Touring
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Live Nation’s top two in-house attorneys will not be allowed to access “highly confidential” documents produced by competitors like AEG Presents and SeatGeek in the antitrust lawsuit filed against the touring giant by the Department of Justice, though it will be granted access to less sensitive “confidential” documents under strict conditions limiting how the information is used and shared, according to a protective court order signed Monday (July 29) in the Southern District of New York.
A federal judge overseeing the case agreed to establish the two-tiered system for dealing with non-public documents the DOJ subpoenaed from Live Nation competitors as part of its ongoing investigation. For the last six weeks, DOJ antitrust lead trial counsel Bonny Sweeney has been in talks with Live Nation, which is accused of operating its ticketing and concert promotion businesses as a monopoly, about restricting access for the company’s in-house lawyers — executive vp of corporate and regulatory affairs Dan Wall and senior vp of litigation Kimberly Tobias — to confidential information handed over by competitors. Attorneys for Live Nation have argued that granting Wall and Tobias access to confidential information is vital in helping the company prepare its defense.
“Mr. Wall and Ms. Tobias are litigation counsel in good standing and officers of the court,” Live Nation outside counsel Alfred C. Pfeiffer wrote in a letter to New York federal judge Arun Subramanian. “Both have been bound by numerous protective orders and never been accused of violating those orders. Their access to confidential information in no way puts such information at risk.”
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Government lawyers counter that even if Wall and Tobias “pledge not to use any information they receive other than for this case, they can’t unsee what they have seen,” Subramanian wrote in a July 23 court order trying to resolve the confidentiality access question. Two days after that, attorneys for SeatGeek, AEG and ASM Global filed letters asking Subramanian to prevent Wall and Tobias from viewing any sensitive documents produced by the companies.
The files SeatGeek produced for the government “include documents that a company would never want to fall into the hands of any competitor,” SeatGeek attorney William Kalema wrote to the court.
“SeatGeek hears on at least a weekly basis from venues that are reluctant even to meet with SeatGeek for fear of retaliation from Defendants,” the letter continued. “If the market were to learn that venues’ contracts and other communications with Ticketmaster’s competitors were made available to Defendants’ senior management, SeatGeek’s ability to market its product would be hindered even further.”
Attorneys for AEG said they had produced “hundreds of thousands of documents” for the DOJ, including the company’s “most sensitive and competitively significant materials.” AEG attorney Justin Bernick took particular issue with Wall over past statements Wall has made in the media and on Live Nation’s blog, arguing that Wall has often acted as the company’s spokesperson rather than its lawyer.
After a brief hearing, Subramanian ruled that Wall and Tobias would not be allowed to view documents marked as highly confidential — meaning those involving trade secrets, customer lists, current or future financial and strategic information, private contract terms, personnel files, planning documents, and anything deemed sensitive by the courts — and that those documents can only be viewed by Live Nation’s outside attorneys. Wall and Tobias can, however, view confidential information — defined as previously non-public financial information, material related to ownership of non-public companies, business plans and marketing campaign documents related to product development.
In order to view confidential court files, Wall and Tobias must agree not to participate or advise Live Nation on “competitive decision-making” or litigation against AEG or SeatGeek — except for litigation tied to the DOJ lawsuit — for two years after the final confidential documents are reviewed.
The “highly confidential” and “confidential” designations will be determined by those producing the documents, Subramanian wrote in the earlier July 23 opinion, noting that “if it turns out that vast swaths of the record are improperly designated highly confidential, the Court will step in” and require “a page-by-page review of documents by the producing party on a tight timeframe or appropriate modifications to the protective order.”
Billboard has reached out to Live Nation for comment on this story. The trial for USA v. Live Nation Entertainment is scheduled to begin March 2, 2026.
All audio, lighting, video and stage production on the main stage at this year’s Lollapalooza will be entirely powered by a hybrid battery system, the festival announced Monday (July 29).
