Touring
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Taylor Swift’s blockbuster Eras Tour rolled into New Orleans on Friday (Oct. 25) for the first of three sold-out shows at Caesars Superdome. After a lengthy run of overseas dates, Swift returned to North America for three shows in Miami last week; New Orleans is the second city on this final leg of the Eras […]
Crypto.com Arena hosted the first game of the 2024-2025 NBA season on Tuesday night (Oct. 22), which saw the arena’s tenants, the Los Angeles Lakers, take on the Minnesota Timberwolves. The evening notably featured the first appearance of a father-son duo (LeBron James and son Bronny James) in NBA history — while the 25-year-old arena also showed off its new, nine-figure renovations.
A quarter of a century is a long time for any entertainment arena to remain culturally relevant, but Crypto.com Arena (formerly Staples Center) has completed its third round of multi-million-dollar renovations to keep up with technological advancements and a new era in fan enjoyment.
During the Oct. 22 game, the arena — at the center of the entertainment campus L.A. Live — unveiled its new outdoor space, refreshed food and beverage offerings and state-of-the-art technology designed to reduce wait times throughout the facility. The arena’s first outdoor space, the City View Terrace, offers concert and game attendees the option of enjoying food and drinks with downtown Los Angeles as the backdrop while still being able to view the game or concert taking place inside. The terrace features several food and beverage stops and is open to all ticket holders.
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For floor- or ice-seat ticketholders, the arena revamped its exclusive Chairman’s Club to become the Delta SKY360° Club. On Wednesday (Oct. 23), Crypto.com Arena senior vp of guest services and security Danielle Snyder took media on a tour of the reimagined space, which includes a private bar in a lounge setting that is only accessible to premium seat holders and friends and family of the team or act playing. For the first time in its history, Crypto.com Arena will also now offer VIP tours to the general public, allowing guests to access behind-the-scenes areas such as the Delta SKY360° Club.
Danielle Snyder, Crypto.com Arena Senior Vice President of Guest Services and Security
Courtesy of Crypto.com Arena
This season, founding partner Coca-Cola is also continuing to expand its presence with the newly unveiled Coke Studio, a 3,300-square-foot music-driven studio and event space at Crypto.com Arena that will host concerts, artist appearances, podcast recordings and more. Coca-Cola is supporting the arena’s sustainability initiatives, including the r.Cup program, which replaces single-use cups with reusable ones to help further the arena’s commitment to reducing waste. As part of this program, Coca-Cola products, along with other non-alcoholic beverages, will be served in r.Cup’s reusable vessels.
The arena’s new food offerings include chef and TV host David Chang’s spicy fried chicken concept fuku and chef and restaurateur Ludo Lefebvre’s two new concession stands: Mediterranean-focused Ludobab and Trois Familia, a fusion of Lefebvre’s French background with local Mexican cuisine. Elsewhere, Fresh Brothers will become the arena’s official pizza partner with a new concession stand (replacing Blaze Pizza), while Big Mozz is the arena’s newest official mozzarella stick partner.
Courtesy of Crypto.com Arena
A standout of the new offerings includes the first Doritos restaurant, Doritos After Dark. Located at the arena’s main Star Plaza entrance, Doritos After Dark serves up late-night favorites elevated with the flavor and crunch of Doritos for appetizers and entrees. Special items include Doritos Spicy Sweet Chili Ramen-Rito (a Dorito and ramen-filled burrito) and Doritos Nacho Cheese Crunchtastic Vanilla Cone (an ice cream cone with a chocolate shell covered in cheesy chips). On Nov. 15, for one night only, Doritos After Dark will step out of the arena and into a one-of-a-kind Doritos Night Market pop-up in a free, immersive, neon-filled atmosphere open to all from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. at L.A. Live’s Peacock Place.
Courtesy of Crypto.com Arena
New technology has also been installed at the arena. This includes Evolv, a leader in AI-based security technology, which is enhancing fan safety with the rollout of its Evolv Express screening system at all entrances. This cutting-edge technology allows fans to move through security checkpoints more quickly and efficiently, differentiating between potential threats and most everyday metal items such as cell phones and keys. By streamlining entry, Evolv is designed to help fans spend less time waiting in line and more time enjoying the event.
