Touring
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Inspired by the testimony of the band Lawrence and the struggles it faced as an independent act during Tuesday’s Senate Judiciary hearing on Ticketmaster, Ineffable Music Group CEO Thomas Cussins decided it was time to take action.
“After about an hour watching the hearing, I grabbed the phone and started calling the venues we owned and operated,” says Cussins. His message to on-the-ground managers at California venues including The Catalyst and the Atrium at the Catalyst in Santa Cruz, the Ventura Music Hall in Ventura and Cornerstone in Berkeley: no more merch fees for bands.
Effective immediately, all 10 venues owned and/or operated by Ineffable Live — also including the Golden State Theatre in Monterey, Calif.; Fremont Theater in San Luis Obispo, Calif.; Felton Music Hall in Felton, Calif.; the Mystic Theatre in Petaluma, Calif.; Arcata Theatre Lounge in Arcata, Calif.; and the Chicken Box in Nantucket, Massachusetts — will no longer collect a 20% venue cut from touring artists selling their merchandise at Ineffable venues.
The decision will cost the company “several hundred thousand” per year in revenue, Cussins estimates. but “hopes to make it up via a healthier concert ecosystem,” he adds, noting that the merch fee that venues charge artists is often the one thing touring bands say they most want to see changed about the club and theater circuit.
When bands go on tour, their revenue streams are almost exclusively a share of ticket sale revenue and band merchandise sales. In addition, expenses for travel, production and health insurance have increased significantly, as have the costs associated with printing and shipping t-shirts and other merchandise.
On a good night, an independent touring band with a loyal fan base can sell $5,000 to $10,000 in merch at a 500-cap show. Eliminating the venue fee can save some groups $1,000 to $2,000 per night, Cussins says. That can make a big difference in a business where the margins in merchandise are vital to the economic feasibility of touring. The more diverse a band’s income streams are, Cussins says, the less reliant they’ll be on tour guarantees.
“We are on the ground and hearing from artists every day,” says Cussins. “We are seeing how much the costs of everything have gone up — from buses to hotels to flights. So even though the club business is a marginal business, any action we can take to help to insure a healthy, vibrant concert ecosystem is important. This industry only works if artists of all levels are able to afford to tour. When artists are able to tour sustainably and fans can afford to buy a t-shirt because the all-in ticket price is reasonable, everyone wins.”
Ineffable head talent buyer Casey Smith adds, “We’ve been able to make our live business work even with increased expenses by having a number of venues and being able to create routes for artists, offering them a number of shows in secondary and college markets between their big city plays. Since we’ve made it work for ourselves, we want it to work for the artists as well. This move is fully aligned with Ineffable’s independent spirit, and in hearing the needs of independent artists, we believe it’s important to put them first.”
CAA has signed Mexican pop group RBD for worldwide representation in all areas, Billboard has learned. Specifically, the L.A.-based agency will represent the band — now comprised of Anahí, Christian Chavez, Dulce María, Christopher von Uckermann and Maite Perroni — in areas such as acting, brand consulting, touring, podcasting and fashion/beauty.
News of the signing comes on the heels of RBD’s highly-anticipated announcement of a reunion that includes a 26-date global Soy Rebelde Tour with stops in Mexico, U.S. and Brazil. The stint will mark the group’s first time hitting the stage together since disbanding in December 2008 after their last show in Madrid.
The Live Nation-produced trek will kick off in El Paso, Texas, at the Sun Bowl Stadium on Aug. 25 and will make stops in key U.S. cities such as Chicago, New York, Miami and Los Angeles. When RBD last toured, in total it grossed $72.5 million and sold over 1.5 million tickets, according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore.
“It’s a new era that makes us really excited and it’s a new opportunity to share the stage once again and feel a unique energy,” Perroni previously told Billboard. “There’re cycles in life and each one of us had to focus on our careers as actors and musicians and that meant we had to give those projects time, energy and a lot of dedication. It also allowed each one of us to grow professionally and personally. Now, the time [for the reunion] is perfect because we’re now more conscious, more mature, we’ll enjoy it from a different perspective now as adults.”
