Touring
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Harry Styles has been on tour for over a year now. He kicked off Love on Tour in Las Vegas on Sept. 4, 2021, and played for three months around the country. Then he played two months of shows in Europe over the summer of 2022 before he returned to North America.
“Tour” is a funny word for Styles’ last three months of performances. Yes, he played many concerts in quick succession. Yes, he moved from city to city, playing to hundreds of thousands of fans in major markets. But while his pop chart competition played one or two shows at each venue, hitting 20, 30 or 40-plus stadiums and arenas, Styles played extended batches of shows in a handful of A-markets.
After a pair of shows in Toronto, he settled in at New York’s Madison Square Garden for 15 shows at the iconic arena, stretching from Aug. 20 to Sept. 21. The strength of his ticket sales there set records that defy qualification. His monthlong run isn’t just the highest grossing engagement for a British artist, or for a male artist, or for a former boy-band member, and not even just the biggest for any at that venue.
According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, Styles’ 15 shows at MSG grossed $63.1 million and sold 277,000 tickets, enough to be the highest grossing headline engagement in Boxscore’s three-decade-plus history.
Given his all-time standing, Styles’ MSG mini-residency naturally leads Billboard’s year-end Top Boxscores chart, ranking individual concerts, but grouping together performances by an artist at one venue. He is followed by Ed Sheeran’s five shows at London’s Wembley Stadium (July 24-July 1; $37.2 million), BTS’ four shows at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas (April 8-16; $35.9 million), San Francisco’s Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival (April 5-7; $33.9 million) and BTS’ four-show run at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif. (Nov. 27-Dec. 2, 2021; $33.3 million).
Overall, Styles eclipses Take That, who previously owned the top two Boxscores of all time. Relatives of Styles’ British boy-band family, the group played eight shows at Manchester’s Etihad Stadium on June 3-12, 2011, earning $44.2 million. Weeks later, it ran another eight shows at Wembley Stadium from June 30-July 9, establishing a decade-long record with $61.7 million in the bank.
By a sliver of less than $1.4 million — or 2.25% — Styles takes the all-time title by playing nearly double the shows as Take That in a venue a quarter the size of Wembley Stadium. He averaged $4.2 million and 18,457 tickets per show in New York, while Take That paced $7.7 million and 77,967 tickets in London. While Styles owns the all-time gross record, Take That’s gargantuan ticket total of 623,737 secures the eight-show run as the most attended Boxscore of all time.
It would have been enough for Styles to go home after 15 nights at the Garden – those shows’ $63.1 million total nearly matches the $63.7 million that he grossed on his entire 2017-2018 Live on Tour. But he soldiered on. In addition to the opening two shows in Toronto, he played six in Austin, another six in Chicago, and 12 in Inglewood, Calif. (There were 15 shows scheduled in Inglewood, but three were rescheduled to January 2023 due to health issues.)
His Inglewood shows at Kia Forum have grossed $38.1 million, enough to be the fifth highest grossing Boxscore of all time, behind the MSG concerts, the two Take That runs, and a 10-show sweep by Bruce Springsteen at Giants Stadium in New Jersey (July 15-Aug. 31, 2003; $38.7 million). Including the three Inglewood shows to come early next year, that lump sum will likely move into third place. (The first six of those shows count toward his 2022 year-end standings, and the remaining nine will count toward 2023 charts).
Altogether, the mini-residency leg of Love on Tour has grossed $147.7 million and sold 717,000 tickets, bulking the entire tour’s totals to $298.4 million and 2.1 million. Like his MSG gross, that number also defies qualification. Love on Tour is not only the biggest tour of Styles’ solo career, but passes One Direction’s Where We Are Tour ($290.2 million), which was No. 1 on Billboard’s 2014 Top Tours chart, to become the biggest tour that he has ever hand a hand in.
In addition to the remaining three California shows, Love on Tour continues with a Latin American leg that wraps on Dec. 14 in Sao Paulo. Styles will hit Oceania and Asia in February and March, and European stadiums later in the spring.
Marketing and media company Loud And Live has signed a partnership with booking agency Tesa Entertainment, Billboard has learned. The global partnership deal will include “exclusive touring and booking rights,” according to a press release, with efforts to “elevate the Latin urban genre to the next level.”
The first artist signed under the deal is Panamanian singer-songwriter Boza, who broke out in 2020 with his hit song “Hecha Pa’ Mí” and was nominated for best new artist at the 2021 Latin Grammys.
