Boxoffice Insider: Playing In The Band, Dead & Company Back With Summer Tour

Dead & Company is back on the road this summer with a tour through North American cities that launched in Los Angeles at Dodger Stadium. The June 11 performance was the first of 20 concerts planned at amphitheaters and stadiums through July, marking the sixth summertime trek for the band since 2016’s 23-show run that topped $29 million at the box-office. The tours have generally kicked off in May or June, although last year’s run began in August and stretched into the fall, ending with the 2021 tour’s only three-show engagement, Oct. 29-31, at the Hollywood Bowl.

This year’s opening night engagement was the second time the band included Dodger Stadium on a summer tour. The first was an appearance on July 7, 2018, at the L.A. ballpark that drew 33,098 fans. It is one of four Major League Baseball venues that are booked on this year’s run. Another is Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, which also hosted the group only once before – last summer on Aug. 21 with a crowd of 31,195.

Wrigley Field in Chicago and New York’s Citi Field are on tap for two-show stints this year, both repeat appearances for the group that has played each stadium multiple times. The 2017, 2019 and 2021 tours each featured a two-night stint at Wrigley with ticket sales at all six concerts reaching 225,662 for a combined gross of nearly $21 million.

Citi Field has hosted the band more times than any other venue with at least one performance on all five of the past tours. With double shows in the archives in 2016 and 2018 and single performances in the other years, the combined ticket tally at the stadium is 212,752, while the gross from all seven shows tops $22 million.

Dead & Company’s performance history reflected in Pollstar’s box-office archives show more than three million tickets have been sold at 172 reported concerts during almost seven years on stage. Overall grosses from all the tours land just under $300 million, yet those numbers are about to grow. The current tour could potentially see record-setting results this year, most notably due to higher ticket prices offered in all markets.

At Citi Field, the group’s ticket prices at concerts in each of the first four years were priced from $45 to $150. Then, on last year’s tour, the top price rose to $174.50, yet the 2022 ticket scale at the Queens ballpark begins at $51 and tops out just over $200 with VIP packages running considerably higher than that.

That appears to be the trend throughout the summer. At Folsom Field in Boulder, Colo., the first of two football stadiums on the trek, the top price was $119.50 during the band’s first summer tour but rose to $139.50 in 2017 and ultimately $150.50 in July of last year. This year’s ticket scale, though, stretches from $97.95 to $197 for the stadium’s two shows, June 17-18. Likewise, Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass., the second football venue on the trek, features ticket prices in the upper $200s, while the high ticket reported for the concert there last year on June 22 was $150.

Vocalist/guitarist John Mayer also saw top tickets run as high as $236.50 (at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena, April 13) on his “Sob Rock” solo tour earlier this year that included 32 sold-out concerts at 23 North American arenas. Produced by Live Nation, his tour racked up a box-office haul of nearly $52 million from 382,800 sold tickets. s