2024 Concert Market Rankings: No. 4 Chicago

Go! Chicago! Go!
The Midwest’s Crown Jewel

Reported Market Gross  |  $367,388,152
Reported Ticket Sales  | 4,010,328
Average Ticket Price |  $91.61

Chicago is known for its culinary offerings, from deep-dish pizza to its stylized hot dogs. There’s lots of music to go with the eats, with the city claiming bragging rights as the birthplace of house, urban blues and modern jazz.

“Chicago’s music scene is impossible to encapsulate beyond the feeling that anything could happen and the next surprising sound is most likely being made around the corner by someone you’ve never heard of (yet),” says Andrea Troolin, the founder of Ekonomisk Mgmt, a full-service artist management firm with offices in Chicago and New York that has a roster including Andrew Bird, Evann McIntosh and Tift Merritt.

“We have small and vibrant venues like The Hideout, Schuba’s, and the Green Mill, where emerging artists can hone their craft,” she adds. “We have glorious mid-size venues that provide intimate and deluxe experiences centered on music, with style but few distracting frills, like Constellation, The Vic, Metro and Thalia Hall. The rebellious spirit of the city comes out in its sounds; listen closely and you can hear them.”

After starting off at No. 5 on Pollstar’s inaugural Concert Market Rankings, published in 2021, Chicago has been holding steady at No. 4 for the past two years. The reported gross is $367,388,152 – a 24.25% increase from last year, based on 1,383 reports submitted to Pollstar Boxoffice. Ticket sales increased 21.85%, while the average ticket price increased a modest 2%.

Soldier Field hosted some of the Windy City’s highest-grossing concerts of the year, including two Beyoncé shows that grossed $30.1 million. The venue ranked No. 13 on Pollstar’s Top 100 Stadiums chart with a gross of $53,912,921.

“Chicago could not have been more excited to welcome the biggest names in music this past summer,” Tim LeFevour, GM at Soldier Field, says. “Soldier Field set some high bars with tour merch sales records and attendance records. Ed Sheeran setting Soldier Field’s new attendance record with his impressive stage-in-the-round was a definite highlight and one that will be hard to beat. Beyoncé and Taylor Swift thrilled crowds for multiple sold-out shows with their incredible productions, their best hits and dance teams. These, along with Luke Combs and Karol G’s shows, provided lasting memories for people near and far to Chicago in one of the country’s most iconic venues.”

Rosemont, Illinois, located 22 miles from Chi-town, is home to a few venues that did big business in 2023, including Allstate Arena, which ranked No. 29 on Pollstar’s Top 200 Arenas chart with a gross of $65,098,202. Highlights from this year include three shows from SUGA in May that grossed a total of $8 million. The Rosemont Theatre ranked No. 27 on the Auditoriums/Theatres chart with a gross of $21.6 million.

“2023 was another record year for the Allstate Arena and the Rosemont Theatre,” Executive Director Patrick Nagle tells Pollstar. “Latin acts were the stars of both venues … several multiple sell outs and large gross sales (Banda MS, Los Temerarios, Ana Gabriel, Bronco, Ramon Ayala) … and K-pop was big too. SUGA led the way with three sold-out arena shows but there were many others with large grosses.

“WWE was its usual huge success with live shows and pay-per-views. Andrea Bocelli returned for another sell-out and several country acts led by the sold-out Old Dominion show helped put us in another record year at the Rosemont venues.”