Letter From The Editor

Welcome to Pollstar’s 2024 Year End Issue, our largest ever. It was yet another whirlwind year for the live industry in what has been a wildly dynamic five years in which our business experienced the highest highs and lowest lows. This year, for the first time in that time span, the industry experienced something it hadn’t seen in a long while: stability. Instead of the massive growth we’ve become accustomed to post-pandemic, the market stayed steady. Though the total gross of this year’s Top 100 Worldwide Tours Chart still set a new record, the growth wasn’t as dramatic as the last three years, which Pollstar termed the “The Golden Age of Live.”

It was an apt moniker. Looking at data from 2019, the last full year of touring before the pandemic shutdown, to today, the industry’s total revenues for the Top 100 Worldwide Tours grew by a mind-boggling 71 percent. That level of astronomical growth year-over-year-over-year led to a metaphor said repeatedly throughout the industry in 2022 and 2023: “It’s like drinking from a firehose.” We hear it less now because it’s become the status quo. It means this industry has sustained this torrid pace while retaining its massively increased value. If your work seems like it hasn’t slowed down one iota since 2022, it’s because it hasn’t.

Also this year, we saw history being made. The two biggest tours of all time were out simultaneously: Taylor Swift’s juggernaut “The Eras Tour” grossed an estimated $2.2 billion, an all-time record; and Coldplay, Pollstar Year End cover artists, whose “Music Of The Spheres World Tour” played before more fans than any tour ever in history selling an astronomical 10.3 million tickets. At the same time, the run’s $1.3 billion gross is the second highest of all-time and tour still has 48 more dates on the books for next year – stay tuned.

While there were markedly more tour and festival cancellations this year for a variety of reasons, there were far more that went off without a hitch. And there were more shows reported this year with an increase of 5.7%

2024 was also a year of rampant innovation and entrepreneurship helping push this industry forward. Witness the massive pop-up successes of Kendrick Lamar’s “The Pop Out Ken & Friends” Juneteenth show at the Kia Forum and Skrillex & Fred Again.. turning up at San Francisco’s City Hall Plaza and drawing 25,000.

The All Things Go festival expanded to two simultaneous fests 200 miles apart at Merriweather Post Pavilion outside D.C. and Forest Hills Stadium in NYC. Another Planet this year left up their main stage from Outside Lands and the following weekend hosted a rock festival with System of a Down, Deftones, The Mars Volta and others. This year too, Outside Lands hosted a City Hall celebrating the anniversary of same-sex marriage where fest attendees could host a wedding, propose to their partner or renew their vows. At Wilco’s Solid Sound Festival in North Adams, Mass., they had free book depots with banned books inside.

And let us not forget Madonna’s incredible tour. The trailblazing artist, went from canceling the first leg of her “Celebration Tour” following a near death experience in 2023, to one of the Top 10 tours of 2024. The run also included a grand finale which drew a record-setting 1.6 million fans to Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana Beach.

Innovations in venues were similarly something to behold. Steve Ballmer’s $2B Intuit Dome is a leading edge marvel with state-of-the-art technology, an amazing halo board, comfortable seating and airy design that’s set the bar for future buildings. Adele’s 80,000-capacity pop-up stadium in Munich, Germany is like nothing this business has ever before seen. Same with the Cosm’s immersive sports viewing experience. It’s innovation like these that are pushing this business ever forward.

I thank my lucky stars that this year I made it to a wide range of incredible music events. This included both large music festivals like Rolling Loud L.A., Outside Lands and Fools In Love as well as more boutique fests like Big Ears in Knoxville, Wilco’s Solid Sound in North Adams, MA and Out & About Festival at Wolf Trap – all were feasts of sonic riches. As were the stadium and arena shows by Green Day at SoFi, Olivia Rodrigo at Intuit Dome, Dead & Co at Sphere and ELO at The Kia Forum. These were a different, but no less qualitative, experiences than the smaller shows by Mitski at Brooklyn Kings Theater, the legendary Mulatu Astatke at The Howard Theater in D.C., Moodymann at The Broad Museum in L.A., Kraftwerk at Disney Hall and, just last weekend, TV On The Radio at L.A.’s El Rey. And I can’t leave out the joy of seeing Brad Paisley, Vince Gill and a newcomer Shaylen at the music temple that is Grand Ole Opry and the next night seeing hip-hop legend Doug. E Fresh at Nashville’s Brooklyn Bowl during this year’s IEBA.

While the growth in this industry may be slowing, the surfeit of incredible live music experiences hasn’t slowed a millisecond and neither has the innovation and creativity. Here then to all of 2024’s show makers, what all of you do is nothing less than create peak life experiences, stronger community, improve people’s lives and ultimately make this world a better place to live. Here’s to far more of that in the years ahead.

With gratitude and respect,

Andy
Pollstar Editor-In-Chief