Q3 Anomaly: The Ed Sheeran Factor

Thus, when analyzing the state of concert touring in 2019 through the third quarter (see charts below), we can identify a “Sheeran Factor,” if you will, that moved the needle at this particular point in history and skewed box office data in a way that suggested a slight decline in live activity, despite the live business remaining quite steady and even showing slight upward movement.

The “Divide” tour’s first year on the road hit No. 8 on Pollstar’s year-end ranking of the Top 100 Worldwide tours of 2017 with $124.1 million in sales from 1.5 million sold tickets – great numbers for any touring artist playing arenas. But it was early in the second year of the tour that jaw-dropping results started coming in from the Oceania leg, including $20.8 million grossed over four stadium shows in Melbourne and $19.9 million grossed over three stadium shows in Sydney. It was the beginning of the multiple-stadium onslaught that became the norm for Sheeran’s subsequent treks through Europe and North America and, ultimately, the remainder of the tour.

Last year, when it was time to compile the 2018 mid-year recap, Sheeran was already proving that “Divide” was a force to be reckoned with. He leapt to No. 1 in the mid-year report with a $213.9 million gross, the largest ever recorded halfway through the year at Pollstar. Although 2018 also saw über-successful runs by Taylor Swift, Jay-Z and Beyoncé, Pink, Bruno Mars and others, all fell under the “Divide” shadow regardless of box office success that, in any other year, would have shattered records. Indeed, Swift’s “Reputation” tour in 2018 grossed a whopping $345.1 million that would have smashed U2’s record-setting gross of $316 million from 2017 – at the time, the highest year-end gross on record. But Sheeran’s tour took in $432.4 million and topped the chart. 

Jumping to the present, the numbers from the Top 100 Worldwide Tours for Q3 show less revenue this year compared to 2018. Box office tallies total $3,962,486,935 while the 2018 sum reached $4,036,986,752 – about $75 million higher than the gross earnings recorded this year.* Taking into account that boxoffice performance every year is impacted by who is on the road, how long they’re out, the size of venues, ticket prices and more, that multimillion-dollar difference could still suggest a slower 2019 in live performance earnings. Definitely, 2018 was a banner year, with the top seven tours each selling more than 1 million tickets by the end of the quarter, yet 2019 has also seen robust box office action with multiple touring artists also producing sold ticket counts over 1 million as of Q3.

The story stretches beyond the normal year-to-year adjustments based on who is and isn’t on the road. Looking again at attendance totals, the seven 2018 tours with more than 1 million sold tickets included Taylor Swift at (No. 2, 1.9 million tickets sold), followed by Jay-Z and Beyoncé (No. 3, 1.4 million). Pink, Kenny Chesney and Bruno Mars were fourth, fifth and sixth, all with sold tickets counts in the 1.1 million range, and Imagine Dragons ranked seventh with 1.06 million. Meanwhile, Ed Sheeran topped the chart with 3.8 million tickets sold – more than twice as many as Swift’s red-hot “Reputation” tour.

Regarding 2018 grosses, “Reputation” had already earned an impressive $229.2 million by Q3, and Jay and Bey were at $162.5 million. Pink’s gross was $158.2 million, Chesney had $101.5 million, Mars had $141 million and Imagine Dragons had $63.1 million. Sheeran, however, held the top ranking with $340.6 million grossed – $111 million more than the second-ranked tour.

Going further, if the “Divide” tour had been removed from the equation, the 2018 gross for Q3 would have been $3,696,321,698 and this year’s earnings would top out at $3,763,687,499. That $67.3 million difference would represent a 1.8% rise in money earned in 2019 and illustrate a different scenario than the actual tallies with Sheeran in the mix. Rather than any substantial or worrisome drop in box office accounting, the 2019 drop in gross sales was not a simple correction, but a result of the Sheeran Factor.