“We’re very happy with the evolution we’ve had with Boza, and we believe that this partnership will continue to help develop our artist’s career in a positive way,” said Boza’s managers Alberto Gaitan and Andrés Castro. “We’re proud to become part of the Loud and Live and Tesa family.”
“For me, it’s an honor to become part of Boza’s growth, moving forward,” said Giovanna Pérez, CEO and founder of Tesa Entertainment. “Unity is strength and with this new partnership deal alongside Loud And Live, we’ll complement each other perfectly with resources that will offer the Artist the best live show experience globally.”
Launched in 2017, the Miami-based Loud and Live has enjoyed a strong return to touring in 2021, with more than 400 shows and tours for clients including Carlos Vives, Ruben Blades, Camilo and Prince Royce. Tesa Entertainment was founded in 2021 by Pérez, previously at Rich Music and CMN, after working with artists such as Nicky Jam, Sech and Manuel Turizo.
“Loud And Live is honored to join efforts with Tesa Entertainment under the leadership of Giovanna, who brings unmatched experience in the Urban genre booking business,” said Nelson Albareda, CEO of Loud And Live. “This alliance expands the offering of both companies, and we’re proud to be able to offer an added value to the artists with whom we work.”
Things, for a while, have been unprecedented. Following an 18-month quiet period for concert venues worldwide, doors slowly opened, first in the U.S. and increasingly so around the globe. This made for an excepted review of touring in 2021, but the full return of live music presents a much fuller picture this year. With the 2022 year-end Boxscore recap, precedents continue to fade as Bad Bunny finishes as the year’s top touring act (No. 1 on Top Tours) with total gross of $373.5 million from 1.8 million tickets across 65 shows.
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Bad Bunny is the first Latin act, and first act who doesn’t perform in English, to finish atop Billboard’s year-end Top Tours chart. Beyond the historic nature of his win for genre and language, he is the only artist to mount separate $100-million tours in the same year.
Further, while Boxscore charts often favor older acts with deeper histories on the road, like 2020 and 2021 champs Elton John and The Rolling Stones, Bad Bunny’s win this year is a testament to the growing power of contemporary stadium acts. In fact, the 28-year-old is just the third artist to simultaneously crown the year-end Top Tours and overall Top Artists charts, following Taylor Swift in 2015 and One Direction in 2014.
Bad Bunny’s year in touring breaks down into several parts. First, he played two hometown stadium shows at San Juan’s Hiram Bithorn Stadium, earning $6.5 million on Dec. 10-11, 2021. That was followed by El Ultimo Tour Del Mundo, an arena run named after his 2020 album that broke ground as the first all-Spanish-language set to top the weekly Billboard 200 chart. On that trek, he earned $116.8 million from 35 shows, enough to set a record for the highest-grossing Latin tour in Boxscore history.
Billboard’s Year-End Boxscore charts are based on figures reported to Billboard Boxscore for engagements that played between Nov. 1, 2021-Oct. 31, 2022.
That tour broke local records in Inglewood, Calif., Miami, Houston, Seattle, and more, setting the stage for an even bigger fall in 2022. After releasing Un Verano Sin Ti and spending most the summer at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, Bad Bunny played three Puerto Rico shows for a $4 million gross, and then properly embarked on World’s Hottest Tour, living up to its name at each stop.
The trek leveled Bad Bunny to stadiums and took in $232.5 million in North America, plus another $13.8 million from its first four Latin American shows. After setting arena records throughout the U.S. in the spring, he set revenue records in 12 of the 15 domestic markets he played in the fall. While Daddy Yankee’s La Ultima Vuelta World Tour quickly stole Bunny’s all-time Latin tour record from earlier this year, World’s Hottest Tour re-sets the pace as the first pan-American stadium tour of its size.
All of that combines to $373.5 million during the twelve-month tracking period, amounting to a record-setting, historic No. 1 finish, eclipsing Elton John and Ed Sheeran at Nos. 2-3, each of whom was a previous year-end victor.
These men lead the most eye-popping Top Tours chart ever. Five acts grossed more than $200 million, beating the previous high of four in 2018, and 16 acts generated more than $100 million in ticket sales, nearly doubling the previous high of nine in 2017 and 2018.