According to organizers, that makes Lollapalooza the first major U.S. music festival to have a main stage run entirely on a hybrid battery system. Typically, diesel generators power the stages at large-scale events.
Lollapalooza’s hybrid-powered stage will deploy over 1.5 MWh of battery storage capacity. A representative for the festival tells Billboard that the batteries are reusable and will be charged using diesel generators that run on biodiesel fuel (typically made from renewable sources like vegetable oil, animal fat or recycled cooking grease and used as a cleaner-burning alternative to petroleum-based diesel fuel). That’s similar to systems that power hybrid vehicles.
The batteries, manufactured by Swedish industrial tools and equipment company Atlas Copco, will be deployed by CES Power, which provides temporary event power generation, power distribution, and HVAC for festivals, film and broadcast, major events, and industrial projects. The system is being deployed via a partnership between Live Nation’s sustainability initiative Green Nation, T-Mobile and CES Power.
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“We have set a goal to build a more sustainable future for music festivals, which requires taking bold steps to find solutions that can reinvent how we operate and in turn, build industry trust in new technology so that major live events can see a path towards becoming more energy efficient,” Jake Perry, director of operations and sustainability at C3 Presents, which produces Lollapalooza, said in a statement.
“Solutions like the ones Lollapalooza are pioneering not only contribute toward our global Green Nation goal of cutting our emissions in half by 2030, but they provide local benefits as well through reduced noise and air pollution which creates a better experience overall for the artists, fans and crew,” added Lucy August-Perna, head of global sustainability at Live Nation. “We look forward to sharing the results and learnings from Lollapalooza with our network of over 200+ festivals around the world who are committed to raising the bar for more sustainable live events.”
Major events have historically been reticent to incorporate hybrid battery power due to concerns about its reliability, but such batteries are becoming more popular on the live scene as the technology advances. This past May, California’s Mill Valley Music Festival became the first U.S. festival to be powered by 100% renewable energy through the use of batteries.
This isn’t the first time Lollapalooza has experimented with green energy on its main stage. Last August, Billie Eilish‘s headlining set at the festival was partially run on a solar-powered battery system via an initiative with environmental nonprofit Reverb.
Lollapalooza 2024’s headliners include Meghan Thee Stallion, Hozier, SZA, Stray Kids, The Killers, Future and Metro Boomin, Blink 182, Melanie Martinez, and Skrillex.
Blxst will always come find his fans in whichever city they’re in during the I’ll Always Come Find You Tour, which he announced on Monday (July 29).
Leon Thomas, Joyce Wrice and Joony will join as special guests. Wrice and Joony are featured on Blxst’s debut album, I’ll Always Come Find You, on “Better Off Friends” and “Thousand Hours,” respectively. Blxst linked up with Thomas on the remix of the latter’s “Crash & Burn” in October. The 30-date jaunt will kick off on Oct. 1 at Houston’s House of Blues and go through major cities including Dallas, Atlanta, New York, Toronto, Chicago and his Los Angeles hometown before wrapping on Dec. 5 at Honolulu’s The Republik. Zacari will join Blxst in Hawaii following their recent “Bless Her Heart” collaboration from the former’s debut album, Bliss.
Blxst released I’ll Always Come Find You on July 19 via Evgle and Red Bull Records. The 20-track concept project — organized into four volumes of five songs each and told from the perspective of Birdie, a young man who inherits his father’s chauffeur car service upon his sudden passing — contains additional collaborations with 2 Chainz (“Paper Route”), Amanda Reifer (“Long Way”), Fatman Scoop (“Too Many Friday Nights”), Offset (“Risk Taker”), Anderson .Paak (“Dance With The Devil”), Feid and Becky G (“Rewind”), Ty Dolla $ign (“I Need Your Love”) and Kamasi Washington (“Ten Summers or Better”).
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“I been dreaming big! I’m thinking, like, how can we make it a play on stage? Bring the characters from the short film on the tour, where they can pop out and give a monologue,” Blxst recently told Billboard when asked about the tour.
In collaboration with Education Is Key, $1 from each ticket sold will be donated to provide scholarships for inner-city students in L.A. Education Is Key is a non-profit that hosts annual community events throughout L.A., and offers mentorship programs for high-school students, with the goal of empowering and developing self-sustainability among L.A.’s youth as they transition into young adults.
Citi cardmembers will have access to presale tickets beginning Tuesday, July 30, at 10 a.m. local time until Thursday, Aug. 1, at 10 p.m. local time through the Citi Entertainment program. Additional presales will run throughout the week ahead of the general onsale beginning Friday, Aug. 2, at 10 a.m. local time on LiveNation’s website. Sign up for exclusive first presale access here.
See the dates for Blxst’s I’ll Always Come Find You Tour below.
When Nate Bargatze set the attendance record at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena last year, the comedian quickly figured out how to ensure his milestone stood: “I stole one of the chairs from Bridgestone,” he told Jimmy Fallon. “I have the record, so if I take one of the chairs home, no one can break that record.”
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Bargatze need not have resorted to such measures, joking or not, as he is seeing an attendance surge that has him breaking records and filling arenas across the country on the Be Funny tour, which started in January 2023 and has sold more than 1 million tickets.
In Billboard’s Mid-Year Boxscore Report, Bargatze’s outing ranked as the No. 1 comedy tour, ahead of those by fellow comics like Adam Sandler, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. For overall ticket sales, Bargatze came in at No. 12, narrowly behind such acts as P!nk, Coldplay, Madonna and U2. But he is likely taking home a much bigger percentage of the gross: Unlike music acts, who aim to net 30% of the gross, comedians in general have a much lower overhead and generally net between 50% and 60% of the gross, according to industry sources.
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As impressive as the numbers are, even more staggering is the rapid growth Bargatze, 45, is experiencing more than 20 years into his stand-up career. His 2023 shows averaged a gross of $240,000 from 3,612 tickets sold per show, according to Billboard Boxscore. As he progressed from theaters to arenas, his 2024 shows have averaged $781,000 gross from 11,429 tickets per show.
Bargatze is still digesting the boost in his popularity, which he attributes to social media, word of mouth, his specials on streaming services — including “Hello World,” which debuted last September on Amazon Prime Video — and, especially, hosting Saturday Night Live in October, which created “a giant, giant leap” in his career, he says. “It was my first kind of thing really on [a mainstream platform] and it just sent it to a completely new level.” (Bargatze’s “Washington’s Dream” sketch was the second most watched SNL sketch of the season, with more than 9.4 million views, according to NBC.)
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In an election year that feels increasingly mean and polarizing, Bargatze’s humor is decidedly apolitical, clean and relatable. His storytelling, delivered in a low-key, deadpan manner, is observational. If there’s a butt of the joke, it’s usually him and his feigned cluelessness.
The response he gets from the people who come to see his family-friendly shows assures him he’s on the right track. And for those times when he thinks “maybe I need to say something” or speak out on an issue, the appreciative feedback he gets from fans who feel uplifted by his gentle humor convince him he does not. “The world is serious. There’s plenty of people and information. You can go get whatever you want to go get. You do not need me to also add to that,” he says. “What I believe I need to do is be entertainment that you can go to as an entire family.”
In fact, he says some of his favorite moments are when he looks out into the audience and sees multiple generations sitting together. “I love when I can see a family sitting there, and if I start talking about my age, I can see the whole family look at the dad or look at the mom,” he says. “And when I talk about my parents, see them look at the grandparents. I love the connection that they’re like, ‘That’s you’ or ‘That’s me.’ That’s the best part.”
Appealing to a multi-generational audience is one of Bargatze’s greatest strengths, says Joe Schwartz, comedy touring agent at United Talent Agency, who has worked with the Brillstein Entertainment Partners-managed Bargatze for more than 10 years and handles his bookings with fellow UTA agent Nick Nuciforo. “The style of comedy that he’s doing lends itself to being so broadly appealing,” Schwartz says. “That gives him such a major advantage over a lot of the other stand-up comedians working today.”
