Pollstar 2024 Q3 Business Analysis: Cautious Optimism As Quarterly Box-Office Totals Reveal YOY Growth

Pollstar’s 2024 Mid-Year issue chronicled something of a mixed bag in the live business with both growth and contraction in the market based on the Top 100 Touring Artists data. This included significant lower average attendance at mid-year (-14.9%) offset by higher average ticket prices (+9.4%) and an increase in show volume (+16.7%), which resulted in overall grosses hitting a record-setting $3.07 billion, up year-over-year by 8.7%.

The news for Q3 is more positive with YoY  increases by nearly every metric, according to Pollstar Boxoffice reports submitted for tours that occurred between Nov. 16, 2023 and Aug. 14, 2024 (see charts here). Unlike Q2, this recap reflects increases for both grosses and overall tickets sold along with higher average ticket price and volume of shows.

Q3 growth, to some degree, stands to reason as the chart period running from mid-May to mid-August are traditionally warmer months in the Northern Hemisphere when touring and ticket sales are at their peak and amphitheaters are fully operational. That bump is reflected in this quarter’s survey.

At the end of Q3 2024, the total worldwide grosses for the Top 100 Touring Artists hit a record-setting $5.68 billion representing an increase year-over-year of 14.1%, while the number of tickets sold during the same timeframe is 44.9 million, a more modest jump of 2.6%. Additionally, the volume of shows for the Top 100 Touring Artists increased by 6.8% in contrast to the 2023’s Q3 totals. Show gross averages hit $1.87 million per show, a 6.8% increase over last year’s $1.75 million average. Meanwhile, ticket sales averages dropped a more modest 3.9% YoY to 14,766 from 2023’s 15,365-ticket average.

More significant was this quarter’s increase in average ticket prices which hit an all-time high of $126.55, marking an 11.2% hike compared to Q3 2023’s average ticket price of $113.85. It is also a continuation of an upward trajectory seen in the past five years, which included a $102.21 average price in 2022, the year it first topped $100. Earlier in 2019, the last full year prior to the pandemic shutdown, the average ticket price at Q3 was $96.17 and, in 2018, $85.03.

While most of this quarter’s data points are positive, there is reason for cautious optimism. The nearly 4% drop in ticket sales YoY is concerning, but it’s trending in the right direction coming off last quarter’s almost 15% decrease. Also concerning this year were myriad reports indicating a softer live market for both festivals and tours with a number of high-profile cancellations for a variety of reasons – but which more often than not boiled down to softer ticket sales. Some smaller venues and touring acts, too, faced economic hardship, finding it more difficult this year to make ends meet with such negative factors as increased prices, lower demand and weather maladies.

Still, the fact that the top of the industry saw significant growth in revenue, overall ticket sales and average ticket prices with strong consumer demand for live events bodes well for other segments of the market going forward.

Note: The Q3 charts and analysis are based solely on reported box-office data from live events that occurred during the nine-month third quarter timeframe and exclude any estimates of unreported ticket sales.

The 2024 Top 100 Touring Artists survey represents a cross-section of artists, new and veteran, along with a multitude of genres including pop, Latin, rock, country, hip-hop, R&B, K-pop, comedy and more.

Leading the pack for Q3 is veteran rock band Coldplay with a 34-show gross of $237.4 million from 1,881,411 sold tickets on the group’s massive “Music of the Spheres World Tour.” The box-office totals for this recap come from performances in Australia and Malaysia at the end of 2023 followed by treks through countries in Asia and Europe in 2024.

The tour, which completed its latest European leg on Sept. 2 in Dublin, Ireland, will next head Down Under with stadium dates planned for Melbourne and Sydney, Australia and Auckland, New Zealand through mid-November. A recently announced extension into 2025 will take the band to the United Arab Emirates, India, Hong Kong and South Korea in the first half of next year followed by the UK with shows in Hull and London next August.

The “Music of the Spheres World Tour,” the highest grossing rock tour of all time, has surpassed the $1 billion threshold for a single tour with a $1.06 billion cumulative gross from 164 performances reported since its March 2022 launch. More than 9.6 million tickets have been sold so far on the tour.

Luis Miguel follows with the second-highest gross, $222.9 million based on 1.62 million sold tickets at 94 performances during the veteran Mexican singer’s 2023-24 world tour that began in August 2023 and is scheduled to wrap in late November. He is one of three Latin artists in the Top 10 that have impacted the charts throughout the year (a fourth, Aventura, sits just outside the Top 10 at No. 11).

Bad Bunny, who is next on the chart at No. 3, grossed $210.9 million from his “Most Wanted Tour” booked in North American arenas during the first half of 2024. His tour featured 49 performances and drew 753,287 fans during its 16-week run. Colombian singer Karol G also hits the Top 10 at No. 6 with a $172.1 million gross from her “Mañana Será Bonito Tour” that moved 1.57 million tickets at 48 shows during the first three quarters of the year.

Music legends Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band and Madonna fill in the top five on the chart with The Boss scoring the No. 4 slot based on a $201.5 million haul from 1.38 million tickets sold at 33 concerts during his ongoing world tour booked through July 2025. Madonna’s appearance at No. 5 features a gross of $178.8 million from 63 performances on “The Celebration Tour” that wrapped on May 4 with a free concert on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and a record-setting crowd of 1.6 million fans.

Rounding out the Top 10 are country stadium headliner Luke Combs at No. 7 with $165 million gross from 25 concerts, followed by U2 and Dead & Company at Nos. 8 and 9, respectively, both with grosses from concert residencies at Sphere in Las Vegas. U2’s $134.7 million take comes from 23 performances during the Q3 time frame, while Dead & Company racked up $131.4 million at 30 shows. Then, Bruno Mars is tenth on the chart with $130.8 million from his Las Vegas concert residency as well as stadium events around the globe.

Interestingly, 2024’s grosses this year are more spread throughout the Top 100 than 2023, which had more blockbuster tours at the top of the chart. For Q3, every 25-position segment of the Top 100 Artists showed an increase in the cumulative gross for all 25 performers. The only group which showed a dip in both gross and tickets sold compared to the same number of touring headliners in 2023 were grosses from the Top 10 touring artists which totaled $1.79 billion, 9.4% less than last year’s Top 10. Also, the sold-ticket total dropped 24.7% in the Top 10 compared to 2023.

While this year’s Top 10 is an impressive list of road warriors, the highest-grossing headliner, Coldplay, grossed $237.4 million which is less than 2023’s top-grossing artist, Beyoncé, with $390.2 million in the tour coffers at Q3 (Taylor Swift’s estimated grosses were not included for this quarter). In fact, the top five touring artists in 2024, Coldplay, Luis Miguel, Bad Bunny, Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band and Madonna, all had smaller grosses than the top five one year ago. Beginning with the No. 6-ranked artist, Karol G, and throughout the remainder of 2024’s Top 100 Touring Artists, however, all had higher grosses than artists with the same rankings in 2023, which indicates revenues this year are more spread out across the survey than in previous years.