Fresh off his 55-city Dangerous Tour, Morgan Wallen is set to launch a massive new tour in 2023, the country star announced Thursday (Dec. 1). His One Night at a Time World Tour, produced by Live Nation in North America and Frontier Touring for Australia/New Zealand, launches March 15 with concerts in New Zealand and Australia. The trek will return to the United States for a run of shows beginning April 15 at Milwaukee’s American Family Field, and wraps Oct. 7 at the Tacoma Dome in Tacoma, Wash.
Wallen will welcome several openers for various shows on the tour, including HARDY, ERNEST, Bailey Zimmerman and Parker McCollum. The U.S. leg of the tour includes stops at Boston’s Fenway Park, Los Angeles’ SoFi Stadium, Chicago’s Wrigley Field, St, Louis’ Busch Stadium and Detroit’s Ford Field.
“Man, what a year 2022 has been with the Dangerous Tour. I had the time of my life, and I cannot begin to express how grateful I am that my fans connected with the Dangerous album the way they did,” Wallen said via a statement. “I’ve had so many people ask me if I wanted to take some time off, but the truth is, I have been writing and making so much music in my off-time because I feel as inspired as I ever have. It feels like new songs are pouring out of me, and I love that feeling. We are going to run it back next year with the One Night At A Time World Tour. Bigger venues. New countries. Bigger memories. See y’all there.”
Wallen also announced that he will release a three-song sampler as a teaser for the new music he’s been working on in the studio. One Thing at a Time — Sampler is made of the tracks “One Thing at a Time,” “Tennessee Fan,” and “Days That End in Why.”
“I’m not quite done making this new album, so I’m going to keep making it through the holiday break and early January to chase this inspiration,” Wallen said in a statement. “I promise I won’t wait too long to reveal the album details. To hold you over, I’m dropping three new songs today as a sampler of what I’ve been working on. Can’t wait to take it one night at a time in 2023.” As with his Dangerous Tour, $3 of every ticket sold for his upcoming U.S. shows will benefit the Morgan Wallen Foundation, which has supported organizations including Greater Good Music, Children Are People, the Salvation Army and the National Museum of African American Music.
There are no official pre-sales in the U.S. for the tour.
Morgan Wallen’s 2023 One Night At A Time World Tour U.S. Dates:
Sat, April 15 Milwaukee, WI American Family Field*#
Thurs, April 20 Louisville, KY KFC Yum! Center
Sat, April 22 Oxford, MS Vaught-Hemingway Stadium*# ^ ON SALE FRIDAY, 12/16
Thurs, April 27 Grand Rapids, MI Van Andel Arena
Fri, April 28 Moline, IL Vibrant Arena
Sat, April 29 Lincoln, NE Pinnacle Bank Arena
Thurs, May 4 Jacksonville, FL VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena
Fri, May 5 West Palm Beach, FL iTHINK Financial Amphitheatre
Sat, May 6 Tampa, FL MIDFLORIDA Credit Union Amphitheatre
Thurs, May 18 Hershey, PA Hersheypark Stadium*
Sat, May 20 East Rutherford, NJ MetLife Stadium*$
Wed, May 24 Austin, TX Moody Center
Fri, May 26 Houston, TX Minute Maid Park*#
Fri, June 2 Atlanta, GA Truist Park*$
Sat, June 3 Panama City Beach, FL Pepsi Gulf Coast Jam^
Fri, June 9 Virginia Beach, VA Veterans United Home Loans Amphitheater at Virginia Beach
Sat, June 10 Myrtle Beach, SC Carolina Country Music Fest^
Thurs, June 15 Pittsburgh, PA PNC Park*#
Sat, June 17 Philadelphia, PA Citizens Bank Park*#
Fri, June 23 Chicago, IL Wrigley Field*$
Fri, June 30 Detroit, MI Ford Field*#
Fri, July 7 St. Louis, MO Busch Stadium*$
Sat, July 15 San Diego, CA Petco Park*#
Thurs, July 20 Phoenix, AZ Chase Field*#
Sat, July 22 Los Angeles, CA SoFi Stadium*#
Thurs, Aug 3 Detroit Lakes, MN WE Fest^
Sat, Aug 12 Columbus, OH Ohio Stadium*#
Fri, Aug 18 Boston, MA Fenway Park*$
Sat, Aug 26 Washington, DC Nationals Park*$
Sat, Oct 7 Tacoma, WA Tacoma Dome
Morgan Wallen 2023 International Tour Dates:
Wed, March 15 Auckland, NZ Spark Arena #
Sun, March 19 Ipswich, QLD CMC Rocks ^
Tues, March 21 Sydney, NSW Qudos Bank Arena #
Fri, March 24 Melbourne, VIC Rod Laver Arena #
Sat, Aug 5 Camrose, AB Big Valley Jamboree^
Sat, Sept 16 Toronto, ON Budweiser Stage
Mon, Sept 18 London, ON Budweiser Gardens
Thurs, Sept 21 Ottawa, ON Canadian Tire Centre
Fri, Sept 22 Quebec City, QC Videotron Centre
Sat, Sept 23 Montreal, QC Bell Centre
Thurs, Sept 28 Winnipeg, MB Canada Life Centre
Fri, Sept 29 Saskatoon, SK SaskTel Centre
Sat, Sept 30 Calgary, AB Scotiabank Saddledome
Wed, Oct 4 Vancouver, BC Rogers Arena
*Stadium dates^Festival dates#HARDY$Parker McCollumERNEST and Bailey Zimmerman on all dates
A task force formed in the aftermath of the Astroworld tragedy unveiled a new agreement on Tuesday (Nov. 29) designed to ensure event safety at NRG Park, the former home of the Travis Scott-helmed festival.