Once inside, fans can also skip lines with Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology, which has been installed at multiple locations inside the arena, along with the brand-new Exo self-checkout at the Team LA Store, which also underwent a remodel. Now, all items at the Team LA Store include RFID technology, which allows fans to drop all their merchandise into a scanner that rings up everything instantaneously. The technology is currently only available at sporting events, as tour merchandise is not yet streamlined with RFID technology.
Crypto.com Arena is set to host programming tied to some of the biggest and highest-profile sporting events over the next decade. Among other events, it has been selected to host the 2025 Grammy Awards (the 22nd time the arena has hosted music’s biggest night), the 2027 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Regional, and the men’s and women’s gymnastics competitions for the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
As the pandemic was waning, John Summit, an emerging Chicago DJ whose music had blown up online during lockdown, had a plan to translate that internet presence to real life. “Our strategy was to be everywhere,” says Summit’s manager, Holt Harmon. “Like, omnipresent.”
In 2021 and early 2022, Summit and his team canvassed North American nightclubs as they reopened, showing promoters (and themselves) that Summit’s online hype could turn into in-person fun. In May 2021, he sold out a 500-capacity venue in Tempe, Ariz., in just 12 seconds.
The team then transitioned from clubs to 2,000-capacity rooms, investing profits into production for stage rigs. “We were smart with how we were living at the time,” Harmon says. “I did everything from a kitchen table with my business partner, and John was working from his parents’ house.”
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Since then, Summit has sold out headlining sets at Los Angeles’ BMO Stadium and Madison Square Garden in New York, with a three-night stint at L.A.’s Kia Forum set for mid-November. The large-venue bookings function as part of a three-pronged touring plan for Summit, which also includes his intimate Experts Only shows at clubs and festival sets as Everything Always, Summit’s duo project alongside Australian producer Dom Dolla.
The hybrid approach allows for different creative opportunities: Experts Only parties, for instance, offer no-frills production and let Summit stay close to his audience and test new music. They’re also easy to take on the road, often in destination venues like The Caverns in Pelham, Tenn. (“My goal is Experts Only Alps,” says Summit, who named the party, and his label, after his love of skiing. “That would be f–king sick.”)
Arena and stadium sets, meanwhile, satisfy massive audiences, including fans who might just be getting into electronic music through Summit’s accessible style of progressive house. And Everything Always lets two artists unite to play “bigger, more impactful things than if it was [them] separately,” Harmon says, such as the duo’s Coachella performance in April. “People ask how we keep cycling through markets year after year,” says Harmon, who is also co-founder and CEO of management firm Metatone. “It’s that we can come through as three different forms.”
The plan is to do it again internationally. With 50% of Summit’s 2025 touring happening overseas, Harmon says “the future of John Summit is a global business.” Now, Summit’s biggest sets require a crew of 180 and cost approximately $1.5 million to produce. But despite the growth, the essential goal remains the same as it was in the early days. “I’m still working from the kitchen table,” Summit says, “but it’s my own kitchen table now.”
This story appears in the Oct. 26, 2024, issue of Billboard.
Luis Miguel has postponed a series of concerts scheduled across several cities in Mexico, including two performances in the capital, due to health reasons, the Mexico City Arena said in a statement on Thursday night (Oct. 24). Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news The Mexican-raised superstar was […]
With Billboard Hot 100 hits like “Hungry Like the Wolf,” “Union of the Snake,” “New Moon on Monday” and “A View to a Kill,” Duran Duran’s catalog is frighteningly fitting for spooky season. So in 2022, when the English quartet found itself playing a Halloween-night gig in Las Vegas ahead of its induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, the band decided to don costumes, sprinkle in seasonally appropriate covers and embrace the darkness.
The show was successful enough to inspire the band’s 2023 album, Danse Macabre, a top 10 hit on the Top Album Sales chart. With an expanded version of the album out now, the veterans — who have grossed $118.6 million and sold 1.8 million tickets since 1987, according to Billboard Boxscore — are set to play a show at New York’s Madison Square Garden on Oct. 31 that keyboardist Nick Rhodes promises “will be entirely different than any other Duran Duran show you will ever see.”
Is Halloween as big in the United Kingdom?