According to CAA, the group will also release new music in the spring. On the Billboardcharts, RBD has a total of seven entries on the Billboard 200 chart including Rebelde, Celestial and Nuestro Amor, and eight entries on Top Latin Albums with six hitting the top 10. Over on Hot Latin Songs, the band has 10 total entries and out of those, five hit top 10.
RBD is managed by Guillermo Rosas, who’s also executive producing the Soy Rebelde Tour.
Live Nation investors were either nonplussed or unmoved by the Senate Judiciary Committee’s political theatrics Tuesday (Jan. 24), probing the causes behind a disastrous ticket presale to Taylor Swift‘s Eras tour last November hosted on the company’s Ticketmaster platform. While Live Nation president and chief financial officer Joe Berchtold was being grilled by lawmakers about Ticketmaster’s technology and market power with a focus on monopolistic behavior, Live Nation’s share price rose as much as 2.3% to $77.71 before closing at $76.67, up 1.4% on the day, on about half of the average daily trading volume.
With that modest gain, Live Nation beat the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.3%), S&P 500 (-0.1%), Nasdaq composite (-0.3%) and Russell 2000 (-0.3%). It also outperformed two competitors, MSG Entertainment (+0.6%) and Germany’s CTS Eventim (-1.1%), that weren’t subjected to Congressional questioning.
Congressional oversight was already priced into Live Nation’s share price to a degree, though. Live Nation shares fell 7.8% to $66.21 on Nov. 18, 2022, after Sen. Amy Klobuchar, chair of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Competition, Antitrust and Consumer Rights, penned a letter to Ticketmaster about her concerns regarding its “system failures, increasing fees and complaints of conduct that violate the consent decree” under which Ticketmaster and Live Nation operate.
The hearing, titled “That’s the Ticket: Promoting Competition and Protecting Consumers in Live Entertainment,” turned Live Nation and Ticketmaster into punching bags for senators who, as Sen. Richard Blumenthal noted, were brought together “in an absolute, unified case.” The legislators’ pointed questions and obvious frustration on behalf of their constituents made it clear Ticketmaster is one of the more loathed companies in the U.S. One witness, Kathleen Bradish, vp for legal advocacy at the American Antitrust Institute, called Live Nation and Ticketmaster “a very traditional monopoly” with a dominant market position that results in higher fees to consumers and less innovation.
Exactly what will come from the hearing is far less certain. While there may be some appetite amongst the senators to undo the 2010 merger of Live Nation and Ticketmaster, or implement some other structural remedies, Sen. Klobuchar said the committee will wait for a Department of Justice report before moving forward.
Some senators proposed non-legislative measures. Sen. Joe Kennedy suggested the person in charge of the ticketing presale should be fired. Sen. Marsha Blackburn called the bot-related service outages “unbelievable” and told Berchtold that the company “ought to be able to get some good advice” for better dealing with these kinds of issues.
Dave Matthews Band is returning this year with a new album and a full summer tour in support. The veteran, record-setting rock band announced on Tuesday (Jan. 24) that Walk Around the Moon, their 10th studio album, is set to drop May 19 via RCA Records.
Spanning 12 original tracks, Walk Around the Moon was formed during the pandemic and “is as much a reflection on the current times as it is an urge to find common ground,” reads a statement from the band.
Fans won’t have to wait long for a taste of the new project. The first release from it is “Madman’s Eyes,” which arrived with the album announcement.
Producer Rob Evans worked on “Madman’s Eyes,” which DMB road-tested at Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio, back in November 2021.
The fresh cut blends Middle Eastern vibes with horns and strings, and sees Matthews pose the question, “When it’s too late to untwist the knife/ How do we face hatred with the love inside us.”
Longtime collaborator John Alagia served as executive producer of Walk Around the Moon, with Evans working on most of its tracks. A limited-edition deluxe vinyl option is available exclusively at the official DMB website.
With the new collection comes a major North American jaunt. Following three dates in Mexico, DMB will kick off its U.S. run at The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion in The Woodlands, Texas, on May 19. As the calendar currently stands, the trek is scheduled to wrap Sept. 3 with the last in a three-night stand at Gorge Amphitheatre, in George, Wash.
Walk Around the Moon is the follow-up to Come Tomorrow from 2018, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, the band’s seventh consecutive leader, a hot streak that dates back to 1998’s Before These Crowded Streets. DMB is the only group to see seven straight studio albums bow at No. 1 on the U.S. tally.
Formed in Charlottesville, Va., in 1991, DMB has more than 25 million career ticket sales and upwards of 38 million combined CD and DVD sales, according to reps.
Though, despite winning the fan vote by a wide margin in 2020, DMB has yet to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Matthews, the South Africa-born band leader, was named as a UN Environment Goodwill Ambassador in 2019, and is committed to offsetting the carbon footprint created by touring, by participating in the Nature Conservancy’s Plant a Billion Trees campaign.
Tickets for the DMB summer tour will be available to the general public beginning Feb. 17 at 10 a.m. local time.
Visit davematthewsband.com for more information, or check the DMB Warehouse Fan Association for presales.
Check out “Madman’s Eyes”:
Walk Around the Moon tracklist:
Walk Around The Moon
Madman’s Eyes
Looking For A Vein
The Ocean And The Butterfly
It Could Happen
Something To Tell My Baby
After Everything
All You Wanted Was Tomorrow
The Only Thing
Break Free
Monsters
Singing From The Windows
2023 North American tour dates:
May 9 — Auditorio Nacional, Mexico City, DF
May 11 — Auditorio Pabellon M, Monterrey, NL,
May 13 — Teatro Diana, Guadalajara, JAL
May 19 — The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion, The Woodlands, TX
May 20 — Dos Equis Pavilion, Dallas, TX,
May 23 — Walmart AMP, Rogers, AR
May 24 — BankPlus Amphitheater at Snowden Grove, Southaven, MS
May 26 — Bridgestone Arena, Nashville, TN
May 27 — Riverbend Music Center, Cincinnati, OH
May 30 — Live Oak Bank Pavilion at Riverfront Park, Wilmington, NC
May 31 — Oak Bank Pavilion at Riverfront Park, Wilmington, NC
June 2 — One Stadium, Charleston, SC
June 3 — One Stadium, Charleston, SC
June 9 — Forest Hills Stadium, Forest Hills, NY
June 10 — Xfinity Theatre, Hartford, CT
June 14 — Darien Lake Amphitheater, Darien, NY
June 16 — Maine Savings Amphitheatre, Bangor, ME
June 17 — Xfinity Center, Mansfield, MA
June 23 — The Pavilion at Star Lake, Burgettstown, PA
June 24 — Merriweather Post Pavilion, Columbia, MD
June 27 — Pine Knob Music Theatre, Clarkston, MI
June 29 — American Family Insurance Amphitheatre, Milwaukee, WI
June 30 — Ruoff Music Center, Noblesville, IN
July 1 — Music Center, Noblesville, IN
July 7 — Huntington Bank Pavilion at Northerly Island, Chicago, IL
July 8 — Huntington Bank Pavilion at Northerly Island, Chicago, IL
July 11 — Bank of New Hampshire Pavilion, Gilford, NH
July 12 — Bank of New Hampshire Pavilion, Gilford, NH
July 14 — Performing Arts Center, Saratoga Springs, NY
July 15 — Saratoga Performing Arts Center, Saratoga Springs,
July 18 — PNC Bank Arts Center, Holmdel, NJ
July 19 — Northwell Health at Jones Beach Theater, Wantagh, NY
July 21 — Freedom Mortgage Pavilion, Camden, NJ
July 22 — Freedom Mortgage Pavilion, Camden, NJ
July 25 — Ameris Bank Amphitheatre, Alpharetta, GA
July 26 — The Amphitheater at the Wharf, Orange Beach, AL
July 28 — iTHINK Financial Amphitheatre, West Palm Beach, FL
July 29 — iTHINK Financial Amphitheatre, West Palm Beach, FL
Aug. 24 — Yaamava’ Resort and Casino, Highland, CA
Aug. 25 — FivePoint Amphitheatre, Irvine, CA
Aug. 26 — FivePoint Amphitheatre, Irvine, CA
Aug. 29 — Hayden Homes Amphitheater, Bend, OR
Sept. 1 — Gorge Amphitheatre, George, WA
Sept. 2 — Gorge Amphitheatre, George, WA
Sept. 3 — Gorge Amphitheatre, George, WA
The full Senate Judiciary Committee has opened its hearing on competition within the ticketing industry this morning and a number of witnesses have already set high stakes for the congressional probe, calling for drastic action in the ticketing space.