As Bargatze hit new tipping points — such as the Amazon special or hosting SNL — UTA planned accordingly when rolling out tour announcements, knowing the exposures would bump up demand for tickets. But the demand has exceeded even their initial expectations, with Bargatze often playing every day of the week but Tuesday, and sometimes playing more than one show a day on the weekend. “We were holding additional dates where necessary, making sure the show times were at the hours that we knew would be best for that multigenerational audience,” Schwartz says. “We don’t do 10:00 p.m. shows in these arenas. We do shows at 4:00 p.m. after he sells out the 7::00 p.m. because we found that his audience prefers that.”
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Even during the COVID shutdown, Bargatze built his audience, first through drive-in shows and then 2021’s Netflix special, The Greatest Average American, which he taped outdoors (complete with the whirl of helicopters interrupting his set). He received his first Grammy nomination for the special’s comedy album companion.
Through it all, Bargatze has stayed focused on his craft, making incremental gains, preparing for when his big shot came. “You never know when all the eyes are going to switch over to you,” he says. “I’ve done this now for 21 years, so you just kind of keep doing what you’re doing — and then when the eyes end up hitting you, you need to be ready,” he says.
With an exhausting schedule, Bargatze also realized a number of years ago he needed to take better care of himself if he wanted to reach his goals. “I stopped drinking in 2018. I was starting to sell clubs out, and so we’re about to go to theaters [and] I wasn’t able to drink like a regular person.” he recalls. “I knew, ‘Alright, well, if I want to go to the level I want to go to, I have to get this out of my life or I’m not going to be able to get to that level.’ And I’ve seen that now, with even the training and the food.”
Bargatze grew up in Nashville and honed his comedy skills living in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York before moving back to Tennessee several years ago.
The son of a clown-turned-magician, Bargatze absorbed show biz tactics, though he didn’t realize it at the time. “My timing definitely comes from my dad,” he says. “He was working on his magic all the time. Even at home, he was doing it. So, subconsciously, you’re taking it in, like, ‘Well, if you want to be great at something, you have to do this all day long.’”
Though doing magic didn’t appeal to him, stand up did. And once Bargatze began stand up, “I was pretty exposed to already be kind of obsessed with it,” he says. “If you want to get to a high level, I mean, you have to be obsessed with it — you can’t just kind of have your foot half in. The longer I do it, the more I realized how much it was good for me to see that through my father.” His dad often opens Bargatze’s shows and frequently travels with him on the road, as does his mom.
His singlemindedness has always been apparent, says Schwartz. “For as long as I’ve been working with Nate, he has been so driven and so singular in what he has wanted to do. He has just devoted all the time and effort to becoming a great stand-up comedian. He has truly mastered the craft.”
In conversation with Bargatze that devotion to his technique is obvious. He intensely and thoroughly talks about the contrast between playing arenas on this tour, where he can draw out the jokes for his one-hour set, and then having to get back into the late-night television mindset to prep for Saturday Night Live by practicing in New York comedy clubs to come up with his tight, 8-minute opening monologue.
When Bargatze first began playing arenas several months ago, he utilized a traditional setup, with the stage at one end — but quickly changed to an in-the-round configuration to have a closer connection to the audience.
With the stage at one end, “the [audience] is so far away from you and it’s very easy for them to feel disconnected. But the round really changed everything because I’ve cut the distance in half from the farthest person,” he says. He also increased the size of the screens and put TVs on stage so even when his back is to people sitting in the front, they can see his face. “Comedy can work in arenas,” he says. “Weirdly, it can even work better. In a 2000-seat theater, you can’t see my face that great. But in an arena, I play to the cameras.”
