Touring
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Moneybagg Yo is ready to hit the road this summer for his upcoming tour, Larger Than Life. Announced Friday (June 9), the “Wockesha” rapper will go on a multi-city trek beginning in Orlando on Aug. 3, and continuing throughout various cities including Atlanta, New York and Los Angeles. Then, he will conclude his 23-city trek […]
Chris Stapleton has canceled his scheduled outdoor concert in Syracuse, New York, due to ongoing air-quality issues caused by smoke from Canadian wildfires. The upstate cancellation follows a series of called-off events throughout New York City on Wednesday night (June 7), including Broadway performances and sports games. “Due to the ongoing air conditions in the […]
SYDNEY, Australia — Iconic Australian concert promoter Michael Chugg and his company Chugg Music are joining forces with Select Music and artist manager Dan Biddle on Wheelhouse Agency, a new venture.
The booking agency will lasso the growing business that is country and Americana across Australasia, and boasts an extensive roster at launch, including Sheppard co-founder Amy Sheppard, INXS’ Andrew Farriss, Casey Barnes, Kingswood, Shannon Noll and more.
Wheelhouse’s leadership team includes Chugg and his business partner Andrew Stone, the reigning artist manager of Australia’s AAM Awards; Select Music’s Stephen Wade (CEO) and Rob Giovannoni (senior agent), and country music artist manager Dan Biddle, director of Dan Biddle Management and special projects manager for Chugg Music.
Giovannoni and Biddle are named co-heads of the agency in addition to their existing roles, while Katie Krollig, a six-year veteran with Select Music, joins the Wheelhouse team as lead agent while continuing to service her roster of Select Music artists.
Wheelhouse Agency represents “a big moment for us,” Chugg tells Billboard from Nashville, ahead of the presentation of Billboard’s 2023 Country Power Players.
Chugg’s appetite for country music is legendary. Last year, he became the first-ever recipient of the Country Music Association’s Rob Potts International Live Music Advancement Award. He was the sole Australian shortlisted for the new category, which celebrates an individual’s significant contributions to the live music industry by helping to build audiences for country music outside the United States.
With the late Potts, Chugg built the CMC Rocks festival brand, which expanded with CMC Rocks The Snowys, CMC Rocks The Hunter and the popular CMC Rocks Qld leg, and he has guided Barnes’ award-winning career in country through Chugg Music.
Country music is exploding in popularity in Australia right now.
Morgan Wallen’s “Last Night” is the current No. 1 on the ARIA Singles Chart, a position it has locked-up for two months. It’s parent, One Thing At A Time, also led the national albums survey, thanks in part to his successful Australasian tour in March, which included a set at CMC Rocks Qld.
Close behind on the national chart is another U.S. country star, Luke Combs, whose “Fast Car” sits at No. 5, its peak position in its ninth week since release. Combs will tour Australia and New Zealand this August.
Frontier Touring, which struck a joint venture with Chugg Entertainment in 2019, is producer of both treks.
“The growth of country music in Australia over the last few years has been well documented and it was clear that the market needed a new agency to service the many great new artists coming through along with the established artists who are kicking major goals,” comments Chugg in a statement.
“With our many decades of experience across all facets of live touring, combined with our knowledge of the country music industry, there is no better team in Australia to help artists develop their live careers and grow their audiences.”
Read more at wheelhouseagency.com.au.
Wheelhouse Agency roster:
Amy Sheppard
Andrew Farriss
Bud Rokesky
Casey Barnes
Henry Wagons
James Blundell
Kingswood
Lane Pittman
Leroy Macqueen
Loren Ryan
McAlister Kemp
Sara Berki
Sara Storer
Shannon Noll
Sweet Talk
Taylor Moss
The Paper Kites
Travis Collins
Wagons
BRISBANE, Australia — Twenty years after its launch in a red-hot entertainment market, Oztix, Australia’s biggest independent ticketer, just got bigger with the acquisition of Local Tickets.
With immediate effect, Local Tickets, a smaller, rival ticketing agency specializing in local events across the country, is rebranded to Localtix. And as part of the arrangement, all Local Tickets employees join its new parent, while founder and CEO Kristen Goldup is appointed as brand director across Oztix and Localtix.
Also, Oztix events will be populated across 70 local ticket marketplaces, expanding the marketing potential for events ticketed by Oztix.
“Our brands and product offerings are entirely complementary, and after just one meeting with Oztix, it was clear that we had great synergy and shared a mutual culture of putting our clients first,” comments Goldup, who founded the agency in 2011. “My Local Tickets clients will benefit greatly from access to a new collaborative platform, and even more eyeballs will be on our local tickets marketplace websites with Oztix events being listed”.
Financial terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.