Moments after Live Nation president Joe Berchtold shared lengthy remarks on the causes of the Taylor Swift ticket crash, SeatGeek CEO Jack Groetzinger, one of Ticketmaster’s main competitors told Congress, “Live Nation controls most popular entertainers, routs most of the tours, tickets most of the concerts and owns many of the venues,” noting “this power allows Live Nation to maintain its monopolistic influence over the primary ticketing market.”
The 2010 consent decree governing the merger of Live Nation and Ticketmaster created “has not worked at all and violated the consent decree since its inception,” Groetzinger said.
“The only effective remedy is a structural one – the disillusion of the common ownership of Ticketmaster and Live Nation,” he testified.
Amy Edwards and Parker Harrison demonstrate against the live entertainment ticket industry outside the U.S. Capitol January 24, 2023 in Washington, DC.
Drew Angerer/GI
Jerry Mickelson, longtime promoter with Jam Concerts in Chicago who spoke out against the merger during Congressional hearing in 2010, called the deal “a vertical integration on steroids” and said its arena promotion business has decreased 90 percent since the merger.
Berchtold argued that the company’s marketshare of the concert market is close to 50 to 60 percent, not 80 percent as many have claimed. He also denied allegations that the company used its market size to punish competitors.
“It is absolutely our policy to not pressure, threaten or retaliate against venues by using content as part of the ticketing discussion.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) encouraged critics of the company and people who are fed up with the system that exists right now to “continue your criticism” as the Department of Justice takes a third look at Live Nation following a 2019 inquiry into the company.
“If the Department of Justice establishes violations of the consent decree, unwinding the merger ought to be on the table,” Blumenthal testified. “If the Department of Justice establishes facts that involved monopolistic and predatory abuses, there ought to be structural remedies that include breaking up the company.
Before taking his turn asking questions to witnesses, outspoken Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) told Berchtold: “I’m not against big, but I am against dumb and the way your company handled Ms. Swift’s tickets was a debacle. Whoever at your company was in charge of that should be fired.”
This is a developing story — check back for updates.
Don’t expect Live Nation’s Joe Berchtold to be quoting Taylor Swift’s “Anti-Hero” during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on ticketing Tuesday. Unlike the pop star’s “I’m the problem it’s me” chorus-turned-meme, the company’s president and CFO plans to take aim at who he says are the real culprits behind Swift’s disastrous Nov. 15 presale — scalpers.
While the Live Nation-owned Ticketmaster was villianized for weeks following the presale for Swift’s upcoming The Eras tour that both broke single-day sales records and threw fans into a fury over service issues, according to a prepared opening statement reviewed by Billboard, Berchtold plans to lay much of the blame on scalpers who used illegal bots to attack the online sale. The statement, to be delivered Tuesday in Washington, D.C., to the committee led by ranking member Dick Durbin (D-Ilinois), details Ticketmaster’s ongoing “arms race” against scalpers illegally using autonomous software to disrupt and attack high profile ticket sales. Country music legend Garth Brooks is lending his support to Berchtold’s testimony as well, with a letter defending Ticketmaster and attacking ticket scalpers who use illegal methods to buy up tickets.
“We knew bots would attack [Swift’s] onsale, and planned accordingly,” reads Berchtold’s planned statement. “We were then hit with three times the amount of bot traffic than we had ever experienced, and for the first time in 400 Verified Fan onsales they came after our Verified Fan access code servers. While the bots failed to penetrate our systems or acquire any tickets, the attack required us to slow down and even pause our sales. This is what led to a terrible consumer experience that we deeply regret.”
Following the Nov. 15 presale, Ticketmaster eventually canceled its general onsale for the remaining 170,000 tickets to Swift’s tour. In December, the company announced a new strategy to sell the passes over the course of four weeks and recently concluded that effort. At the time, the company said “historically unprecedented demand” caused the failure, but blamed bots then, too — saying, 14 million fans and more than 3 billion bots hit the site. That excuse did little to satisfy the more than 100,000 fans who kicked out of line during the bot attack, and even the singer spoke out blaming the company. With many fans calling for Ticketmaster’s punishment, Berchtold also plans to apologize directly to Swift and her followers.
