Chart Scene: Drake Moves Up To No. 1 On Artist Power Index

Drake moves up one position to take the No. 1 ranking on the Artist Power Index based largely on strong showings in the Streaming category where he has the second highest score and his Live rank which is the fourth highest of the week. A total of 16 arena performances on his “It’s All a Blur” tour land in the month-long period for chart eligibility to give him a boost to the top.

His ongoing North American tour with 21 Savage launched on July 5 in Chicago has been averaging about $4.4 million in grosses per show so far, according to box-office figures reported at 11 venues on the trek. And his sold-ticket average comes to about 16,700 per night.

Drake’s ranking this week is fueled by two-show engagements at arenas in Vancouver, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Austin, Dallas, Houston, Charlotte and Atlanta. Prior to his move to No. 1, he appeared at the No. 2 chart position behind Taylor Swift in the past three issues which followed a four-week stint at No. 3.

Swift drops from No. 1 this week after dominating the top spot on the Artist Power Index since debuting in the March 27 issue with the launch of her “Eras” world tour. With the final performance of her North American leg on Aug. 27 in Mexico City and no concerts scheduled until Nov. 9 when she kicks off a final 2023 trek through Argentina and Brazil, she had no shows that occurred during the past four weeks to earn a Live rank on the chart. Even with the top scores in Airplay and Social and the third-highest Streaming rank, she falls out of the top 50 without any concerts occurring during the past month’s eligibility time frame.

Ed Sheeran holds No. 1 on LIVE75 for a fourth consecutive week following box-office reporting from six of the final seven concerts on his year-and-a-half long “Mathematics” world tour that is set to wrap Oct. 28 in Las Vegas. His sold-out stadium shows in the Minneapolis, Denver, Seattle, Vancouver, San Francisco and Los Angeles markets produced a ticket tally of 455,571 for a per-show average of 75,928 to retain the top ranking.

Since launching in April of last year, stadium grosses from the tour land just under $500 million from 87 performances at venues in Europe, North America and Oceania. Reported box-office figures show the number of sold tickets currently tops 5.3 million.

Debuting at No. 4 on LIVE75 with the “Hot Shot” classification is Lana Del Rey who enters the rankings based on a 41,284-ticket average from two recent stadium performances in Mexico City in August, along with a sold-out amphitheater event in Huntsville, Alabama in September. The Mexican stadium shows, held Aug. 15-16 at Foro Sol, drew a total of 116,723 fans and racked up over $9.6 million at the box office.

Following her appearance in Mexico, she kicked off a string of U.S. dates set primarily in amphitheaters, beginning with a stop in Tennessee on Sept. 14. The Huntsville performance at Orion Amphitheater on the 21st was the fourth venue on the brief trek that wraps on Oct. 5 in West Virginia. On the 1st of October, she is set to headline the second day of the “All Things Go Music Festival” to be held at Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland.

Seven performers on the Artist Power Index make their first appearance during the most recent quarter of the year. Rauw Alejandro is ranked highest among them in the No. 20 position. He charts based on three European events on his “Saturno” world tour – shows at Accor Arena in Paris, Rotterdam Ahoy in the Netherlands and Madrid’s WiZink Center where he sold 14,431 tickets on Sept. 10 for a $1.48 million gross.