The interlocal agreement — put forth by the City of Houston-Harris County Special Events Task Force, formed in February — is meant to streamline safety protocols, permitting requirements and communication for large-scale events at NRG Park, the trade show, convention, sports and entertainment complex where a crowd crush during Scott’s headlining performance last November led to the deaths of 10 people and injured hundreds more. The document is an update to an existing interlocal agreement that was last amended in 2018.
Under the new agreement, any event hosting more than 6,000 people at the complex will require an on-site unified command center staffed by the Houston Fire Department (HFD), Houston Police Department (HPD), Mayor’s Office of Special Events (MOSE), Harris County Sheriff’s Office (HCSO), Harris County Fire Marshal’s Office (HCFMO), NRG Park and the event organizer. Going forward, review and approval of event capacity as well as site, security and medical plans will fall on the HFD chief or a designee. The HFD will also be tasked with clarifying requirements with event organizers to ensure they meet safety, medical and site planning requirements at the venue. Security plans will require additional sign-off by the HPD, while event plans will need sign-off from MOSE. Ideally, having a designated authority will lessen the likelihood of confusion and inaction during events. Permits for NRG Park will continue to be issued by the City of Houston.
The interlocal agreement “defines rules of responsibility and communication and makes us a better county to deal with whatever comes up,” said Houston police chief Troy Finner at a hearing Tuesday.
Mayor’s Office of Special Events director and task force co-chair Susan Christian tells Billboard that the new agreement is designed to ensure all parties are aligned when it comes to planning and executing large-scale events at NRG Park. “We’re much closer with this new [interlocal agreement] in achieving a more communicative process, as well as a process that involves peoples’ input,” she says.
In April, a report by the Texas Task Force on Concert Safety (TFCS) — created by Texas governor Gregg Abbott in the wake of the Astroworld tragedy — concluded that establishing standardized safety procedures could help prevent a similar mass casualty event from happening in the future. According to that report, the lack of communication around permitting, the failure to determine a chain of command and the absence of a capacity limit all contributed to the deadly crowd crush. It recommended the implementation of a universal permitting template that would help clarify the murky permitting process across the state. The Texas Music Office, which led the TFCS report, previously released an online Event Production Guide so as to centralize information around permitting guidelines and the penalties for not complying with them.
The new agreement is designed to help alleviate that confusion, but it’s only a first step in a long process to ensure safety for future events throughout Houston and Harris County, including the 2026 World Cup, which will be partially hosted in the city. “It is a thing of moving forward,” said Finner, “but also it is a work in progress. This is a great start.”
The City of Houston-Harris County Special Events Task Force will continue to meet quarterly to review and expand safety protocols. The agreement — which the Harris County Commissioners Court unanimously voted to approve — will now need signatures from Houston mayor Sylvester Turner, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, the Mayor’s Office of Special Events, the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, the Houston Police Department and the Houston Fire Department, among others. All signatures are expected by next week, says Christian.