“As we said after the onsale, and I reiterate today, we apologize to the many disappointed fans as well as to Ms. Swift,” his statement reads.
While Berchtold notes Ticketmaster “accepts its responsibility to be the first line of defense against bots in this ever- escalating arms race,” he intends to shift the hearing’s focus to policy changes that could tamp down on scalpers.
“In this forum where we are here to discuss public policy, we also need to recognize how industrial scalpers breaking the law using bots and cyberattacks to try to unfairly gain tickets contributes to an awful consumer experience,” his statement reads. “We are doing everything we can to fight the people who attack our onsales and steal tickets meant for real fans, but we need help passing real reforms to stop this arms race.”
Brooks, in his statement, supports this notion.
“The crush of bots during an on-sale is a huge reason for program failure NO MATTER WHO THE TICKET SELLING COMPANY is,” writes the country icon in his letter addressed to Congress. “And the one who ALWAYS pays for this atrocity is the customer, the LAST one on whom that burden should fall.”
Brooks notes in his letter that he forced Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones to allow him to use Ticketmaster to sell tickets to his April concert at AT&T Stadium, instead of SeatGeek which held the exclusive contract to ticket the stadium.
“I had grown to love and trust the people at Ticketmaster so much,” he explained in his letter, noting, “this was not because of Ticketmaster, but a choice I made.”
Berchtold will be joined on the witness stand by SeatGeek chief executive Jack Groetzinger and longtime Chicago promoter Jerry Mickelson with JAM Productions, along with recording artist Clyde Lawrence and representatives from the James Madison Institute and American Antitrust Institute.
Ticketmaster officials are expecting a pile on, both from Congress and the other testifying witnesses. SeatGeek has filed a number of complaints against Ticketmaster with the Department of Justice for alleged anti-trust violations, and Mickelson testified before Congress in 2010, condemning the merger between Live Nation and Ticketmaster. While company officials aren’t expecting any standing ovations, Berchtold’s testimony will be an important preview of the company’s framing of the challenges facing the business over the next couple of years and promises to be the most detailed defense of Live Nation by an executive in its 18-year history.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota) originally called for this hearing in response to public anger over the technical failures of the Taylor Swift Eras ticket sale. But the witness list and the name of the hearing, “That’s the Ticket: Promoting Competition and Protecting Consumers in Live Entertainment,” released Monday (Jan. 23) suggest that the hearing is more likely to focus on long-simmering dissatisfaction over the 2010 consent decree governing the merger of Ticketmaster and Live Nation. That consent decree has had mixed success creating a level playing field for competition in the ticketing business, and critics consider it a failure because it didn’t prevent Ticketmaster from becoming the dominant ticketing company it is today.
“We hear people say that ticketing markets are less competitive today than they were at the time of the Live Nation-Ticketmaster merger. That is simply not true,” reads Berchtold’s statements, claiming Ticketmaster’s market share has decreased since the DOJ estimated it held 80% of the market in 2009.
At the time, Ticketmaster “did not face the level of competition we face today from new competitors including SeatGeek, AEG’s AXS, and Eventbrite, along with established competitors including Tickets.com and Paciolan,” Berchtold continues. “Today, there is intense competition for every ticketing contract that goes out to bid — far more than there was in 2010. Ticketmaster has lost, not gained, market share, and every year competitive bidding results in ticketing companies getting less of the economic value in a ticketing contract while venues and teams get more. The bottom line is that U.S. ticketing markets have never been more competitive than they are today, and we read about new potential entrants all the time.”
Berchtold plans to present the threat posed by bad actors and malicious software as an issue both the government and the private sector must address together. The strategy shifts part of the criticism for the Taylor Swift ticket debacle onto the Senate — which unanimously voted to pass the BOTS act in 2016, effectively outlawing automated ticket-buying technology. Since its passage, the law has only been enforced twice by the FBI and the Federal Trade Commission, despite pleas from Ticketmaster officials that bot attacks on high profile ticket sales are increasing in frequency and complexity, sources tell Billboard. Berchtold also plans to detail how the company has spent more than $1 billion developing technology to prevent bot attacks on the company’s ticket sales using software like Verified Fan and digital ticketing.