He also adjusts his cadence each night. “When you’re doing the arena, it’s like music. My timing is based off their laughter, and it changes according to where you’re at. Every night, it’s a little different,” he says. But he also likes the challenge: “To keep 20,000 people’s attention, I love it. I love how hard it can be. You’re on kind of a tightrope. You’ve got to keep them intrigued the whole time. It’s amazing.”
The Be Funny tour ends Oct. 18. A streaming special filmed April 13-14 at Phoenix’s Footprint Arena will premiere this fall, and a companion album will come out through Capitol Comedy. Bargatze is the first artist signed to the new comedy imprint started by Universal Music Group Nashville.
Bargatze will take several months off from the road while he works on developing other projects, though Schwartz promises he’ll be back in 2025 with “the biggest, most impressive tour he’s ever done.”
Much of Bargatze’s time off from touring will be spent building out The Nateland Company, the umbrella content company geared toward producing family-friendly entertainment that he launched in October. Already off the ground is The Showcase, a six-part YouTube series filmed at Zanies Comedy Club in Nashville featuring up-and-coming comics, as well as three full-length comedy specials directed by Bargatze. The Nateland Company also houses Bargatze’s The Nateland Podcast, which is in its fourth year, and Bargatze has his eye on developing scripted tv and film projects.
Ultimately, Bargatze is aiming for a career and a production company that builds on his nice guy, everyman stand-up image, where fans know what to expect no matter how big his universe expands and what roles he may take on next.
“I tried to do auditions at the beginning and it’s hard. I can [only really] be me. And so if you don’t want this, then it’s not going to completely work out,” he says. “I see Adam Sandler and [Sandler’s production company] Happy Madison … I love that, where Adam Sandler goes and he’s him. You know what you’re getting when you’re in his world. He did Uncut Gems, and he can do all that other stuff and maybe there will be stuff like that down the line, but I gotta get some stuff on the board. The only thing I’ve really had is Saturday Night Live as a thing outside of stand-up comedy. So, there’s a lot of things that I need to get on the board and get moving forward.”
As he builds the Nateland empire, Bargatze feels confident that the audiences he plays before every night prove there is great demand for the kind of humor he and his fellow like-minded comics provide. The proof of concept is there in his hundreds of sold-out shows around the country. “This direction is working, so I want to keep going in this direction,” he says. “I’m in every town in America, and I’m just telling you, it seems to be working.”
Riding the wave of a blockbuster year so far, Billboard Español April cover star Myke Towers is poised to embark on his North American tour, La Pantera Negra, this fall. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news After touring Spain, Towers will recreate that stint in 18 cities […]
On July 18, 1991, Phoenix, Arizona hosted the first Lollapalooza. By the time gates opened, those who were there estimate it was 110 degrees.
Many artists on the bill — Butthole Surfers, Rollins Band, Ice T — felt beat up by the heat, but it was only Nine Inch Nails, whose sequencer malfunctioned after sitting in the sun, that ended their performance after two songs because of it. Frontman Trent Reznor made his feelings about the situation known as he flipped over amps and mic stands on his way offstage.
“I would advise groups like that not to play outside in that type of heat,” says Danny Zelisko, who partnered with Perry Farrell to promote the festival that year. “Fortunately, there was a whole lineup of groups behind them that didn’t have to rely on electronics.”
Thirty-three years later, Phoenix has grown into the nation’s fifth largest city, with 1.6 million residents. It’s also the country’s hottest major metropolitan area, with scientists attributing the city’s rising average temperatures to both carbon emissions and heat trapped by man-made structures as development sprawls further into the Sonoran Desert. Last year was the warmest on record globally, according to the National Weather Service, and the fourth hottest on record in Phoenix.
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Amid a heatwave last July, the city clocked 19 days with record-high temperatures, including two that reached 119. Last July 22, a show by rock act Disturbed at the city’s Talking Stick Resort Amphitheatre was postponed when the band’s equipment wouldn’t work in the 118-degree heat. A month later, 50 Cent postponed a show at the same venue due to an excessive heat warning.