On Nov. 5, 2021, 10 people died from compression asphyxia due to a massive crowd surge during Scott’s headlining performance at the 2021 Astroworld festival. In the wake of the tragedy — which resulted in thousands of lawsuits being filed against Live Nation, Scott and other event organizers that were eventually consolidated into a single giant case — the City of Houston-Harris County Special Events Task Force and the TFCS were formed in order to prevent similar mass casualty events in the future.
In addition to the aforementioned task forces, in Dec. 2021 Scott’s charitable entity Cactus Jack Foundation joined forces with The United States Conference of Mayors (USCM) on an initiative designed to put new safety protocols in place in the festival industry. At the time, a draft USCM agreement stated that a comprehensive report based on discussions and research conducted by a working group comprised of individuals across multiple sectors along with outside experts would be compiled between January and June 2022. Billboard reached out to USCM and representatives for Scott but did not hear back on the task force’s progress.
Back in October, Greta Van Fleet were forced to postpone seven shows of their Dreams in Gold tour after singer Josh Kiszka ruptured his eardrum during a show in Bangor, Maine.
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However, the group revealed the rescheduled tour dates on Wednesday (Nov. 30), noting that all seven shows in Jacksonville, Fla.; Hollywood, Fla.; Tampa, Fla.; Greenville, S.C.; Raleigh, N.C.; Tucson, Ariz., El Paso, Texas; Anaheim, Calif. and Sacramento, Calif. will take place in March 2023.
“We appreciate your patience as we navigated logistics and can’t wait to see you again soon,” GVF captioned the post, noting that original tickets are still valid for the rescheduled dates.
After his ear ruptured in Maine, Kiszka said he’d been experiencing a “situation” in his left ear that’s “caused plenty of infections, tinnitus (ringing in the ear) and difficulty hearing” — leading Greta Van Fleet to postpone three shows in support of their latest album, The Battle at Garden’s Gate.
After playing at the AT&T Center in San Antonio, Texas, in early November, the band had to reschedule four more shows. “I just wanted to express how beautiful and how awe-inspiring these couple of shows have really been, truly. Also, unfortunately, they’ve been rather painful,” he said in a video message to fans announcing the postponements. “The last time I spoke with you, I had asked for your understanding; I was dealing with a ruptured eardrum. Unfortunately, while the eardrum continues to heal, it also has continued to cause me great deal of physical pain, which has made it very difficult to perform.”
Elton John played his final U.S. touring concerts over the weekend, saying goodbye to his fans on the road in America with three shows at Los Angeles’ Dodger Stadium. With reports for his last 13 domestic shows, the total gross for the Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour sprints closer to the top of the all-time Boxscore heap. According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, John’s goodbye tour has grossed $749.9 million and sold over 5 million tickets since launching in 2018.
That means that since our last report on his whereabouts, John added almost $90 million to his total gross and is now within $30 million of Ed Sheeran’s The Divide Tour, which finished with a record-setting $776.4 million. The Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour has passed U2’s 360 Tour ($736.4 million) to become the second-highest grossing tour in Boxscore history. (John still has about 50 shows left next year in Australia and Europe, so he could surpass Sheeran’s record soon enough — more on that in a moment.)
Ultimately, the tour’s North American stadium leg added $222.1 million to its total gross, doubling the revenue of his domestic arena run in the Spring, and tripling the revenue of his Summer spree of European stadium shows. His Fall dates averaged $6.7 million and 40,500 tickets.
Those three final Dodger Stadium shows grossed $23.5 million and sold 142,970 tickets on Nov. 17, 19 and 20. The last of those was livestreamed on Disney+ and featured guest appearances by Brandi Carlile, Kiki Dee and Dua Lipa. It was the biggest gross and attendance total of the entire tour, surpassing the $16.7 million take at Gillette Stadium and the 99,827 ticket count at MetLife Stadium, all of which played in July.
It was John’s third trip to Dodger Stadium, following shows in 1992 (two nights – $3.4 million; 99,453 tickets) and 1975 (two nights).
With $26.5 million separating John’s farewell big from Sheeran’s mid-career high, each report becomes more tense than the last. The trek will continue with 10 shows in Australia and New Zealand in January. He played 38 shows on the continent between November 2019 and March 2020, averaging $2.5 million. At that rate, he’d end January at $774.4 million, just $2 million short of the record.
