Chart Scene: Ed Sheeran No. 1 On Artist Power Index For 2023

The top musical entertainer on Pollstar’s year-end Artist Power Index for 2023 is Ed Sheeran who lands among the highest-ranked artists in all four metrics that determine chart placement. He ranks within the top 10 in the Live, Streaming, Airplay and Social categories and is the only artist among any of the top 50 performers on the year-end chart to do so.

He appeared on the weekly APX chart in every issue during 2023, beginning Jan. 9 through Nov. 20, which was the final chart included in eligibility for the year-end recap. He maintained the No. 1 position on the chart in six issues early in the year while he was on the road with his “Mathematics” stadium tour in Australia and New Zealand. He held the top ranking until the March 27 issue when Taylor Swift jumped to No. 1 following the launch of her “Eras Tour.”

Although Swift maintained a tight hold on No. 1 consistently until she completed the North American leg of the tour in Mexico City at the end of August, Sheeran was typically ranked second throughout most of the summer months during his “Mathematics” tour’s North American leg.

The tour has fueled Sheeran’s continued presence on the Artist Power Index since the beginning of February when it resumed for the year at Wellington, New Zealand’s Sky Stadium. Since that performance, his tour grosses totaled $268.1 million from 54 shows in 2023 to score the seventh ranking on the Top 200 Worldwide Tours chart in this year-end review.

Swift’s run at No. 1 that began on March 27 continued in 26 consecutive issues through Sept. 25, ending when she dropped off the chart the first week of October after her tour went on hiatus. Then, after beginning the tour’s second leg at Estadio Más Monumental in Buenos Aires in early November, she returned to No. 1 in the Nov. 20 issue. Swift ended her year in Brazil with a three-show run at São Paulo’s Allianz Parque, but she returns to the road in February 2024.

Along with Sheeran and Swift, five other artists ranked No. 1 on APX in 2023. Bad Bunny topped the chart on Jan. 9, followed by Harry Styles who was No. 1 the next week. Then, Bruno Mars had the top ranking for two weeks beginning Jan. 23 before Sheeran took the reins on Feb. 6. October began with Drake in the top position for two weeks, while The Weeknd took No. 1 beginning on Oct. 16. Then he remained there for five weeks until Swift’s return.

The Artist Power Index ranks the current global popularity of musical artists based on four distinct metrics – ticket sales data reported to Pollstar along with market activity for live concerts, streaming audience and social activity monitored by Chartmetric and airplay audience data from Mediabase. Each week, the chart is created using the streaming, social and airplay results from the most recent seven-day period and live concert activity during the past 30 days.

Performers with a “DNP” notation in the Live Rank column indicate those who did not play, were not on tour in 2023 and had no box-office data reported from a headlining concert performance during the eligibility period for the chart.

For this 2023 recap, the final year-end Top 50 were determined by various factors including a sum of the artist’s weekly rankings throughout the year, beginning with the first published chart in January through the end of Pollstar’s chart year on Nov. 15