2024 Impact 50 Honoree: Arthur Fogel

PRESIDENT, GLOBAL TOURING + CHAIRMAN, CONCERTS
Live Nation

YEARS IN THE BUSINESS: 42
FIRST JOB IN THE BIZ: Tour Manager, Martha And The Muffins

Don’t get it twisted: Arthur Fogel could land on Impact 50 every year regardless of the specific accomplishments of a 12-month window. He is the man once called “clearly the most important person in the live music world” by Bono, who is no slouch on the matter, in the 2013 documentary “Who The F**k Is Arthur Fogel?” which screened at film festivals before Fogel even had a Wikipedia page.

Unknown though he may have been outside the industry, Fogel had, by then, already long since established himself as a formidable force within it, starting with the Rolling Stones’ “Steel Wheels” tour in 1989 and continuing with tours by David Bowie and Lady Gaga and everything in between.

But Fogel won’t rest on those laurels. Live Nation’s president of global touring and chairman of concerts promoted two of the most, yes, impactful tours of the past two years. Beyoncé’s “Renaissance World Tour” racked up a prodigious $579.8 million on nearly 2.8 million tickets over 56 performances and is now the eighth-highest grossing tour of all time. Madonna’s “Celebration” tour was just that: a full-blown reverie of the Material Girl’s 40 years of world-altering stardom, capped by a show that drew a staggering and record-setting 1.6 million people to Rio’s Copacabana Beach. 

“It was an incredible experience and pretty flawless pulling it off in the end. It wasn’t easy to get there, as you can imagine, there was a lot to deal with …” he told Pollstar in May. “The navy was even there protecting the beach. Seriously, there were Navy destroyers just a few hundred yards off the beach controlling the boat action and access.”

In addition to Queen Bey and the Brazilian Navy, Fogel also promoted U2’s shows at Sphere. And Peter Gabriel’s run. Sting’s too.

He won Promoter of the Year at February’s Pollstar Awards and received the The Elizabeth Taylor Commitment to End AIDS Award from the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation. And there’s always more from Fogel. Coming up in 2024: he’s got Justin Timberlake, Sting in Europe and long-awaited loops from Neil Young and Usher.