A ‘blame the bots’ strategy is not likely to satisfy the members of the Senate Judiciary committee, which include such conservative and liberal firebrands such as Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Josh Hawley (R-Missouri), John Kennedy (R-Louisiana), Diane Fienstein (D-California), Corey Booker (D-New Jersey) and Richard Blumenthal (D-New Jersey). Anti-Ticketmaster sentiment and criticism of the 2010 merger between Ticketmaster and Live Nation is one of the few issues of bipartisan agreement on Capitol Hill.
Berchtold will end his testimony laying out calls to action he believes Congress can take to combat bad actors in the ticketing industry: First, is empowering private parties like Ticketmaster to bring civil actions against ticket sellers who knowingly sell tickets obtained by bots. Second, Berchtold believes Congress should act to outlaw deceptive sales practices like speculative ticket sales “offering for sale tickets you don’t own or have an existing right to obtain,” or deceptive sites that mislabel themselves as “the official” ticket seller for shows they aren’t contracted to work with.
The Senate Judiciary Committee’s “That’s the Ticket: Promoting Competition and Protecting Consumers in Live Entertainment” begins at 10 a.m. EST on Tuesday. Click here to watch the hearing live.
Coldplay has added another series of dates to its Music of the Spheres world tour, but this time, the rock band is head headed to North America. On Monday (Jan. 23), the quartet announced that a series of West Coat dates have been added, and includes support from two very special guests.
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Coldplay will start its West Coast trek in Seattle on Sept. 20 at Lumen Field stadium. On Sept. 22, the band heads up to Canada for a stop in Vancouver, and will play BC Place stadium. The following week, the quartet will return to the United States for a pair of dates in California — a stop at San Diego’s Snapdragon Stadium on Sept. 27 and a stop at Los Angeles’ Rose Bowl on Sept. 30. H.E.R. and 070 Shake will open for the band on all dates in the North American West Coast Leg.
Tickets for the new dates will go on sale starting on Friday, Jan. 27, at 10 a.m. PT. Fans who originally purchased tickets to the band’s previously scheduled 2022 date in Los Angeles are being offered an exclusive first-come, first-served presale. Information for the presale will be delivered by email; the presale will take place one day before the general sale on Thursday, Jan. 26, from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. PT.
In the meantime, Coldplay continues to take its Music of the Sphere tour across the world in 2023. The band will hit the road again starting in March, with several stops in Brazil. In May, the band will travel to Europe for dates in Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom; June will see the band perform more U.K. dates and stops in Italy, while July will take the band to Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark and the Netherlands.
See the tour announcement below.
Brooks & Dunn are extending their Reboot tour with the addition of 17 tour dates in 2023. The new slate of shows will launch on May 4 in Kansas City, Mo.
“Last year, you all reminded us just how much fun it is to walk out on that stage and share the night with ya! We love what we do, but we’re just surfing your wave …can’t wait!!” said Brooks & Dunn’s Kix Brooks via a statement.
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“The Brooks and Dunn posse rides again,” added Ronnie Dunn. “More excited to hit the big stage as we ever have been! Unbelievable band of friends.…annnnnd YOU! Together, let’s rock the house!!”
Heading out on the road with B&D is Scotty McCreery, known for his chart toppers including “This Is It” and “Five More Minutes.”
“Having been a huge fan of their music all my life, going out on the road with Kix and Ronnie is a dream come true for me,” said McCreery. “I can’t wait for this tour to begin!”
The tour takes its name from Brooks & Dunn’s 2019 album Reboot, which found the duo collaborating with younger country artists including Kacey Musgraves, Midland and Luke Combs on several of Brooks & Dunn’s biggest hits. Though McCreery did not appear on that project, he did recently earn another Billboard Country Airplay chart topper with “Damn Strait,” a sly nod to another ’90s country artist, George Strait.