Granted, every year one could play devil’s advocate and the what-if game to infinity, but looking at precedent from previous tours – specifically, the second- and third-highest grossing tours of all-time following “Divide,” U2’s “360” tour and Guns N’ Roses’ ongoing “Not In This Lifetime…” tour – the effect of Sheeran on this year’s Q3 counts appears to be an anomaly.

The “360” tour ran from 2009 through 2011 with the rise and fall of the gross and attendance remaining the same from year to year, whether or not U2’s box office numbers are counted. Among the Top 100 Worldwide Tours of those three years – with U2 ranked No. 1 in each of them – grosses totaled $3.7 billion, $2.9 billion and $3.4 billion. If the “360” tour isn’t counted, the grosses flow in the same direction with $3.4 billion (2009), $2.7 billion (2010) and $3.2 billion (2011). The same is true with the ticket sales ratio.

“Not In This Lifetime…” shows a similar result with rises and falls in both tickets and gross in either scenario. In 2016, the year the tour debuted, the gross from the Top 100 tours was $4.3 billion with GNR and $4.1 billion without them. In 2017, the tour’s biggest year with more than $279 million in earnings, the overall was $4.9 billion but removing “Lifetime…” lowers it to $4.7 billion – still higher in all areas than the previous year. Last year, Guns N’ Roses only toured three months, but they still would have affected the overall gross of $5.6 billion, lowering it by $75 million if they were not touring. Ticket sales also followed the same pattern as the gross counts, rising each of the past three years regardless of whether “Not In This Lifetime…” was included.

Aside from the Sheeran Factor and its impact on the numbers, other tours in 2019 have greatly impacted the gross and attendance counts through the end of the third quarter. 

Only one artist has an overall worldwide gross topping $200 million for Q3. Pink’s “Beautiful Trauma” tour amassed a box office total of $215.2 million from 1.8 million sold tickets to place her second on the list of Top 100 Worldwide Tours. Her two-night engagement at London’s Wembley Stadium June 29-30 drew 145,230 fans over both nights for a gross of $16.5 million, her best this year and the tour’s third-highest gross since launching in March 2018. Pink only earned more at two arenas down under, but those stands included considerably more shows: In summer 2018, Pink grossed $20.2 million over 11 shows at Melbourne’s Rod Laver Arena and grossed $18.6 million over nine concerts at Sydney’s Qudos Bank Arena.

Metallica scores the No. 3 slot among the Top 100 with 1.6 million sold tickets from the band’s “WorldWired” trek that is still powering ahead with dates scheduled into 2020. Since beginning in 2016, the tour has racked up more than $416 million in box office sales from sold tickets surpassing 4 million. Out of the top grosses from this year’s itinerary, none are higher than the $8.2 million logged at Dublin’s Slane Castle on June 8. The sold-out performance drew a crowd of 71,122.

Spice Girls tours are rare, but they make a splash when they happen. Take this year’s tour, which grossed $78 million from almost 700,000 sold tickets over 13 shows at a mere eight stadiums in the U.K. and Ireland. That’s a bump in both gross and tickets over the group’s 2007-2008 trek, which was comprised of 45 shows at 20 arenas and grossed $70.2 million from 609,555 sold seats. The pop group takes the No. 13 ranking on the chart.

The Rolling Stones ranked No. 19 after taking their “No Filter” tour to stadiums in 14 U.S. cities in 2019, 11 of which are included in the Q3 counts for a gross of $145.1 million from 634,184 tickets sold at 13 concerts. MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., and Chicago’s Soldier Field are the two venues that hosted the veteran rockers for two nights apiece, and those two stadiums are the tour’s top earners this year. MetLife registered a total gross of $25.5 million on Aug. 1 and 5 with an attendance total of 104,964. Chicago-area fans numbering 98,228 packed Soldier Field on June 21 and 25 for a $21.7 million gross. At those stadiums, the Stones eclipsed the two-night gross marks of $14.1 million and $13.3 million, respectively, notched by Korean sensation BTS, which ranked No. 4 on the Q3 chart with 1,246,277 tickets sold and $160.9 million grossed.