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We don’t celebrate it in such grand style as you do in America. I remember the first time I came to America was over the Halloween period. I literally thought, “Wow, they’re so far ahead of us. Why don’t we have these giant blow-up things outside our houses? Why can’t bats be 20 feet wide?” I love the sense of fun, the absurdity and that everybody gets to be a villain for a day.
The deluxe Danse Macabre has “New Moon (Dark Phase),” a moodier take on one of your classics; a cover of ELO’s “Evil Woman”; and “Masque of the Pink Death,” which I’m guessing is inspired by Edgar Allan Poe.
I’ve always been a great admirer [of Poe]. We grew up in England in the ’70s, where Hammer horror movies on [TV on] a Friday night, whether it was a Dracula or a mummy movie, were the thing you looked forward to all week. Plus, [I love] Tim Burton’s great contribution to everyone who loves goth. Those things shape the way you feel about life and the possibilities creatively. That’s what makes artists unique — their influences and the different areas they take from, even if it’s subliminal.
The Madison Square Garden show will be your second Halloween-themed concert. Do you see this becoming a tradition?
I don’t know. It’s a lot of work for one show. But Madison Square Garden just happened to be available, and New York is such a good place to be for Halloween. It was irresistible. We are going to make it something unusual and special. It won’t be like a regular show at all. The fans in Europe have been writing in already saying, “When are you going to do one in Europe? This is the second one in America; that’s not fair.” I sympathize with that. We always like to try to balance things, so maybe [we’ll do] one in Europe next year.
You have several other U.S. shows this fall beyond MSG. Will Halloween elements work their way into those?
I suspect some of them will feature a few bits that we’re preparing for Halloween. We didn’t think we’d be back in America this year, but when we decided to do the Halloween one, we slotted some more in. I rather like that way of working. For many years, we haven’t been a band that announces big world tours and ends up on the road for 18 months. But we do seem to play a lot of shows. We just add them when we want to, and somehow the chaos is working.
This story appears in the Oct. 26, 2024, issue of Billboard.
Is it really summer without The Rolling Stones on tour? The rock icons have toured North America, Europe, or both, for every summer but three in the last 12 years, consistently topping charts and setting records. After a break in 2023, the Stones returned for the Hackney Diamonds Tour, playing 18 shows in 15 cities throughout the U.S. and Canada from the end of April through the middle of July. According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, the trek earned $235 million and sold 848,000 tickets.
The tour was in support of the band’s Hackney Diamonds album, released in October 2023. The set marked the band’s first album of original material since 2005’s A Bigger Bang. Hackney Diamonds debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 – the group’s highest-charting album since Bang also hit No. 3 – and extended the band’s record for the most top 10s on the chart.
The Hackney Diamonds Tour kicked off at Houston’s NRG Stadium on April 28, 2024,, bringing the Stones to more than 40,000 fans. By the time the band wrapped at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara on July 17, it had scored the highest-earning summer of its career. Sixty, its 2022 jaunt, earned $120.8 million, and the biggest of its four No Filter Tour legs brought in $177.8 million in 2019. While they’ve made more money on years-long treks, Mick Jagger & co. have never earned more than $200 million in a single season.
The Stones’ 2024 run was highlighted by double-headers in East Rutherford, N.J. (17 miles outside New York City), Chicago and Inglewood, Calif. (11 miles from downtown Los Angeles). Each of those engagements grossed more than $20 million, topped by the New Jersey shows at MetLife Stadium on May 23 and 26, which earned a combined $29.2 million and sold 105,000 tickets.
Those MetLife dates mark a career peak, setting the highest gross of the Stones’ 35-year Boxscore history. The Inglewood and Chicago dates also fall in the top 10, while Denver, Foxborough, Las Vegas and Philadelphia line up in the band’s all-time top 20, all between $15-16 million.
Every market on the tour delivered an eight-figure gross, with the lone exception of Glendale, Ariz., whose May 7 State Farm Stadium show grossed $8.4 million and sold 44,800 tickets.
Tours
Billboard
The Hackney Diamonds Tour sets a new high for The Rolling Stones and pushes the band further into uncharted Boxscore territory. This is its sixth tour to earn more than $200 million and 10th to gross more than $100 million. Both counts are Boxscore records, extending their lead for the most nine-figure tours, now three $100-million tours away from the group’s closest competitors.
Dating back to a report for two shows at Philadelphia’s Veterans Stadium on Aug. 31-Sept. 1, 1989, The Rolling Stones have earned $2.873 billion and sold 28.9 million tickets.
Across Green Day’s 12 shows in September — 11 at stadiums, plus an amphitheater show in Austin, Texas — the band sold 415,000 tickets at an average ticket price of $114.71, combining for earnings of $47.5 million according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore. That puts the California trio’s The Saviors Tour at No. 1 on Billboard’s monthly Top Tours ranking.
The Saviors Tour kicked off in June with a $33.8 million run in Europe, before crossing the Atlantic for a 26-city tour of the United States and Canada. Though Green Day had sprinkled stadiums late in the 2004-05 American Idiot World Tour and then committed fully to the venues with Fall Out Boy and Weezer on the 2021-22 Hella Mega Tour, this marks the band’s first solo headlining run to predominantly play stadiums.
The Saviors Tour is named after Green Day’s 14th studio album. The set debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 earlier this year and spawned “Dilemma,” which spent eight weeks atop Alternative Airplay. But the trek helped juice up the band’s reach by calling back to two of its landmark albums, celebrating the 30th anniversary of Dookie and the 20th anniversary of American Idiot by playing both LPs in full each night.
In September, Green Day hit a high for its entire North American leg, with $5.7 million and 47,800 tickets at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif. That’s one of three entries for the band on Top Boxscores, at No. 24. Dates at San Francisco’s Oracle Park and San Diego’s Petco Park follow at Nos. 27 and 29, respectively.
It’s uncommon for an act to be No. 1 on Top Tours without a similarly high placement on Top Boxscores. Throughout 2024, the highest-grossing touring act has always had at least one entry in the top 10 of Top Boxscores, with the same act ruling both charts in five of the right months before September.
Further, in the 51 editions of Billboard’s monthly Boxscore charts since Feb. 2019, the artist at No. 1 on Top Tours was in the top 10 of Top Boxscores 43 times. Of the eight instances where they did not overlap, four were by Trans-Siberian Orchestra during their annual December takeover. That group routinely rules Top Tours without making impact on Top Boxscores, assembling its massive monthly total by playing multiple shows per day, with the help of two coastal touring ensembles.
Though there is only one iteration of Green Day responsible for its September victory, the strategy is similar. The punk-rock icons have the month’s biggest tour by volume, playing 12 stadium shows between Sept. 1-28. The acts that lead Top Boxscores – Coldplay, Metallica, Bruno Mars – all held splashy multi-night engagements in international territories, but didn’t tour consistently throughout the month.
Timing also helps. In August, Green Day’s $47.5-million gross would have sat behind the entire top five, helmed by Zach Bryan above $90 million and Coldplay over $80 million. The former took September off and the latter wrapped its European leg on Sept. 2, clearing a path for Billie Joe & co. to claim their first monthly victory.
Still, the individual shows on The Saviors Tour mark the biggest of Green Day’s storied career. While the SoFi Stadium shows were the biggest of the North American leg, a June 29 show at London’s Wembley Stadium ($7.9 million; 76,000 tickets) topped the entire tour. It was also the highest-grossing and best-attended night of the band’s entire reported Boxscore history.
Further, Green Day’s 25 top-earning concert engagements all come from this year’s tour. In all, The Saviors Tour grossed $132.4 million and sold 1.2 million tickets, easily ending as the band’s highest-grossing and best-selling tour ever.
Directly following Green Day on Top Tours are two of the biggest R&B acts on the road. Bruno Mars is No. 2 with $43.8 million and Usher is No. 3 with $36 million. The former played in Indonesia, Malaysia and Taiwan (plus one show in Las Vegas). Three shows at Jakarta’s Beach City International Stadium account for nearly half of Mars’ total monthly gross, bringing in $21.5 million from 142,000 tickets.
Notably, Mars is not technically on a tour, rather playing one-off engagements around his ongoing residency at Las Vegas’ Dolby Live. His last trek was the 24K Magic World Tour, which earned $396.1 million and sold 3.6 million tickets in 2017-18. His current Vegas stint is among the top 10 residencies in Boxscore history, now up to $138.8 million.