“My first country music concert was George Strait, and along with my love for Elvis [Presley], he inspired me to become a country music singer myself,” McCreery previously told Billboard. “When I did American Idol, George called me and requested I sing his [1995] hit ‘Check Yes or No,’ and I still sing it from time to time in concert. Now, having my fifth straight No. 1 on a song that pays tribute to George, while at the same time being a classic country heartbreaker such as he might have sung, is such a full-circle moment that means the world to me. Trent Tomlinson and Jim Collins wrote a clever song that reaches beyond name-dropping Strait hits to tell a meaningful story.”
Last year, Brooks & Dunn revived the CMT franchise CMT Storytellers, and rang in 2023 as part of Nashville’s New Year’s Eve Bash.
Tickets for the new tour dates go on sale Friday, Jan. 27, at 10 a.m. local time at brooks-dunn.com and livenation.com.
See the full list of Reboot 2023 tour dates below:
Thu May 04 – Kansas City, MO – T- Mobile Center
Fri May 05 – Oklahoma City, OK – Paycom Center
Sat May 06 – Ft. Worth, TX – Dickies Arena
Thu May 11 – Lexington, KY – Rupp Arena
Fri May 12 – Pittsburgh, PA – PPG Paints Arena
Sat May 13 – Buffalo, NY – KeyBank Center
Thu May 18 – Birmingham, AL – Legacy Arena at The BJCC
Fri May 19 – Biloxi, MS – Mississippi Coast Coliseum
Sat May 20 – Little Rock, AR – Simmons Bank Arena
Thu Jun 01 – Omaha, NE – CHI Health Center
Fri Jun 02 – Sioux Falls, SD – Denny Sanford PREMIER Center
Sat Jun 03 – St. Paul, MN – Xcel Energy Center
Thu Jun 08 – Duluth, GA – Gas South Arena+
Sat Jun 10 – Orlando, FL – Amway Center
Thu June 15 – Mt. Pleasant, MI – Soaring Eagle Casino & Resort*
Fri Jun 16 – Columbus, OH – Nationwide Arena
Sat Jun 17 – Greensboro, NC – Greensboro Coliseum
*Not a Live Nation Date
+On Sale Friday, Feb. 3
When Madonna hits the road later this year for her career-spanning Celebration Tour, she’ll be taking a global victory lap, further cementing her legacy as the Queen of Pop. She’ll also be taking home big money — upwards of $100 million, by Billboard‘s estimate.
The parade of concerts will feature Madonna’s greatest hits from across her 40-year career, a rare straightforward ambition for one of the world’s most enigmatic artists. With 38 top 10 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 and 23 top 10 albums on the Billboard 200, the tour stands to continue her streak as the highest-grossing solo female artist in Billboard Boxscore history (provided she can fend off Taylor Swift‘s upcoming Eras tour). How high will it go?
Madonna’s touring career began in earnest with 1985’s The Virgin Tour, averaging more than 10,000 tickets and $100,000 per night, according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore. (The average ticket price on that tour was $14.74, a distant whiff of what her — and all artists’ — arena concert tickets cost in the 2020s. In today’s dollars, adjusted for inflation, that skimpy price would translate to $29.56.)
Already a sell-out force, Madonna’s next trek, 1987’s Who’s That Girl World Tour, tripled her draw and nearly quintupled her selling power in just two years, pacing 35,000 tickets and $756,000 per show in a mix of arenas and stadiums that year.
Both of those figures were just the beginning. They were followed by 1990’s Blond Ambition Tour, 1993’s The Girlie Show and seven tours in the 21st century that have grossed at least $50 million each.
Madonna’s highest-grossing tour thus far is the 85-date Sticky & Sweet Tour in 2008-09, playing stadiums around the world to the tune of $407.7 million and 3.5 million tickets. Fifteen years later, it remains the highest-grossing tour by a woman ever. (Her next trek, 2012’s MDNA Tour – her lengthiest tour by number of shows at 88 – played a mix of stadiums and arenas, and became her second-highest grossing run, with $305.2 million.)
The Celebration Tour was announced on Tuesday (Jan. 17) with 26 shows in North America and 12 in Europe. Throughout this week, that routing expanded to 41 and 20, respectively. Madonna begins the trek on July 15 in Vancouver and is scheduled to wrap Dec. 2 in Amsterdam. Thus far, no dates outside the U.S., Canada and western Europe have been announced.
