was packed. Still, some heavy hitters can take some credit for its ultimate triumph. Harry Styles, No. 1 on the year-end Top Boxscores chart, led the charge with his mammoth 15-show residency. The shows collectively grossed $63.1 million and sold 277,000 tickets between Aug. 20 and Sept. 21, a key factor in the venue’s monthly wins.
And while they are regarded as individual engagements, Billy Joel’s ongoing residency continued with 11 shows during the tracking year – one show in each month except for January, during a largely dark period amid the Omicron wave. His shows combined to $29.6 million and 205,000 tickets sold. That means that Styles and Joel’s 26 shows accounted for $92.7 million, or 39% of the venue’s total annual gross.
Following Styles atop the heap, Phish ($8.8 million), Rage Against the Machine ($8.2 million), Elton John ($6.9 million) and Genesis ($5.3 million) round out MSG’s top five grossing concert engagements of the year with multi-show runs. Based on attendance, Styles leads Phish (76,000), Rage Against the Machine (71,000), John Mulaney (42,000) and Luke Combs (36,000).
MSG became the first venue to earn more than $200 million in a year when it closed out 2019 with $221.7 million. The arena reaches new heights three years later, but considering 2020 and 2021 were shortened due to COVID, its own record re-set is essentially immediate. The $241.4 million gross is the largest for any venue in a single year.
While Boxscore charts date back to the late ‘80s, year-end venue charts launched in 1999. In those 24 years, MSG has led the charge among venues with a capacity of 15,001 or more in 14 of those years. After starting at No. 6 in 1999, MSG was No. 1 for nine consecutive years from 2000-2008. It then floated around the top 10 while London’s O2 Arena assumed the throne from 2009-2016, falling one year short of MSG’s record ‘00s-era reign.
MSG regained the title for 2017-2020, slipped to No. 2 last year behind Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena, and returns to the summit for 2022.
Was 2022 the worst “best year ever?” By some measures, the concert business had its most successful year. From Nov. 1, 2021, to Oct. 31, 2022, the top 10 tours grossed a combined $2.2 billion in ticket sales, according to Billboard Boxscore, 36% more than they did in 2019, the previous full year of touring, and more than four times the $519 million they took in during the pandemic-limited 2021.
Some of this growth follows an existing trend. Since 2013, the live business has grown steadily between 5% and 10% a year, thanks to international expansion and an increasing number of megatours. In 2013, eight acts took in over $100 million at the box office — Bon Jovi, P!nk, Bruce Springsteen, Beyoncé, Rihanna, Taylor Swift, The Rolling Stones and the Cirque du Soleil Michael Jackson show.
But the business also experienced a sharp uptick this year, driven by a combination of pent-up demand, a number of big tours and inflation. Sixteen tours crossed the $100 million mark, and the number of concert tickets sold in the first three quarters of 2022 was up 37% over 2019, according to Live Nation’s most recent quarterly report.
The bad news, however, is twofold: More work for fewer employees in the wake of pandemic layoffs, plus rising costs for staffing, production and travel, threaten to erode profits. “We are working harder than ever just to try and make sure we don’t lose any ground,” says Jim Cressman, founder and owner of Canadian independent promoter Invictus Entertainment.
Cressman and Live Nation executives say that fans also seem to be changing their concertgoing habits by waiting longer to buy tickets. About 30% of tickets for this year’s Lollapalooza festival in Chicago were purchased five days or fewer before the event, according to Live Nation. It’s a concerning trend for promoters and tour organizers who have become accustomed to scaling event costs up and down based on projections from early sales. Fans are also getting wise to the fact that ticket prices, especially on the secondary market, tend to drop over time.
The names of the top 10 tours won’t surprise anyone who follows the industry. No. 1 is Bad Bunny, who did two tours during this time frame: El Último Tour del Mundo, which ran from February to April and grossed $116 million, and World’s Hottest Tour, which brought in $246 million from August to the end of the Billboard Boxscore touring year; it will run until Dec. 10. The tour dates within this time frame, as well as isolated hometown shows in Puerto Rico, grossed a combined $373.5 million, the third-highest year-end total in Boxscore history after Ed Sheeran’s $429.5 million in 2018 and The Rolling Stones’ $425 million in 2006.
This is the first year that each tour in the top 10 grossed over $100 million and the top five each took in more than $200 million. Some of that is due to higher ticket prices: Bad Bunny tickets cost an average of $201, while tickets to Sheeran’s No. 1 2019 ÷ (Divide) shows cost an average of $86; the average ticket price of a top 10 tour was $130.76, up from $114.29 in 2019. Some of that growth comes from inflation, of course, while some is from a shift to higher ticket prices in order to capture revenue that once went to the secondary market. “The spending levels are really the same,” says Live Nation Global Touring chairman Arthur Fogel. “It’s just that artists are capturing more of it than ever before.”
Farther down the Top Tours chart, the growth also stays consistent. The top 40 tours grossed a total of $4.6 billion, up from a total of $3.5 billion in 2019, a difference of 32%
The New Scorecard
This year, Billboard Boxscore created a new chart to rank tours by number of tickets sold, not just revenue, although that information had already been included. And although promoters were concerned earlier in 2022 that touring market oversaturation would mean concerts drew fewer fans, the chart actually shows the opposite — major concerts attracted larger audiences without cannibalizing other shows. In 2022, a combined 17.1 million people saw the top 10 attended tours, up 21% from a combined 2019 attendance of 14.1 million. This year also marked the first time that 19 of the top 20 attended tours drew over 900,000 fans.