Usher, on the other hand, is amidst his first proper headline tour since 2015, after closing out his own Vegas residency late last year. Usher: Past Present Future kicked off in August, averaging $2.3 million per show in September. Its biggest stop so far was a four-night run at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, which brought in $10.2 million and sold 58,000 tickets.
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Rock tours flood the rest of the top 10, with Metallica, Jeff Lynne’s ELO and Pearl Jam following at Nos. 4-5 and 8, respectively. Coldplay, Twenty One Pilots and the Eagles line up consecutively just outside the top 10.
While Green Day crowns Top Tours while missing the top 10 of Top Boxscores, Coldplay does the opposite, at No. 1 on the latter chart while sitting at No. 11 on the former. Coldplay only had two shows during September, but they made them count. The British quartet played four concerts at Dublin’s Croke Park – two on Aug. 29-30, which counted toward the August chart, and two on Sept. 1-2. The September dates grossed $24.8 million and sold 165,000 tickets.
Further down on Top Boxscores, Sebastian Maniscalco grossed $10.7 million across five nights at Madison Square Garden, earning the No. 8 entry. It’s the highest-grossing report for a comedian in Boxscore history. The number of comedy acts who can play one night at an arena is small, so consider Maniscalco one of very few who could sell out five.
Several of Nashville‘s top independent venues, along with local artists, are teaming up for a new event, 615 Indie Live, designed to celebrate and support Music City’s indie live music scene.
Thirteen independent venues and over 40 local artists and bands spanning genres including rock, hip-hop and jazz will come together for 615 Indie Live on Feb. 1, 2025. Event passes are currently discounted to $15 using all-in pricing, with the passes granting entry to all participating venues. The event will run from noon until 2 a.m., allowing attendees to visit multiple shows at various venues across the city.
Participating venues include 3rd and Lindsley, Acme Feed & Seed, Dee’s Country Cocktail Lounge, DRKMTTR Collective, Eastside Bowl, Music Makers Stage at Delgado Guitars, Night We Met, Rudy’s Jazz Room, The 5 Spot, The Basement, The Blue Room Bar at Third Man Records, The East Room, and The End. Participating artists will be revealed in the coming weeks.
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615 Indie Live is presented by Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp and Music Venue Alliance Nashville.
Proceeds from ticket sales will benefit Music Venue Alliance Nashville, including the organization’s Emergency Relief Fund that aids Nashville’s independent venues to help them stay open during periods of financial crisis. Those who buy passes during the presale period — which lasts until midnight on Oct. 31, 2024 — will have a chance to win a Project 615 gift bag and a VIP Nashville attraction pass, which offers complimentary admission for two people to over 25 area attractions, including the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, the National Museum of African American Music and the Musicians Hall of Fame & Museum.
“Independent music venues are the heart and soul of Music City, providing a stage for new artists across diverse genres to showcase their talent and be discovered,” Deana Ivey, president/CEO at Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp, said in a statement. “We hope 615 Indie Live will inspire Nashvillians and visitors to explore new music and discover venues they may not have visited before. Locals might even find a hidden gem right in their own neighborhoods. By holding the event during the winter, we hope to help boost business at the venues during a traditionally slow season.”
The Greater Nashville Music Census, released earlier this year, highlighted the impact of independent venues and the financial struggles those venues, as well as indie artists, face.
“All of the recent data clearly shows that independent venues are a foundation of Nashville’s live music ecosystem, yet they are quickly becoming an endangered species,” Music Venue Alliance Nashville president Chris Cobb said in a statement. “615 Indie Live marks the beginning of exciting new partnerships born from this data, reinforcing our mission to celebrate and support an essential part of what makes us Music City. My sincerest thanks to the Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp for partnering with us to support independent venues and local artists.”
When veteran concert promoter Louis Messina weighs adding an act to Messina Touring Group’s impressive stable of superstar artists, his eyes aren’t focused on the stage. Instead, he’s intently surveying the concert audience. “I watch eyes and lips: eyes, if they’re really focusing on the artists, and lips, if they’re singing along and if they’re smiling,” he says. “When I see that happening, that’s when I know I need to be involved. It’s rare that you see artists that can do that and [aren’t] just going through the motions. You know they bring this unique connection.”