A major tour stop for acts moving through the Southwest, Phoenix is home to many small, mid-sized and large-scale venues. Outdoor spaces include the 20,000-capacity Talking Stick, which is operated by Live Nation, and the 5,000-capacity Mesa Amphitheatre in nearby Mesa, Ariz., both of which host shows over the summer. (This summer, Mesa’s schedule is down to one summer show, in August, from several last year. May and August 2023 sets by Interpol and My Morning Jacket were moved to nearby indoor venues. A representative for the Amphitheatre did not immediately respond to Billboard‘s request for comment about whether these moves were heat related.)
But amid extreme heat — which is again currently gripping the city, many other areas of the U.S. and the world beyond — is Phoenix simply getting too hot to play in the summer, or is it business as usual?
Zelisko, who’s put on shows in the city for the last 50 years and has worked in nearly all its indoor and outdoor venues with his company Danny Zelisko Presents, says agents often ask about the realities of playing there in the summer. But despite concerns, “The fact is that economics come into it as well, and in many cases they can make more money outside, so sometimes acts just grin and bear it.”
Given that many summer tours are routed through amphitheaters and thus designed specifically for these types of spaces, it can also be difficult to move into a different kind of venue for a single show.
But certain artists “just won’t play outside when it’s this hot,” Zelisko adds. “It’s a wise move, because you’re really putting your crew out. These people will finish a show in Albuquerque, drive all night, show up here at 7 a.m. to load in, then do it all over again. Throwing a super-hot day into the mix is hard on some people.”
Steven Chilton, who promotes mostly indoor club shows in Phoenix under the name Psyko Steve, agrees the city is “a little slower” in summer, with some artists routing further north.
But Talking Stick Resort Amphitheatre’s head of venue operation Karl Adams says he’s seen “no major changes” in how shows have been routed through the venue in recent years. This summer, Talking Stick has hosted shows by artists including Kenny Chesney, Paula Abdul and Cage the Elephant, with Sammy Hagar, Megadeth and more on the calendar through the end of August.
With some artists and fans willing to brave the Phoenix heat for a show, safety protocols at both outdoor and indoor venues are crucial. In the last 30 to 40 years, Zelisko says more responsibility has fallen on promoters to look out for crowds in the heat. “As it’s turned into a business where you put an act up any time of year that you can get them, promoters really plan for what’s going to happen on game day,” he says. “You have to look out for people, because you want them back as a customer.” This is particularly true for venues that have large expanses of concrete or asphalt, which can get to 130 degrees or hotter on a warm day.
At Talking Stick, protocols include encouraging fans to bring their own water bottles and fill them at free water stations. The venue is equipped with misting fans and cooling stations, provides free sunscreen and even has onstage air conditioning for artists. It also emails ticket holders prior to the event with show information that includes advice on how to prepare for weather, with this info also posted to the venue’s social accounts. Zelisko recalls handing out cooling ice pack necklaces at particularly hot shows, creating shaded resting areas and putting up pools backstage for bands to jump in after a set.
“When you’re a fan in line and somebody goes through handing out water, it’s a simple gesture, but very appreciated,” says Zelisko. “You’ve got to be thinking about that stuff, because you don’t want people dropping by the time they come in.”
That was the worst-case scenario outcome last December in Rio de Janeiro, when a 23-year-old fan died from heat exhaustion in a hospital after passing out during the second song of a Taylor Swift concert. Fans lined up for hours before the show in temperatures that reached 105, and many accused organizers of not delivering enough water supplies for the more than 60,000-person crowd. Fans also reported that they were not allowed to take their own water into the stadium.
Last summer, heat exhaustion was widespread at shows throughout the U.S., with Jason Aldean experiencing heat stroke while onstage in Hartford, Conn. last July. Zelisko predicts that all promoters will eventually have to deal with some type of weather issue, and that the heat in places with humidity is more challenging than the dry heat of the desert.
Still, “most of our 911 calls are heat related,” Chilton says of the Rebel Lounge, the 300-cap venue he manages. “It’s a big issue every summer, and it’s always the shows [that skew younger] where kids arrive early and want to sit outside in the sun for 10 hours in 110-degree heat, because they want to be first in line. Then they come into the venue exhausted and dehydrated and pass out. That’s a constant struggle for us.”
At Rebel Lounge, fans are thus only allowed to wait outside an hour before any given show. Once inside, Chilton says the venue has a competitive advantage, given that it has stronger air conditioning than many other local indoor venues, with these places losing out on summer bookings because they don’t get as cool inside.
While he says the cost of running multiple air conditioners is “very significant,” it’s worth it for the comfort of fans and artists. He recalls seeing a show at a nearby venue with weaker A.C., “and the band was furious at the end of the night.” Chilton says no one in the crowd complained, as locals know the realities of summertime in Phoenix.
The general vibe among those interviewed for this story is that the effects of climate change don’t yet feel hugely significant “because it’s always blazing hot in the summer,” says Zelisko, who once successfully fried an egg on a sidewalk during a 120-degree day. “I’m not saying it’s not getting hotter, because there’s a lot of proof that says it is, but what are you going do about it? We’ve still got to live.”
For Chilton, the difference thus far is “not necessarily that it’s more miserable, it’s that it’s miserable longer,” with heatwaves lasting longer than they used to. Still, the biggest weather issue he’s experienced wasn’t heat-related, but a fluke rainstorm during the two-day Zona Music Festival he produced in December of 2022.
“I did the research, and since 1900 in Phoenix it’s only ever rained three times on that day,” he says. “It was the most rain Phoenix had seen on a single day in like, a decade.”
Promoters also emphasize that Phoenix’s desert climate offers its own advantages. Adams of Talking Stick says the venue has “a longer season than some outdoor venues” since it can start hosting shows in April and continue them through the fall.
Zelisko wishes more groups would come to town in January, February and March — when outdoor shows are impossible in much of the country due to the cold — “because that’s the best time of year here.”
But as things stand, it’s unlikely summer shows will stop anytime soon in America’s hottest big city. “Performing outside in Phoenix in July is crazy,” says Zelisko. “But money makes people do crazy things.”
VAI Resort, metro Phoenix’s new $1 billion hotel, culinary and live entertainment destination opening later this year, has partnered with Tixr, the privately-held primary ticketing and live event company. Tixr will exclusively ticket events and experiences for the property’s amphitheater, poolside area and nightclub.
The $50 million, 11,000-capacity VAI Amphitheater in Glendale anchors the 60-acre property with 1,100 guest rooms offering a number of views of the concert venue. From hotel room balconies, to sky boxes, VIP booths and high-end reserved seats, the property offers a number of unique vantage points to see performances. The property will also feature a dayclub, as well as regular programming at its nightclub, with Tixr powering all live event commerce.
“Everything we’re building at VAI Resort, from the property itself to the guest experience, is unique, bigger, bolder, and first-of-its-kind. That ethos is reflected in the technology partners we’ve chosen like Tixr and the innovative feature set they bring to the table,” said Howard Weiss, VAI Resort’s senior v.p. of Entertainment & Sponsorships. “After a long vetting process, there’s no question that Tixr was the right choice for us,” Weiss added, noting, “it’s a true partnership, and every day we’re reminded of why we chose them.”
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“VAI Resort is not just a world-class destination; it’s unlike anything you’ve ever experienced. With its diverse venues and experiences on property, each with their own tech needs, VAI is the forward-thinking kind of partner Tixr is uniquely suited for,” said Robert Davari, co-founder and CEO of Tixr. “We can power sales for the entire resort, from complex reserved seating to bottle service, hotel packages—virtually anything—which hasn’t been possible before on a single system. And we do it in an visual, elegant way that feels nothing like traditional ticketing. We’re working closely with the VAI team to bring their vision to life and can’t wait to get operational.”
