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Boxoffice Insider: The Power Of Pop; The Stars Own Live In 2018
Emma McIntyre/TAS18/Getty Images for TAS – Taylor Swift
at NRG Stadium in Houston Sept. 29.
A discussion of pop music often leads to questions about what exactly is considered pop these days – perhaps a shorter discussion is determining what isn’t. For some it’s enough to adhere to the old adage that you know it when you hear it.
Pop is a category that spans a broad spectrum with ongoing transformation and redefinition of the genre. The current pop culture, politics, today’s headlines, what’s going on in the world – all of that affects the music of the moment.
To determine the artists who are “in” in 2018 – those who are making people stop and take notice musically – one can draw on Pollstar’s recent third quarter slate of Top 100 Tours to get a glimpse of who has earned a mention in today’s cultural conversation. Seven of the Top 10 tours can latch on in some degree to today’s definition of pop.
Sitting at No. 1 is the artist who tops all the rest this year when it comes to touring box office – Ed Sheeran, the unassuming, red-haired singer-songwriter from England who has moved 4.3 million tickets at his concerts this year so far. With $383.2 million in revenue from 83 headlining performances since the beginning of 2018 through the end of September, he rules the day in any touring tally.
His friend and former tourmate, Taylor Swift has a solid grip on No. 2 in the ranking with 2.4 million total tickets during the first nine months of the year. Swift’s total haul through the end of 3Q reached $289.2 million from 44 performances of her Reputation stadium trek. Fellow stadium draws Jay-Z and Beyoncé are powerhouse pop performers and have been for years – even more so with the emergence of rap and hip-hop as such a dominant force in the genre. The Carters’ co-headlining trek, On the Run II, grossed $231.8 million from 44 concerts and scored an overall ticket count of 1.9 million, earning the third slot on the chart.
Much has been chronicled in Pollstar about the Ed/Taylor/Jay & Bey juggernaut and their impact on stadiums worldwide this year, but joining them in the Top 10 are four more pop superstars who have made their own presence known in 2018. The first is Justin Timberlake, a powerful presence in pop music ever since the first NSYNC album hit the record stores in the late ‘90s. He scores the sixth slot in the rankings with overall attendance through 3Q totaling 992,945. That sold ticket count is based on $126.7 million in revenue from 64 performances in North America and Europe.
He is currently on the second trek through U.S. and Canadian markets in support of his Man Of The Woods album that arrived on Feb. 2. One month after the album release, the tour launched with a string of 27 cities in the U.S. and Canada booked through June 2. He then headed to Europe for a series of dates in 10 countries during an eight-week stretch. Now he’s back in North America with a run of concerts that began on Sept. 19 and is booked through Dec. 22. Timberlake will hit the road again early in 2019 after a holiday break and wrap his Man of the Woods tour on Jan. 29.
If Pink is touring, it is best to look for her near the top of any chart based on box office sales. For 3Q she owned the seventh position in the Pollstar ranking with 909,676 tickets purchased at 63 shows. The grosses from her Beautiful Trauma world tour amount to $120.6 million from dates in North America and Oceania that occurred through Sept. 19. Although she is finished with touring for the remainder of this year, she is booked to head out again next March for her tour’s final jaunt through North America.
Pink tours are always a huge draw Down Under, and this year’s Oceania leg that covered seven markets from July through September included a record-breaking engagement in Sydney. The pop star sold out nine concerts at one venue, Qudos Bank Arena, marking the longest run of shows ever for a solo artist at the arena during its 19-year history. With 143,367 tickets sold, she topped the previous record set by Katy Perry, who drew 93,841 fans at six concerts during her Prismatic world tour in 2014.
Imagine Dragons lands at No. 8 among the Top 100 with its world tour that kicked off just over a year ago behind the release of Evolve, the band’s third studio album that bowed in June 2017 and was nominated for the Best Pop Vocal Album at this year’s Grammy Awards. The world tour has played the Americas, Asia, Oceania and Europe during its year-long span that is now in its homestretch. Just a handful of dates remain including the tour finale, a headlining appearance at Mexico City’s Corona Capital festival on Nov. 18. Since the beginning of 2018, Imagine Dragons has played for 835,131 fans at 58 concerts on all five continents visited during the tour. Gross sales totaled $51.2 million through the end of September.
Finally, at No. 10 on the 3Q recap is German schlager singer Helene Fischer, less known to North American audiences, but a massive pop star in Europe. She just recently completed a 12-month concert tour that began in Sept. 12, 2017, and wrapped this year on Sept. 15.
After four European legs, she ended the tour with a sold ticket count of 813,905 at 44 reported concerts, grossing $68.8 million. A highlight of the tour was this summer’s four-week trek that hit 10 stadiums in her home country. Fischer played for just under a half-million fans at 12 concerts in Germany, racking up $38.5 million in sales. Her top grosser was a two-night stint at Red Bull Arena in Leipzig with 78,515 sold seats and a $6.2 million take.