The top 10 tours also represent one of the youngest lists in recent years, with an average headliner age of 49.3, as opposed to 51.2 in 2019 and 54.6 in 2021. The oldest act was The Rolling Stones — Mick Jagger and Keith Richards will both be 79 by the end of the year, and Ron Wood is 75. The youngest acts were Harry Styles and Bad Bunny, both of whom turned 28 this year.
As in years past, Live Nation dominated the business, exclusively promoting half of the top 20 — which grossed a combined $1.5 billion — as well as Bad Bunny’s stadium shows, in collaboration with Cárdenas Marketing Network, and some shows for My Chemical Romance and Paul McCartney. AEG Presents follows with a handful of global tours, including Elton John, that combined accounted for $843 million. CMN powered Bad Bunny at No. 1 and Daddy Yankee at No. 13, while Mercury Concerts led the Latin American dates for Guns N’ Roses. Sheeran, at No. 3, was promoted by a mix of buyers throughout Europe.
On the agency front, the leader is Creative Artists Agency, with eight acts in the top 20: Styles, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Weeknd, Lady Gaga, the Eagles, Dua Lipa, Justin Bieber and My Chemical Romance. Wasserman Music had four clients in the top 20 — Sheeran, Coldplay, Kenny Chesney and Billie Eilish — while UTA had two: Bad Bunny and Guns N’ Roses.
Three of the top tours — John, McCartney and The Rolling Stones — have global touring deals with AEG but don’t have a traditional booking agency deal. WME had only one artist in the top 20 with Daddy Yankee. So did the Neal Agency, started in February by Austin Neal, son of longtime WME agent Kevin Neal. Austin formed the agency to represent Morgan Wallen, who took a hiatus from touring after his use of a racial slur was caught on video in 2021. Wallen grossed $128 million in 2022 from 66 shows.
Global venue development company Oak View Group is expanding its DEI commitments with the new supplier diversity program. The initiative – which has launched a pilot program with Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle, Moody Center in Austin, UBS Arena in New York and Miami Beach Convention Center – will help facilitate the use of minority-owned suppliers at all 400 OVG affiliated venues in the coming year.
Starting in January, company wide OVG will work to identify and increase sourcing from suppliers that are at least 51% owned, operated and managed at least 51% by a non-white minority, a disabled person and/or a woman. OVG currently recognizes a wide range of diverse certifications that include minority businesses, women, veterans, LGBTQ+, disabled persons, and other local city certifications. The program aims to foster economic inclusivity by making OVG’s supply chain more diverse by encouraging the use of vendors that are historically overlooked.
OVG is seeking suppliers in several fields including food and beverage, security, technology, construction, marketing, public works and various forms of consulting. Suppliers can confirm their minority-owned status through over a dozen certification outlets including Minority Business Enterprise (MBE), Women Business Enterprise (WBE) and Small Business Administration 8(a).
Founded in 2015, OVG has grown to work with more 400 venues worldwide and financed over $5 billion in capital currently deployed for new development projects. The size of the growing company may seem counterintuitive to working with small businesses, but OVG’s vp of diversity, equity, inclusion Dr. Debonair Oates-Primus tells Billboard the company is rolling out toll kits to help facilitate engagement with smaller businesses around the world.
“So much of the training is mindset shift. We have to make this really intentional,” says Oates-Primus of the new requirement for OVG venues. “I have to educate [OVG staff] on the bias that diverse businesses face. We had to make some changes to our valuation process to our criteria to our expectations of diverse businesses due to things like not having as much access to capital and not having access to networking opportunities to grow at a pace that we might think they need to be in order to with a company like ours.”
The initiative will evaluate diverse businesses by their capacity and where they can succeed within the OVG chain, as well as key difference that make businesses standout such as cost savings, reduction in delivery or setup times, value-added services, product/services quality, and sustainability.
Interested suppliers can fill out a questionnaire on each venue’s site that will give the local OVG venue an idea of what each small business can provide, but Oates-Primus explains that entities that are too small to address needs with OVG could also be connected with other large companies. If a business is too small, “let’s pair them with a larger business,” says Oates-Primus. “Let’s do some mentoring and coaching. So much of supplier diversity is just we’re not going to use a one size fits all rule. We can’t. That’s how bias creeps into every structure.”
As the initiative continues to roll out to OVG venues, the company plans to create benchmarks to help it succeed. Oates-Primus is aware that some areas are less diverse and will make the recruitment more difficult for venue operators and plans to tailor the tool kit to specific regions based on data being collected by the pilot venues.
“I don’t want any of the venue operators or leaders to feel like this has been forced upon them,” Oates-Primus tells Billboard, explaining that additional resources will be allocated to train and help venues. “I am doing a tour of all our leadership meetings, vice president meetings to let the leaders know all the ins and outs of the program so they also become champions of this for their teams.”
The OVG supplier diversity form can be found here.