Messina knows that feeling well; he remembers first experiencing it at just 7 years old, when his father took him to see Elvis Presley in his hometown of New Orleans. “I’ve never forgotten that energy in that room,” Messina says. “It was a feeling that I’ve never had before, and I’ve carried it until today. When artists and an audience connect with each other, it’s magical.”
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Seventy years later, Messina and his enviable roster have created plenty of magic together, too. The Messina Touring Group origin story began in 2001 with acts including his longtime client George Strait — and since then, each of the artists Messina exclusively promotes has been within one or two degrees of separation from the country legend (with the sole exception of The Lumineers). Taylor Swift, Kenny Chesney, Blake Shelton, Eric Church and Old Dominion all once opened for Strait; then Ed Sheeran and Shawn Mendes both opened for Swift.
Simply put, Messina says, without Strait “there wouldn’t be a Messina Touring Group.” But Messina’s own story started way earlier. His promoting career got off to a dubious start in New Orleans in 1972 when he sold out a Curtis Mayfield/B.B. King show — only to have the artists get stuck in Atlanta, unable to get to the gig. “I had 8,000 people trying to break the doors down to get their money back. The New Orleans riot squad had to come out,” he recalls. He learned a valuable lesson: “After I got over my depression, I had to go back into the ring. I got knocked down, but I didn’t get knocked out.”
After a tumultuous run in New Orleans, in 1975, Messina and his mentor and fellow promoter, Allen Becker, formed PACE Concerts in Houston. They introduced several new concepts into the live-event business, including touring multi-artist festivals such as the George Strait Country Festival and OzzFest, and were the first promoters to own outdoor sheds, starting with Nashville’s Starwood Amphitheater. Messina and Becker quickly realized they could reap the rewards of, as the late Becker used to say, the revenue from “popcorn, peanuts and parking” — and, in turn, greatly mitigate the financial risk of promoting concerts.
In 1997, Robert F.X. Sillerman bought PACE for $130 million as his SFX Entertainment consolidated the promotion business. In 2001, Messina launched Messina Touring Group, and in 2003, he partnered with AEG. His noncompete clause allowed him only to promote country acts, and he started with a passel that included Strait and Chesney, both of whom he still promotes. “Nobody else was paying attention to country acts back then,” Messina says. “What I did was take a little rock’n’roll mentality and brought it to Nashville; meaning I’m not going to do the same old same old.” He also gave each act its own dedicated team that they consistently work with from tour to tour.
On the fall day that Billboard speaks with the voluble Messina, now 77 and a father of six, he is at his desk in Austin. (Messina Touring Group’s 35 employees — 70% of whom are women — are spread between its Austin and Nashville offices.) “This is the time of the year where I’m busiest because I’m prepping for next year and the year after,” he says.
Still, he’s able to take a moment to look back. Last year was his company’s most successful yet, he says, with 2024 coming in second. Swift doesn’t report her concert totals to Billboard, but Billboard estimates her 2023 shows for The Eras Tour grossed $906.1 million (the tour will end Dec. 8). In 2024, Chesney completed his highest-grossing outing yet, according to Billboard Boxscore, with $159.5 million for the Sun Goes Down Tour, which ended in August. And Strait remains big business: His June 15 concert at Texas A&M’s Kyle Field set the all-time attendance record for a ticketed concert in the United States with 110,905 ticket-buying fans. “Everything’s clicking and so, you know, we’re happy,” Messina says.
But for Billboard’s 2024 Touring Executive of the Year, an artist’s potential career arc can’t be reduced to the success of any one tour.
“Louie isn’t a tour promoter. He’s an artist promoter… He’s a champion of not just the current tour he’s involved in with you, but your whole career,” says Church, who has worked with Messina for 12 years. “Louie always said to me, ‘You think your dreams are big, but you’ll never out-dream me.’ ”
Louis Messina
Jasmine Archie
Your father was a boxing promoter. Though you’ve said he didn’t influence you because your passion was music, what did you learn from him about taking risks?
I hate to say this because my dad’s passed away. He was a good man, but what I learned from him was what not to do. He was not a good businessperson. He did take me to see Elvis and exposed me to the excitement of what live music does. That’s what I’ve learned from my dad.