Tixr powers more than 500 live entertainment brands in 40 countries. The Los Angeles-based company said that since its inception, it has processed nearly $2 billion in transactions through its unified commerce platform, designed for sales beyond admission tickets.
The beach-style resort is located near State Farm Stadium — home of the NFL’s Arizona Cardinals — and a soon-to-be completed theme park from Mattel — VAI is set to open in 2025. In February, hotel officials announced they had inked a partnership with Live Nation and C3 Presents to book the amphitheater.
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Ticketmaster announced Wednesday (July 24) that the company is expanding its presence in Africa with the acquisition of Quicket, described in a press release as “a major player in Africa’s general admission event and festival ticketing.” Quicket, which was founded in South Africa in 2011, is known for its self-service platform and event organizer […]
Karol G wrapped the Mañana Será Bonito Tour on Tuesday night (July 23) to record-breaking results. According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, the trek grossed $307.1 million and sold 2.3 million tickets over 62 shows.
The Mañana Será Bonito Tour spanned almost a full year, kicking off Aug. 11, 2023, at Las Vegas’ Allegiant Stadium. Karol G played 15 stadium dates in the U.S., bringing in $138.4 million, landing at No. 1 on last year’s annual Latin recap.
Then, Karol G played 29 shows in Latin America, adding $125.4 million. Finally, she played 18 shows in Europe, topping off with another $43.4 million.
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The Mañana Será Bonito Tour is the highest-grossing Latin tour by a woman in Boxscore history, topping her own $trip Love Tour from 2022. On average, her per-show gross grew from $2.2 million on that trek, to $4.9 million on this trek. Her per-show attendance blossomed from 12,836 tickets to 36,371. And with almost double the workload – 62 shows on three continents, compared to 33 in the U.S. and Canada – her total tour gross multiplied more than four times, from $72.2 million to $307.1 million, with total attendance up 432%, from 424,000 to 2.3 million.
Karol G’s tour followed the release of its namesake album, Mañana Será Bonito. Released on Feb. 24, 2023, it became not only her first top 10 album on the Billboard 200, but her first No. 1. On a macro level, it was the first all-Spanish-language album by a woman to top the chart.
While Spanish-language music has blossomed in North America over the last decade, Karol G’s recent run of shows in Europe is particularly noteworthy. High-grossing tours by pan-generational Latin artists like Aventura, Bad Bunny, Daddy Yankee, Peso Pluma and RBD have stuck to the U.S., Canada and Latin America. Luis Miguel is playing shows in Europe this summer, though he’s exclusively in Spain. Karol G played multiple arena dates in France, Germany, Italy and more, breaking ground for Latin acts abroad.
The Mañana Será Bonito Tour ended on a high note, with four shows at Madrid’s Estadio Santiago Bernabeu. Those dates collectively earned $23.6 million and sold 220,000 tickets. Both figures set venue records, passing previous appearances by Luis Miguel, The Rolling Stones and Bruce Springsteen. It’s the second highest-grossing engagement from the tour, just under the $25.4 million double-header at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif.
Ultimately, the Mañana Será Bonito Tour is the 30th trek in the Boxscore archives (dating back to the mid-80s) to gross $300 million. Among women, it’s just the seventh, joining a group with stints by Beyoncé, Madonna, P!nk and Taylor Swift.
Grouped by genre, the Mañana Será Bonito Tour is only the second tour by a Latin artist to clear the $300 million threshold, barely missing the 2022 high mark set by Bad Bunny’s World’s Hottest Tour ($314.1 million). Luis Miguel will likely join them with one more update, as his current tour sits at $298.7 million through July 13. Further, Karol G is the first Latin woman to join the $300 million club.
Dating back to reports from January 2018, Karol G has grossed $400.9 million and sold 2.96 million tickets over 128 reported shows, extending her margin as the highest-grossing woman in Latin music.