Boxoffice Insider: Aussie Promoters Score With Major Draws

AP Photo / Marco Piraccini / Archivio Marco Piraccini / Mondadori Portfolio – Kylie Minogue
performing at Padova Gran Geox Theater in Padova, Italy in November, was one of the major Australian tours of Q1.

Frontier Touring and TEG, two of the top concert promoters in Australia and New Zealand, kicked off 2019 with star power, launching a slate of tours in the early months of the year with major headliners in arena-level entertainment. Just a few of the touring artists on the road Down Under were Frontier-produced treks by Kylie Minogue, Eagles and Arctic Monkeys; while TEG’s live entertainment divisions – TEG Live and TEG Dainty – brought in artists such as Keith Urban, The Prodigy and Slash. Sales results from all six of those touring artists are among the box office tallies that have been submitted to Pollstar so far this year.

Longtime international pop star and Melbourne native Kylie Minogue worked with Frontier Touring earlier this month, playing shows in three Australian venues beginning with two concerts at the ICC Sydney Theatre on March 5-6. The event drew 12,659 fans to the 8,000-seat venue in the city’s International Convention Centre, logging $1.4 million in revenue. Minogue also booked March shows into the Adelaide Entertainment Centre and Melbourne outdoor venue, Sidney Myer Music Bowl. Along with the Frontier dates, the pop diva also had three shows as part of A Day On The Green concert series staged in wineries and outdoor sites in the country. The March dates were all part of Minogue’s Golden Tour in support of her 14th studio album, released in April 2018. She launched the tour in Europe on Sept. 18 with a performance in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, at Metro Radio Arena (now called Utilita Arena). The opening leg of the jaunt ran just less than three months in the latter half of 2018.

Eagles scored box office success in Oceania with shows in both countries promoted by Frontier including a sold-out event in Dunedin, New Zealand, at Forsyth Barr Stadium. Sales reached $6.6 million for the March 2 performance attended by a crowd of 31,519 fans. Also while in New Zealand the band sold out two shows at Spark Arena in Auckland, scoring a $3.2 million take from 19,645 tickets on Feb. 26-27. Among the Australian shows on the schedule, Sydney’s Qudos Bank Arena hosted the veteran rock group for performances on March 13-14, racking up $3.7 million from 21,795 sold seats. The band also played two nights at arenas in Melbourne and Brisbane during the 17-day sweep from Feb. 26 through March 14. It marked the Eagles’ first trek on the continent since 2015 during the History of the Eagles tour that stretched more than two years and included runs through North America and Europe.

TEG Live handled Keith Urban’s Graffiti U Tour that arrived Down Under on Jan. 23, debuting at Newcastle Entertainment Centre. The Country Music Association’s reigning Entertainer of the Year performed two-night engagements at Qudos Bank Arena and Melbourne’s Rod Laver Arena as well as a three-show stint at Brisbane Entertainment Centre. The country star averaged 17,274 sold tickets in those three markets with an average gross average of $1.6 million. The trek also included one outdoor event on Jan. 27 at GIO Stadium in the Australian capital city, Canberra. Julia Michaels provided support during the two-week run that wrapped on Feb. 6. Urban headed to Europe next at the beginning of March as a headliner at the C2C: Country to Country festival in a handful of markets. He topped the bill for multiple-act shows in Berlin, Amsterdam, London, Glasgow and Dublin. 

One of Frontier Touring’s early 2019 tours featured headliner Arctic Monkeys playing a string of shows in Australia and New Zealand during a 12-day run that kicked off on Feb. 23 in Perth. The tour featuring music from the group’s May 2018 release Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino grossed $4.4 million from sold-out arena shows in five cities. The number of sold seats at seven performances was 66,809. Rod Laver Arena and Qudos Bank Arena both added second shows after quick sellouts for the English band’s first Oceania trek since 2014’s AM Tour. The Sydney venue produced the top box office counts with a total of 20,110 tickets sold for shows March 1-2 with sales hitting $1,353,034. Rod Laver Arena’s gross was just $24,437 less from 19,454 total tickets on Feb. 26-27. Qudos Bank Arena is the only venue the band did not visit on the 2014 tour. That year the Sydney date was booked at the now-defunct Qantas Credit Union Arena, demolished in 2016. Frontier Touring promoted both tours for the Sheffield rockers.

The Prodigy earns a mention based on $1.9 million in sales reported from the band’s TEG Live-promoted tour through Australia and New Zealand Jan. 24 through Feb. 5 in support of its new studio album No Tourists that arrived Nov. 2. The overall number of sold tickets at six concerts was 29,208. The tour kicked off at Perth’s RAC Arena and included Enschway and ShockOne as opening acts for the first concert as well as the remainder of the Aussie dates in Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney. Enschway was the lone opener for the last show on the trek at Trusts Arena in Auckland that ultimately marked the final performance for the late Keith Flint who died just weeks later in March. Following his death, the band canceled all remaining dates that were booked in 2019.

Finally, Guns N’ Roses lead guitarist Slash, along with his band Myles Kennedy & The Conspirators, also played a string of shows in Oceania markets in January and February, hitting six cities with his Living the Dream Tour. TEG Dainty was the promoter for the trek that featured New Zealand rock band Devilskin as opener. The first two dates were New Zealand shows Jan. 25-26 in the cities of Tauranga and Auckland. A four-city Australian run kicked off on the 28th at Sydney followed by performances in Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth.