Sheeran & Strait Stadium Shows Earn Top Rankings On LIVE75

LIVE75 has a change at No. 1 this week as Ed Sheeran moves up one position to take the top spot with a sold-ticket average of 65,633 from eight shows at seven venues on his “Mathematics” stadium tour. Included were two performances at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, that moved 173,391 tickets, June 10-11, for a gross of $18 million. It was his first two-show engagement on the North American leg of the tour that kicked off in early May.

His attendance at the New York-area stadium is the second-highest recorded this year on the tour. The best-attended venue in 2023 was the Cricket Ground in Melbourne, Australia, where Sheeran sold a total of 210,857 tickets at two concerts in March. The two venues also have the highest attendance recorded among all the two-show engagements on the tour since it began in April 2022.

Sheeran last held the No. 1 ranking on LIVE75 for two consecutive weeks earlier this year in the April 10 and 17 issues. In 2022, though, he topped the chart for 13 weeks while on the road in Europe.

Stadium concerts also earn George Strait a rare appearance on LIVE75, his first ranking on the chart since before the pandemic when he held No. 1 for two weeks in January 2020. This week he enters the chart at No. 2 as the “Hot Shot” artist with the highest-ranked debut of the week. He is also the “Heavy Hitter” with the chart’s largest gross average, a massive $13.15 million per-show total based on three performances in American cities.

First, he played the Phoenix market with a sellout at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, earning $16.3 million from 57,843 sold seats on May 6. Then, he headlined the “Buckeye Country Superfest” held at Ohio Stadium in Columbus with attendance recorded at 63,891. The May 27 performance, also a sellout, featured Chris Stapleton, Little Big Town and Warren Zeiders on the bill and grossed over $11.3 million. Most recently, Strait topped $11.8 million in sales from 46,641 sold tickets at Milwaukee’s American Family Field on
June 3.

On the Artist Power Index, Taylor Swift and Sheeran make it five weeks in a row ranked first and second, respectively, based on recent stadium performances as well as top-10 showings in both the Streaming and Airplay categories. Then, The Weeknd, who entered the chart at No. 5 last week, jumps two slots to take No. 3 on the strength of high ranks in all four chart metrics including the top score in Streaming and the third highest in Airplay. His Live rank is the 22nd highest, and he is 34th in Social.

The only debut on the Artist Power Index belongs to Mexican singer-songwriter and rapper Peso Pluma, who lands at No. 15 on the chart. The Guadalajara native earns the ranking based on three concert performances that launched his “Doble P” tour, currently playing U.S. arenas, theaters and outdoor amphitheaters.

The Live Nation-produced trek was first announced in March as a 17-show summer run beginning in July but was expanded to a 31-city schedule in May. The tour, his first stateside, began in Seattle at the WaMu Theater at Lumen Field on June 8 and will stretch over four months before wrapping in late October.

Along with the Seattle opener, his shows at the RV Inn Style Resorts Amphitheater in Ridgefield, Washington on June 9 and Salt Lake City’s Vivint Arena two days later both land in the eligibility period for this week’s chart.

LIVE75’s “Noisemaker” with the best movement up the chart in one week is Michael Bublé who jumps five positions to No. 17. He averaged 8,471 tickets from seven concerts at the last three venues on the European leg of his “Higher” tour and two of the first three in Oceania.

The tour supporting his 11th studio album that was released in March of last year, grossed $42 million in North and South America in 2022. Attendance totaled 406,623 at 40 concerts reported at venues on both continents.