But his previous Oceania run was in arenas, and his 2023 shows will be in stadiums. With ballooned venue capacities, he’s bound to break Sheeran’s record early in the new year, and even if ticket prices (and thus, grosses) stay modest, he’s got another 40-plus shows in Europe to follow, making it all but inevitable that John will set a new all-time high. It’s just a matter of when.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) is following up last week’s open letter to Live Nation over “dramatic service failures” during the Taylor Swift presale with a hearing on competition across the ticketing industry. The senator and her across-the-aisle counterpart on the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust and Consumer Rights, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), jointly announced the hearing, with a date and witness list forthcoming.
“Last week, the competition problem in ticketing markets was made painfully obvious when Ticketmaster’s website failed hundreds of thousands of fans hoping to purchase concert tickets,” said Klobuchar, without mentioning Swift. “The high fees, site disruptions and cancellations that customers experienced shows how Ticketmaster’s dominant market position means the company does not face any pressure to continually innovate and improve.”
Klobuchar said the hearing will examine the effects of consolidation across ticketing — namely that a lack of competition suppresses the need to improve services and maintain fair pricing.
Lee added that consumers “deserve the benefit of competition in every market, from grocery chains to concert venues. I look forward to exercising our Subcommittee’s oversight authority to ensure that anticompetitive mergers and exclusionary conduct are not crippling an entertainment industry already struggling to recover from pandemic lockdowns.”
Aside from a possible grilling by U.S. senators, Live Nation and Ticketmaster are said to be under investigation by the Justice Department as to whether the company maintains an illegal monopoly over the live event ticketing ecosystem. The probe, according to The New York Times, predates this current debacle involving Swift’s tour presale.
Ticketmaster has apologized for the debacle, which started Nov. 15 when millions of Swift fans overwhelmed a presale for her Eras Tour — causing site crashes and hours-long waits, with many fans left empty-handed and — possibly newly engaged in politics. Ticketmaster went on to cancel the general sale as well.
“I apologize to all our fans. We are working hard on this,” Liberty Media CEO and Live Nation chairman Greg Maffei said in an appearance on CNBC last Thursday. “Building capacity for peak demand is something we attempt to do, but this exceeded every expectation.”
Swift’s tour is actually being promoted by Live Nation competitor AEG, which has told Billboard it “didn’t have a choice” in terms of ticketing sales and distribution because of Ticketmaster’s “exclusive deals with the vast majority of venues on the Eras tour.”
Ticketmaster and Live Nation have long been dogged by accusations that they exert an unfair dominance over the market for live concerts, particularly since they merged in 2010 to create their current structure. The combined entity has operated for its entire existence under a so-called consent decree imposed by the DOJ when it approved the merger. Under the decree, Live Nation is prohibited from retaliating against venues that refuse to use Ticketmaster. Those restrictions were set to expire in 2020 but were extended by five years in 2019 after the DOJ accused Live Nation of repeatedly violating the decree.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle sent a special message to Elton John ahead of the last U.S. show of his Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour on Sunday night (Nov. 20).
“Hi Elton, we just wanted to say congratulations,” the Duchess of Sussex said in a video played during Disney+’s Countdown to Elton Live ahead of its broadcast of his final show at Dodgers Stadium in Los Angeles, which is the final North American date of his farewell tour. “And we are just so proud of you. We’re so grateful that we were able to see you on your farewell tour also.”
After offering his own “congratulations,” the prince added, “And thank you for entertaining everybody for so many decades. Thank you for being the friend that you were for my mum, thank you for being our friend. Thank you for being a friend to our kids and thank you for entertaining people right around the world.
“Even though this is officially your retirement, this will not be your last gig, we know that,” Harry concluded. “But we love you and congratulations on an incredible career.”
Of course, Sir Elton’s friendship with the late Princess Diana dates all the way back to before Harry’s birth, when he was asked to perform at Prince Andrew’s 21st birthday party in 1981. Elton and Princess Diana remained close for the remainder of her life, and the singer famously performed “Candle in the Wind 1997” at her funeral in 1997. (The song rocketed to No. 1 when he released the studio version following the service; it went on to spend 14 weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100.)
Elton’s farewell concert also featured a number of special, in-person guests throughout the night, including Dua Lipa, Kiki Dee and Brandi Carlile.
Watch Harry and Meghan’s well wishes for John below.
As his husband, Elton John, prepares for the U.S. finale of his absolutely-positively-unambiguously-final farewell tour Sunday night (Nov. 20) at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, David Furnish wants to clarify one thing: “It’s really important to make a distinction between Elton retiring from touring but Elton not playing his very last public performance for the very last time,” says Furnish, 60, a former advertising executive who has produced numerous films, including John’s 2019 biopic, Rocketman. “Will Elton return as a live performer? I hope so! It’s in his blood.”