To gauge the tour’s financial prospects, it would be unfair to simply reflect on Madonna’s most recent tour. That was the 2019-20 Madame X Tour, an experiment that placed the Queen of Pop in intimate theater-based mini-residencies in major markets on both sides of the Atlantic. The 75-show run sold itself out at 179,000 tickets and $51.5 million, but it’s an outlier in a career comprised of (much) larger venues.
A more apt comparison would be the Rebel Heart Tour of 2015-16, a string of 82 arena shows after the stadium madness of her previous two treks. That tour grossed $169.8 million and sold 1.05 million tickets worldwide, including quick stints in Asia and Oceania. On the Rebel Heart Tour, more relevant to the Celebration routing, Madonna averaged $1.8 million and 12,500 tickets in the U.S. and Canada, and $1.7 million and 14,600 tickets in Europe. Given her current 61-show routing for The Celebration Tour, maintaining those averages would put the entire run on track to gross $106.9 million and sell 802,000 tickets.
But ticket prices have risen since Madonna was charging $15-and-under in the ‘80s, including a significant spike in the last five years. Platinum ticketing and dynamic pricing have blown out arena and stadium grosses in the post-pandemic era, with Bad Bunny, Harry Styles, The Rolling Stones and more approaching $200 averages on tour last year.
For example, on Elton John’s Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour, his average arena ticket in North America jumped from $139 in 2018 to $181 in 2022. That’s a 30% increase, which would bolster Madonna’s projected gross to $140.6 million. But the surge in prices hasn’t been as great in Europe, which could soften our prediction back toward the $130 million mark.
Further, Madonna has long been a global icon. So far, The Celebration Tour spans two continents, while she has frequently hit South America, Asia and Oceania throughout her career. An expansion of the tour — which seems like a natural idea based on the marketability of an all-hits show — would drastically change what is realistic for the 2023 trek. And as noted above, Madonna already increased the number of North American shows for the tour by more than 50% before The Celebration Tour’s general on-sale began on Jan. 20. Demand could dictate further additions.
Today’s on-sale generated over 600,000 tickets sold, with 35 sold-out shows and more to become available next week.
Over nearly 40 years, Madonna has grossed a reported $1.376 billion and sold 11.7 million tickets across 575 shows. That makes her the most successful female act in Boxscore history. The Celebration Tour will nudge her closer to the $1.5 billion mark. Among all acts, only four have grossed more in Boxscore history.
The Queen of Pop’s return to touring was a thunderous success this morning, with more than 23 concerts added to the 37 dates already announced for Madonna‘s The Celebration Tour thanks to massive fan demand.
Only a handful of tickets are still available — the tour is 98% sold out — after fans bought up 600,000 tickets in a matter of hours to see Madonna’s retrospective run in North America and Europe. Additional shows were added today in Los Angeles, Montreal, Boston and beyond to meet the demand.
“It was a huge day for Madonna and a massive success thanks to her fans,” says Arthur Fogel, Madonna’s long-time promoter with Live Nation.
In total, 51 shows went on sale today, with 35 of the shows completely sold out by 5 p.m. EST. Fogel and Madonna’s team added a fourth New York show after the first three sold out in 15 minutes and two additional London shows after the first two concerts at the 02 Arena sold out in 20 minutes. Tickets to see Madonna’s Paris shows sold out in under seven minutes, while her Amsterdam date sold out in 10 minutes.
Fogel says additional dates will be announced for Europe next week before presales begin for ten North American shows that were not part of today’s sale. Presales for The Celebration Tour dates in Denver, Phoenix, Atlanta and more begin Jan. 23, with the general public onsale scheduled for Jan. 27.
Madonna’s last major arena run, the 2015-2016 Rebel Heart Tour, grossed $169.8 million and sold 1 million tickets across 82 shows.
The Celebration Tour begins July 15 at Rogers Arena in Vancouver and will include performances of music from Madonna’s entire catalog, spanning her 40-year career as the best-selling female touring artist of all time.
For more information, and to buy tickets, visit www.madonna.com/tour.