Un Año Historico: CMN CEO Henry Cárdenas On A Record Year & Mexico’s Influence In Live

Though three months remain, promoter Henry Cárdenas wasn’t afraid to call it: 2024 is the year of his storied career.

Of course, one can point to earth-shattering news of AEG Presents purchasing a stake in Cárdenas Marketing Network and say that’s the biggest reason, but the Colombian promoter based in Chicago has plenty more reasons.

The CMN-promoted Luis Miguel tour is in its second year and has surpassed $336 million in grosses, making it Cárdenas’ most successful tour of his career, and he’s also got Aventura on the road with a $138.77 million haul so far. Pollstar caught up with Cárdenas to get his insight on the state of the Mexican markets, the growth of música Mexicana and Miguel’s impressive global run.

Pollstar: You’ve navigated all of Latin America throughout your career, including Mexico. What’s the market like there and how has it evolved over the years?

Henry Cárdenas: To me, it’s one market now: the United States and Mexico. Instead of just routing the U.S., we also route Mexico and Latin America. We changed drastically after the pandemic. We used to think about 20 dates in the United States, but we don’t think that anymore. We think Mexico and the U.S., and instead of just doing 20 dates, we’re going to do 40 to 50 dates. That’s the way business is going.

The surprise is that a lot of talent is born and raised in Mexico and also born and raised in the United States. You got the Junior H’s and all these guys coming into the U.S. but not to do a nightclub or to do jaripeos [Mexican rodeo shows] or small events. They come to do arenas and stadiums.

Mexico is critical [to the business]. Mexico is No. 2 behind the States. If you do a tour and you don’t have Mexico in the routing, you’re not going to get global tour numbers. There’s 120 million people in the country, and the economy is strong. You got everything in Mexico. They have to be part of the equation.

Mexico has been known to have three primary markets in Mexico City, Monterrey and Guadalajara. Do you feel like that is still the case, or are we seeing more cities emerge as viable markets?

Definitely. It’s not just three markets anymore. We just did eight shows of Aventura and 14 with Marc Anthony. We went to Puebla, Mérida, Veracruz, León and Mazatlan. We did the same thing with Luis Miguel. The shows were all over all over the country, including what I guess you can call secondary markets.

How has booking a show in Mexico changed over the past decade?

It’s less complicated as long as you select the right promoter. Mexico especially doesn’t have any problems with production. They got everything there. They have a ticketing system developed already. They have Ticketmaster working like we do in the United States.

How does the country compare to others in Latin America?

The demographic in Mexico is about 120 million or 130 million now. So it’s easy for us to go to Mérida and work in a baseball stadium. If you go to a small city in Colombia like Cali, it’s only 3 million people in the city, so you cannot do a stadium.

Mexico is different because there are a lot of soccer stadiums and a lot of baseball stadiums. That’s not the case in Colombia or Ecuador, where it’s hard to find a baseball diamond. Structurally, Mexico has an advantage, and I know that if you go down to Brazil or Colombia, there are soccer stadiums, but soccer is the main event. It can be difficult to get a weekend date because league games are going on.

You work with so many different types of artists spanning multiple generations. What is that Mexico offers, culturally and musically, that makes it so appealing and gives it lasting power in the industry?

The last three years, it’s been all about the corridos tumbados, but all music is crossing boundaries. You have a guy like Carin León going to Puerto Rico and doing two Coliseo shows. Christian Nodal had three Coliseo shows, so there’s crossover. If you go back seven years ago, it was very hard to get a Mexican act to go to Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.

The expansion of regional Mexican, or if you want to call it corridos, has been huge. In Colombia, we did a la Feria de las Flores (Flower Festival) en Medellín in August. One of the headliners was Xavi. I never thought a 19-year-old [Mexican American] would be a headliner in Medellin, [which usually features] vallenato and cumbia and salsa. Carin León went to Colombia and Christian Nodal was there too. So the storyline is that there’s crossover within the Latin market, which didn’t happen about seven years ago.

Congratulations on the Luis Miguel tour, by the way. What has his record-breaking run meant to you, and how has it been working with the Latin music superstar?

It’s been great. We finish in November, and we’ll [wrap up] with 200 concerts in two years. No one has ever seen that before. When you see the Bad Bunnys, Daddy Yankees and Aventuras of the world, you get about 100 shows, but not 200. Plus the [average ticket price] is very high, so it’s amazing. He’s in the best stage of his life, and I hope we can bring him back in a couple more years.