PACE pioneered the concept of touring artist festivals — multi-act events that would travel the country — but such stadium festivals are virtually gone now. Did local and regional festivals kill the touring artist festival?
I just ran out of talent. And the whole ego about “I’m not going to play in front of this guy… I need 110% billing… I need this. I need that” — it just wasn’t worth it. Then we started building amphitheaters and we made more money doing an amphitheater show than we did [promoting] stadium shows.
Two years into starting Messina Touring Group, you partnered with AEG. How does that relationship work?
I operate totally independent of AEG. Hell, a lot of times I’m competing with AEG over tours. They have their model, Live Nation has their model, and I have my model. My model is about careers, not tours. I always say I’m not in the rent-a-band business. I want to know what that artist’s vision is five and 10 years from now.
Legendary booking agent Wayne Forte unintentionally provided you with a light-bulb moment that changed your approach when you started Messina Touring Group. What did he say?
I was booking amphitheaters, and I referred to artists as inventory, and Wayne goes, “I’m sorry, Louis, did you just call artists inventory?” Literally, it stopped me in my tracks. I went, “I sure did.” At that moment, it totally reset my mind and where I was going in this business. I [wouldn’t] say I’d lost the passion, but I was a promoter that was just trying to sell popcorn and peanuts and parking. And I’m going, “This is not why I got in the business.” I got into the business because I love the passion of it. I changed my whole mentality at that point.
Most of your clients came from being opening acts for artists you were already promoting. Do you advise your acts on their openers?
With Kenny and George, I’m totally involved. Taylor always picks her opening acts. I’m involved with some and with others, I follow their lead. I believe there’s no such thing as overkill. Give the people their money’s worth. I’ve got George and Chris Stapleton and Little Big Town playing stadiums together and Zac Brown Band playing with Kenny. It’s magical.
The newest star in your orbit is Megan Moroney, who recently opened for Kenny Chesney even though you hadn’t seen her perform beforehand. Will she become your next client?
I’d love to work with her. I think she’s amazing. [Chesney’s manager] Clint [Higham] and I were talking about Kenny’s support and we brought up Megan Moroney. Kenny goes, “She’s only got one hit.” I go, “This album is so deep. Kenny, I’m telling you, this is going to work.” I’d never seen her perform, I just listened to her music and her songwriting. We put her on, and oh, my gosh, I’ve never seen Kenny so excited about an artist. He called me and he goes, “Louis, you were right. I was wrong.” But it didn’t take long for Kenny to recognize because Megan is such a natural star.
The production on Swift’s The Eras Tour is unlike anything that fans have seen. Has it changed what can be done onstage?
What Taylor has done is to me the best show I’ve ever seen. She amazes me night after night. She’s one of a kind. She’s always been like that. I’ve known her since she just turned 17… I always tell people, “You think you’re working? Go sit around Taylor for 15 minutes.” I remember when she was the first of three acts with Strait. She was the first one in the production office every day after visiting radio [stations], handwriting notes to people around the country. Ed’s the same way, Eric’s the same way, in their own way. None of the artists I work for is dialing anything in. They’re working their ass off.
The Ticketmaster site crashed when the Eras tickets went on sale, upsetting fans and leading to an antitrust suit against Live Nation and Ticketmaster. In hindsight, what could you have done differently?
When you have 15 million people trying to buy a million tickets, nothing could handle that. When we started adding shows, what [Swift’s management company] 13 and everybody decided to do was to stagger on-sales where instead of putting five shows up at once, we would put one show up at a time. Everybody’s blamed Ticketmaster, but I use this analogy: Imagine getting into a subway car in New York City. It holds 40 people, but 1,000 people are trying to get in that subway car. It just doesn’t work. They can’t get in. That’s what happened.
What’s the biggest change you’ve seen in negotiating artists’ fees over the last 10 years?
The biggest thing is [other promoters] playing with house money. These touring deals that some of my friends and competitors make, it’s ridiculous. The sales pitch [is] “What’s it going to take financially?” I don’t believe in that because if you’re tied to a check that somebody wrote to you, that means you have to play so many shows, your ticket price has to be this. You lose control of your own destiny. My trying to compete with a checkbook, that’s the hardest part I have because my sales pitch is “Let’s talk about the future. Let’s talk about your dreams.” Do what you’re supposed to do and the money will be there. If you chase the money, you’ll never get there.
Ed Sheeran has talked about trying to keep ticket prices low. Is there something other acts can learn from him?
No. This is one thing that’s wrong with artists that [want to price tickets too low]. Ed goes, “Louis, I want to go to bed at night knowing that this is the ticket price I wanted my fans to pay.” I go, “Ed, you’re beautiful for saying that, but here’s the problem: People are going to go to the secondary market and spend $700 on a ticket that you want to sell for $99… and you’re only going to get $99 of it.” I remember a long, long time ago working with George and his tickets were really reasonable and I did a printout of StubHub or whatever and said, “This is how much your tickets are being sold for right now.” And his eyes got big, and it was like a “Holy crap” moment for him. He had no idea.
Which acts are on your wish list?
I love Bruce Springsteen. I adore [Springsteen’s manager] Jon Landau and [tour manager] George Travis. They are all like family to me even though I don’t promote Bruce anymore these days because [Springsteen’s longtime agent] Barry Bell said I was too cheap, that I wouldn’t do the Bruce Springsteen deal. I don’t work at a discount price. My other fantasy [act] is Beyoncé. I adore her. Sometimes it’s cheaper to just buy a ticket than to get involved with the artists you love.
You spend a tremendous amount of time on the road. What’s your best travel tip?
My best travel tip I gave myself is I stopped drinking. This Christmas will be two years. I figured me and Jack Daniel’s had a good run together.
Any thoughts about retiring?
Seeing an artist go from an opening act to a stadium act and knowing that I had a little bit to do with it and walking into that sold-out stadium and seeing that energy… Wow! Why would I want to give that up? I’m the luckiest human being in the world.
Messina will receive Billboard’s inaugural Touring Titan honor at its Live Music Summit & Awards on Nov. 14.
This story appears in the Oct. 26, 2024, issue of Billboard.
In 2024, the average merchandise campaign consists of 50 pieces of artwork that can easily be adapted for use on varied tour and direct-to-consumer items, says Matt Young, president of Bravado, Universal Music Group’s merch and brand management company. But for Olivia Rodrigo’s GUTS campaign, he says, “I think we’ve done at least 375 unique pieces of art.”Rodrigo’s singular vision for her first arena tour extended to the products sold at its kiosks. As the album rollout and tour details came together last year, the pop star coordinated with management, Bravado and label partners to ensure that each piece of merch “felt cohesive to the greater GUTS world,” says Michelle An, Interscope Geffen A&M president/head of creative strategy.
The number of items kept ballooning as Rodrigo leaned into the creative process, with a literally hands-on approach to identifying opportunities — from concocting mood boards to helping create color palettes to touching fabrics to ensure T-shirt quality. “This was Olivia saying, ‘I think this could be more. How do we do it?’ ” Young recalls.
Some highlights of Rodrigo’s GUTS merch line include unique jewelry (silver crescent moon rings and star necklaces, a nod to the tour’s set design), a butterfly design on tote bags and pool floats, an elastic bandage tin to store “vampire”-ready Band-Aids and, ahead of Netflix’s Oct. 29 release of her tour film, a set of five GUTS popcorn boxes, perfect for a premiere-night group hang. Along with the souvenirs that are now widely available at Rodrigo’s online shop, Young also points out that her various retail partners, ranging from global fashion chains to suburban Targets, also featured their own exclusive items: “The Zara in Europe has to have something different than the Hot Topic in the U.S.”
And just as Rodrigo ended each show sporting a tank top with a cheeky message customized for each city, every GUTS tour stop with multiple shows offered customized merch, including city-specific T-shirts and unique concert artwork designed in conjunction with local female artists. Rodrigo and Bravado approached the posters (shown below) as the ultimate collectible item — and once word got out about them early in the live run, fans started arriving to shows hours early to hit the merch booth.
“Is it logistically challenging? Sometimes, yes,” Young admits. “But it’s offset by the passion. You’re helping build a relationship with a fan in a way that they can’t really get anywhere else.”
This story appears in the Oct. 26, 2024, issue of Billboard.