Currently, Oztix handles ticketing for venues, festivals and expos such as Big Red Bash, Crafted Beer & Cider Festival, Good Things Festival, and Summernats, while the new addition to its ranks works across a range of agricultural shows, rodeos, turf clubs, hospitality events and more.
Oztix presented its new family members with a celebratory lunch Tuesday (June 6) at its Woolloongabba headquarters, close to Brisbane’s Gabba stadium and timed to coincide with the annual Queensland Day.
“At any given time,” Oztix commercial director Seth Clancy told industry guests, “the business boasts 4,000 events on sale across the country across both platforms.” Prior to the acquisition, Oztix sold close to 3 million tickets each year.
Now, the enlarged group employs 50 full-time staff and hundreds of casual staff at events around the country, notes Oztix co-founder Stuart Field. Each year, millions are pumped into technology and innovation, he explained, a sometimes painful but essential outlay “to evolve with the way technology is changing.”
Co-founder Brian “Smash” Chladil recounted the business’ first steps, starting out under his house in Toowong, in Brisbane’s inner west, and landing contracts with mega-festivals Big Day Out, Soundwave and Falls.
“The next 20 years are looking great,” he explains, “we’re growing because our clients are growing, we’re growing because we win new business and mainly because we don’t lose business.”
Guests at Oztix’s “launch and lunch” included QMusic president Natalie Strijland and CEO Kris Stewart; Fortitude Music Hall and The Triffid venue director John “JC” Collins, former bass player with Powderfinger; Vicki Gordon, founding executive producer and program director of the Australian Women in Music Awards (AWMA); and Shane King, state member of parliament for Kurwongbah.
Australia’s ticketing industry is dominated by the big two, Live Nation affiliate Ticketmaster, and TEG-owned Ticketek. Oztix expands as a new player arrives on these shores in AEG-owned ticketer AXS, led by venue management professional and former Gold Cost Suns chief Andrew Travis as CEO of AXS Australia and New Zealand.
The Eras Tour is going global. After keeping fans waiting for months, Taylor Swift announced Friday (June 2) that she’s bringing her best-selling show to Latin America with summer and autumn stops in Mexico, Argentina and Brazil, featuring Sabrina Carpenter as her opener. “Really thrilled to tell you this!!” the pop star wrote in a […]
Janelle Monáe is gearing up to take her forthcoming album, The Age of Pleasure, on the road. The singer revealed details for a 2023 North American tour on Wednesday (May 31). The star will kick off the 26-date trek on Aug. 30 at WAMU Theater in Seattle, and will make stops in Atlanta, Chicago, Toronto, […]
Global superstars Enrique Iglesias, Ricky Martin and Pitbull are going on tour … together.
The three hitmakers announced dates for their North America Trilogy Tour, which is set to kick off Oct. 14 in Washington, D.C. The 19-date arena trek — produced by Live Nation — will make stops in major cities such as New York, Miami, Houston and Las Vegas before wrapping up Dec. 16 in Vancouver, B.C.
“It’s a true honor to tour with Enrique and Ricky, 2 music icons who broke global music barriers for our culture and open doors for someone like myself,” Pitbull (born Armando Christian Perez) said in a statement. “We’re excited to take The Trilogy tour around the world and give our fans the time of their Trilogy lives, Dale!”
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“I am incredibly excited to be going on tour with my friends Pitbull and Ricky,” added Iglesias. “The Trilogy Tour will be an amazing experience for ALL of our fans. It’s going to be a once in a lifetime tour.”
Ricky Martin echoed his tour mates excitement: “Going back on the road with not only Enrique, but now with Pitbull, it’s very exciting. This tour will be a wild party from beginning to end so get ready, it’s going to be epic!”
According to the press release, the artists will be delivering “three unique headlining sets.”
It’s not the first time the three musicians will go on tour with each other. In 2017, Enrique Iglesias and Pitbull went on tour with CNCO as the opening act. The trek grossed $38 million and sold 415,000 tickets, according to Billboard Boxscore numbers. Four years later in 2021, Iglesias teamed up with Ricky Martin — and Sebastián Yatra as the tour’s opener — on a tour that grossed $35.2 million and sold 312,000 tickets.
For the Trilogy Tour, fans can register now through June 4 for the Verified Fan presale. According to Live Nation, selected fans will then receive an access code will be able to participate in presale starting June 7. The general on sale will begin June 9 at 10 a.m. local time on Ticketmaster.com.
