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Concert Pulse: Willie Nelson Debuts, Bruno Mars Hits Latin America and Springsteen Rakes It In On Broadway
Gary Miller / Getty Images – Willie Nelson
ON THE ROAD AGAIN: Willie Nelson performs during the Luck Welcome dinner benefitting Farm Aid March 14 in Spicewood, Texas. The red-headed stranger is back at it after being briefly derailed by the flu.
Last week’s Global Concert Pulse included a number of debuts, with Willie Nelson, Adam Trent, Clouseau, La Compagnie Creole, Architects, Glashaus, G. Love & Special Sauce, Alice Merton, The Frights, Spafford, and Jacob Banks making a mark on Pollstar’s weekly live entertainment survey.
Of the new entries on the chart, which is based on live reports submitted over approximately the last three months, Willie Nelson had the highest debut at No. 30, with an average gross of $262,890. He reported an average ticket price of nearly $75, which many would call a bargain to see someone of Nelson’s caliber. This is all the more impressive considering Nelson had to cancel most of his February tour dates due to the flu, though he thankfully returned to the road at the end of the month. Nelson will continue to tour throughout 2018 and jump on his Outlaw Music Festival for dates in late May through early July.
Topping the week’s chart was Bruno Mars, whose “24K Magic World” tour hit Latin American stadiums moving more than 450,000 tickets and grossing more than $50 million if you combine the tour’s South American, Central American and Mexico legs.
Combine that with his four-night stand at The Forum in Inglewood, Calif., which grossed $8.4 million, a run in National Harbor, Md., and two stints at Park Theater At Monte Carlo Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, and it’s apparent Mars is solidifying his status as one of the globe’s biggest pop stars.
Generally, stadium acts end after the top five on Pollstar’s Global Concert Pulse and the arena acts are done by around the No. 50 spot. Once fully in theaters you start to see a wider variety of content including children’s shows, comedy and more. By the nineties you begin to see clubs in some of the artists’ routings.
Of course, there are outliers to these venue patterns, like Bruce Springsteen, whose “Springsteen On Broadway” show, staging exclusively at Walter Kerr Theatre in New York, came in at No. 2. With reports of 68 shows for the production for the period in question, the performance grossed an astounding $32.75 million. The configuration has a max capacity of 948, but the tickets are topping out at an eye-popping $850, which explains how a theater act can chart so high.
Kevin Mazur / Getty Images / SiriusXM – Bruce Springsteen
The Jersey Boy takes it to Broadway: Springsteen’s ever-growing residency at the Walter Kerr Theatre in New York City brings in some mammoth grosses despite the small room.
Another artist who charted high in small-cap rooms was EDM sensation Steve Aoki (No. 45). He played a few shows in Mexico and the U.S. during the period in question, and then went on a full-fledged tour of Southeast Asia, taking in clubs mostly in China but also Japan and the Philippines.
Aoki was grossing more than $100,000 a night in China, topping out at Club Sir.Teen in Beijing, with $203,513 grossed Nov. 27. Those numbers are roughly triple the $65,000 he grossed at Spire in Houston a week earlier, but the artist doesn’t make his way out to Asia that often and it costs a lot to make the trip worth an artist’s while, hence the $61 ticket price (388 Yuan Renminbi) in Beijing.
Mike Coppola / Getty Images / ASICS America – Steve Aoki
Steve Aoki is No. 45 on this week’s Concert Pulse, with an average gross north of $100,000 per city in China.
A Boxoffice history report shows Steve Aoki continued to tour in Indonesia, then hit North America and Europe, but he has yet to submit reports for those dates. He also just wrapped a set at Soundwave festival in Edmonton, Canada.
One significant metric to pay attention to on the Pulse is the number of cities, which represents the number of Boxoffice entries available, not necessarily the number of shows they played. The act with the most entries for this report is Mannheim Steamroller, (No. 40) which ploughed through 69 different reported cities. In late 2017, Mannheim Steamroller reported a gross of nearly $9.9 million off 165,371 tickets, with the show staging in theaters throughout the country.
The chart also allows for ticket price comparisons. For example, Blake Shelton (No. 9) is averaging 12,758 tickets per market appearance, very close to The Killers (No. 11), which averaged 12,879 for this week’s survey. The Killers actually played more markets during the period in question, 21 as compared to nine for Shelton, but the rockers’ ticket price averaged at $70, while the country star charged about $78 per stub. That difference of $8 per ticket more than made up for the smaller number of shows when it came to average gross, with the difference being nearly $100,000.
A look at the chart online will also allow you to see the movement of each entry from the last week. For example, No. 7 Kendrick Lamar’s reported average ticket price went down $1.63 during the period in question, and his gross thus dropped $27,319, putting him below fellow rapper Jay-Z, (No. 6) whose ticket price and attendance rose, despite a decrease in reported shows during the period.
British hardcore/metalcore band Architects (No. 92) just wrapped its largest U.S. tour yet, with Boxoffice reports submitted from Theatre of the Living Arts in Philadelphia (1,000 tickets, $23,682 gross) Feb. 16, House of Blues in Chicago Feb. 22 (938 tickets, $20,985 gross), 1,338 tickets sold to