In a wide-ranging phone interview from the family’s home, Furnish, also John’s manager, discusses the tour’s COVID-19 challenges, how high gas prices and supply-chain issues have complicated budgets and his entry into the music business. “I love working in this world,” he says. “We have the privilege of working with the very best in the business.”
As of last month, the Farewell Yellow Brick World Tour has grossed $661.3 million and sold 4.5 million tickets, including 30 U.S. stadium shows this year that totaled $133.4 million and 830,000 tickets. When the tour returned in January, Omicron loomed over the concert business, but COVID-19 fears have dissipated. How has your thinking about the tour changed throughout 2022?
From us, nothing has changed. COVID is still out in the world. It is still a risk to the health of our crew and to Elton and the band. We put in place a very strict testing protocol. We went back out on the road last January with a regular cadence of testing, keeping everybody up to date on vaccines and boosters. We’ve kept all of that in place. We have people in the tour in separate bubbles. Elton feels really badly, but he hasn’t been able to mix with his band. His band travels in one bubble. He and his assistants, the people who support him, his hairdresser and people in security — they’re in his bubble. It’s been very challenging for Elton, because he always loves being with his band before he goes on stage. He always sits with them and chats and has a laugh with them. That’s not been possible. While he’s been home, between shows or in hotels, he has to isolate. Everybody that supports him at home is also tested regularly — all staff in the household.
How difficult was it to reschedule the shows in Dallas when Elton himself came down with COVID?
We had to postpone, but it meant we lost two shows in Montreal to allow those Dallas shows to be rescheduled. There’s only so much wiggle-room in a tour schedule. This is a big behemoth of a tour. You suddenly just can’t jump to another side of the country or cross the Atlantic to make up a show.
How did fans’ excitement for the tour evolve as the COVID-19 landscape changed throughout 2022?
Thankfully, COVID hospitalizations have massively decreased and there are more medical treatments than there were at the beginning, so people can make the decision as to what medical risk is appropriate for them and still come to see a show. Lockdown was very hard for most people. It was very isolating, and nothing brings people and the world together like music. It’s emotionally and mentally and spiritually very healthy for people to get back out and see shows again. We just had to go back on the road in the safest way possible, and that’s what we’re trying to do.
How have you adapted to higher gas prices and supply-chain issues? Does Elton eat the extra expenses, or have you cut the budget or production?
We just eat the extra cost, because the tour we started with is the tour we intend on finishing with. We sold tickets in good faith and people bought tickets in good faith and it’s really important that we don’t short-change anybody and we honor our commitments. Elton is really committed to that. It’s the largest traveling-production tour Elton’s ever mounted, and it didn’t even occur to us to try to reconfigure it in any way to make it cheaper.
Please set the record straight: Will Sunday’s concert at Dodger Stadium be the last U.S. show Elton ever plays?
I know for a fact he will not be touring in any capacity. What you’re going to see is the possibility of a special one-off or a small residency in one venue for a limited period of time. I don’t think it will be Las Vegas. Elton feels he’s done the best he can in Las Vegas. He mounted two hugely successful residencies there. When you’re an artist and something’s in your blood, you don’t want to shut the door completely. Having said that, I know Elton, and it wouldn’t surprise me if he didn’t do any more live shows, either. He’s really looking forward to spending time with his family. That’s the No. 1 priority in his life. Any type of return to any type of touring is going to be a very well-considered situation, and definitely not a given, at all.
Given your background in other businesses, I wonder what it was like to transition into the music business as Elton’s manager.
I have a business-advertising-marketing background, but I’ve also worked in musical theater, I’ve worked in film production and I’ve been in Elton’s life for 29 years. So it’s not foreign to me at all. When you launch a tour like this, it’s like going on a dangerous mission, and you say to yourself, “I’m hurtling down rapids, and we’re about to go over the falls — who do you want to steady things in the boat and keep things under control?” I’m very fortunate. When I took over, Elton’s tour infrastructure was very, very healthy.
Am I reaching you at the family home in Los Angeles?
Yeah. The whole family’s here in Los Angeles. Obviously, I’m here for work, but I’m here to support my husband and our sons are here. This is a big, big moment in our family’s life.