See the tour dates below:
Oct. 14 – Washington, D.C. – Capital One Arena
Oct. 17 – Toronto, ON – Scotiabank Arena
Oct. 20 – Montreal, QC – Bell Centre
Oct. 21– Boston, MA – TD Garden
Oct. 26 – New York, NY – Madison Square Garden
Oct. 28 – Brooklyn, NY – Barclays Center
Nov. 1 – Chicago, IL – United Center
Nov. 3 – Detroit, MI – Little Caesars Arena
Nov. 9 – Orlando, FL – Amway Center
Nov. 10 – Miami, FL – Kaseya Center
Nov. 17 – Dallas, TX – American Airlines Center
Nov. 18 – Houston, TX – Toyota Center
Nov. 19 – San Antonio, TX – AT&T Center
Nov. 24 – Las Vegas, NV – T-Mobile Arena
Nov. 25 – Phoenix, AZ – Footprint Center
Nov. 30 – Los Angeles, CA – Crypto.com Arena
Dec. 6 – San Jose, CA – SAP Center
Dec. 8 – Seattle, WA – Climate Pledge Arena
Dec. 10 – Vancouver, B.C. – Rogers Arena
Morgan Wallen released One Thing at a Time on March 3, kicking off a run of 11 (and counting) consecutive weeks atop the Billboard 200. One of the set’s focus tracks, “Last Night,” became his biggest hit yet, topping the Billboard Hot 100 for seven (and counting) frames. And now, his spin-off run of concerts – the One Night at a Time World Tour – crowns Billboard’s Top Tours chart.
According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, Wallen played four shows in April, earning $27.9 million from 145,000 tickets sold. He fends off Elton John ($27 million) and former tourmate Luke Combs ($25.8 million) in a narrow race, securing his first monthly victory.
Earlier this month, Wallen was forced to postpone the One Night at a Time World Tour for six weeks due to a vocal injury, resuming on June 22 at Chicago’s famed Wrigley Field. Including three shows from May 4-6 and a handful of dates in Oceania in March, the tour has earned $44.3 million and sold 258,000 tickets to-date.
Wallen will mix arenas, amphitheaters and stadiums across the remaining 45 scheduled dates. Running through June 2024, Wallen is on to soar past the $200 million mark (and then some), easily topping his own The Dangerous Tour ($113.5 million; 841,000 tickets) and further, Kenny Chesney’s Here and Now Tour ($135 million) and Taylor Swift’s The Red Tour ($150.2 million) to become the top-grossing country tour ever. Country tours are generally defined as by artists recording primarily country music at the time of a respective tour.
Wallen’s April triumph marks the first time in nine months that an artist scores a first month at No. 1. The last act to claim its first chart-topper was Coldplay in July 2022, who poetically closed the loop by repeating at No. 1 just last month.
In between, Bad Bunny (Aug. and Sept. 2022), John Mayer (Oct. and Nov. 2022, Jan. 2023), Trans-Siberian Orchestra (Dec. 2022), and Ed Sheeran (Feb. 2023) notched repeat wins. In 34 months since the monthly charts premiered, Wallen is just the 15th artist to lead the Top Tours ranking.
Among those 15 leaders, Wallen is the first country act to hit No. 1. Previously, the genre had peaked at No. 3 with George Strait (March 2019 and Jan. 2020) and Reba McEntire (Jan. 2022). In fact, stretching beyond the origins of Billboard’s monthly charts, the last time country spawned the top-grossing act of the month was Chesney in May 2015, almost eight years ago.
Including Wallen and Combs, country artists have five top three placements, or 4.9% of all top three ranks since the charts launched in Feb. 2019. When looking at the full 30-position survey, the genre makes up 11.8% of the chart, following only rock and pop.
While country has consistently been a core factor in the concert industry’s well-being, it’s taken more than three years (including COVID’s blackout period) for one of its own to lead, with more of its headliners in the teens and 20s of the monthly chart.
Much of that has to do with the structure of country tours, as most acts play weekend shows but take off during the week, compared to every-night or every-other-night routings for many pop, rock, Latin and hip-hop artists. Playing two or three shows a week, country artists can only sell so many tickets, limiting their total figures especially when compressing the chart’s tracking period to a strict timeframe.
For their parts, Wallen played in Milwaukee on a Friday and Saturday, and then Louisville and Oxford, Miss. on the following Thursday and Saturday. (Combs played one stadium show each week, except for a double-header in Nashville). But despite a limited show count, both artists scaled up to stadiums, able to compete with lengthier arena runs via massive nightly audiences.
Elton John, sandwiched between Wallen and Combs at No. 2 on Top Tours, played double the shows as either country competitor. Nine of those took place over the course of 16 days at London’s O2 Arena, averaging one show every other night.
John’s run at the O2 is No. 1 on April’s Top Boxscores, having earned $25.3 million and sold 148,000 tickets. It’s the month’s only engagement to break the $20 million mark or 100,000 tickets. Wallen (Nos. 2 and 5) and Combs (Nos. 4, 7-8) help flesh out the top 10, with Usher at No. 3 for an eight-night run at MGM’s Dolby Live in Las Vegas.
Not only does the O2 Arena push Elton to No. 1 on Top Boxscores and No. 2 on Top Tours, it is itself the top-grossing venue of the month. The last time it reigned was June 2022 with $41.7 million and 372,000 tickets sold, just north of April’s $41.1 million and 344,000.
Gorillaz is heading out on the road for a special tour this fall. On Tuesday (May 30), the group announced The Getaway 2023 tour, which is scheduled to take place in September. The limited run of shows will take place across four dates in the United States — as explained in the tour’s official description […]
As 2023 heads into summer, multiple signs point to a healthy and growing live music business for the rest of the year. In recent weeks, executives from the publicly traded concert promotion and ticketing companies have signaled that surging consumer demand won’t slow down, and there will be enough tours to satiate music fans’ appetite for live events.
Demand has been strong “and is showing no signs of letting up,” said Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino during the company’s May 4 earnings call. Live Nation expects to sell more than 600 million tickets in 2023, up from 550 million in 2022. To date, the concert promoter has sold more than 100 million tickets to Live Nation events, a 20% increase from the prior-year period, and expects to host a record number of fans in 2023.
Vivid Seats, the publicly traded secondary ticketing marketplace, shares Live Nation’s sentiment. “Consumers continued to crave live experiences in the first quarter,” said CEO Stan Chia during a May 9 earnings call, “and we believe this trend will continue for many years.” Vivid Seats does business primarily in the U.S. while German promoter and ticketing provider CTS Eventim focuses on Europe. “Both in Germany and internationally, we are pursuing organic growth and anticipate that our business performance will continue on its successful course,” said CTS Eventim CEO Klaus-Peter Schulenberg in the quarterly results released May 24 that reiterated the positive outlook in its 2022 annual report of “moderately higher earnings” for the live entertainment segment 2023.
The concert business is meeting — and perhaps surpassing — some lofty expectations. In 2022, as the concert business exited the pandemic, the widespread belief was that pent-up demand for in-person experiences would drive the concert business beyond pre-pandemic levels. That turned out to be true. Concert promoter Live Nation posted record revenue of $6.2 billion in the third quarter that was 67% above the same period in 2019. What’s more, the volume of fans returning to concert venues was augmented by an unmatched willingness to absorb higher prices. Frenzied demand — and sky-high prices on the secondary market — for tours by Taylor Swift, Beyonce and Bruce Springsteen have showed A-list artists have yet to find their ceiling on prices.
Concert promoters have posted strong quarterly earnings that fit their narratives. Live Nation’s first-quarter revenue was up 71% to $3.1 billion. CTS Eventim’s online ticket sales increased 58% to 18 million as consolidated revenue improved 163% to 366.2 million euros ($393 million). At Vivid Seats, which also does business in major sports such as baseball and basketball, first quarter revenue grew 23.2% to $161 million and adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization doubled to $42.4 million.
Investors absorb past earnings history while figuring out what to expect in the future, and according to JP Morgan analyst David Karnovky they often ask two questions about Live Nation: First, is there enough supply to meet growing, healthy demand? Yes, Live Nation president and CFO Joe Berchtold said at JP Morgan’s Global Technology, Media and Communications conference on Tuesday. That’s because global streaming platforms such as Spotify and social media apps like Instagram and TikTok allow artists to build global followings in ways that weren’t previously possible, he explained. K-pop and other up-and-coming genres of music “that maybe once were regional are now going global,” he said, and artists that used to sell out mid-sized venues are now selling out stadiums. “So, you’re seeing that supply continue to build.”
The second thing investors want to know is how demand will respond during a softer economy. Live Nation closely follows the indicators — such as on-sales show closings — Berchtold said, “but we’re not seeing anything that gives us pause.” Separately, Berchtold noted that Live Nation’s research indicates getting back to concerts are one of fans’ top priorities after the pandemic and will be “one of the last things they’re going to cut back on.”
Vivid Seats CFO Lawrence Fey also addressed the possibility of an economic downturn — a scenario becoming increasingly likely in the U.S. should Congress fail to find a compromise to raise the debt ceiling by early June. “[T]here’s a lot of chatter and concern out there” that demand will weaken “in the not-too-distant future,” said Fey, “but it continues to be the case that we’re seeing very robust demand across our event categories [and] across price points.” Beyond the consistently strong demand, Vivid Seats has “been pleasantly surprised by the supply calendar,” particularly a concert schedule that includes recently announced tours by Drake and Aerosmith, he added, “and [that] gives us optimism.”