Pollstar’s 2025 South America Focus Hub
Welcome to Pollstar’s second-ever South America Focus, highlighting the region’s growth, the building of new venues, and the stars elevating their nations. The special coverage features insight from the top promoters in South America (like Bizarro Entertainment, DG Medios, 30e) and venue executives discussing each country’s potential and the challenges that still exist in the continent.
To purchase a copy of the special Pollstar issue which featured Teddy Swims on the cover, visit the Pollstar store.
‘Significant Growth: Region Realizing Potential With New Markets Emerging’
There’s no stopping the música Latina train. The Recording Industry Association of America reported in its 2024 mid-year Latin music revenue report that it was already outpacing the first half of 2023 by 7% with $685 million in revenues, which is a record for the first six months. Also, just look at what Karol G did in Europe. The Colombian sold out every date in 2024, including an epic four-night run at Santiago Bernabéu Stadium in Madrid, Spain, that grossed $26.2 million, according to Pollstar Boxoffice reports, and she had the 11th highest-grossing tour of 2024.
A golden era is upon us on many fronts, not only for Latin music and live entertainment but also for the countries that produced stars like Karol G, Feid, Mon Laferte, LAGOS, Shakira, Maluma and J Balvin. South America’s potential is finally being realized with markets prospering in what is now a new normal for the live business, turning heads and earning the respect of the entire global industry.
Read more here.
Venues Prospering In Major Markets Opens Opportunities For New Arenas
With four South America-based companies ranked among the Top 40 in Pollstar’s 2024 Year End Worldwide Top 100 Promoter Tickets chart, one could never deny the region’s influence with major markets in Brazil, Chile and Colombia. Much like the artists they have produced over the years (it’s a lot), the live business has seen steady growth with companies establishing themselves as global leaders in the industry.
Those who know the biz rave about the fans and the opportunities for everyone involved, but the lack of infrastructure, even in major markets, limits its growth.
That “but” and the assessment that follows the conjunction has plagued South America for quite some time. It’s a fair judgment, but one that soon may not apply to the region.
Read more here.
C3’s Houston Powell On How Lolla Continues To Define South American Festival Scene
Major music festival lineups can find themselves criticized for having “cookie-cutter” lineups — largely the same in each city, thanks to artist availability and other factors. While Lollapalooza’s South American lineups share headliners, that’s by design and by necessity logistically, creating a mini-tour of sorts in a difficult-to-reach market. And hey, there’s nothing cookie-cutter about producing music festivals in South America.
“South America is always very difficult to pull off,” says C3 Presents’ Huston Powell, who is credited with much of the success of not only Chicago’s Lollapalooza but its expansion to South America, which started in 2011 in São Paulo and this year includes four shows on the continent over two weekends in March. “It’s a big geographical territory with limited markets. There are logistics complications with cargo and flights and having to do things very quickly. Just the actual logistics of pulling off our two weekends where we have simultaneous shows going on the first weekend in Chile and Argentina, and the second weekend in Bogotá in São Paulo, that requires a level of complication with us and the production teams and the cargo providers that we don’t deal with in Europe or the United States.”
Read more here.
Q’s With Daniel Hiller, CEO of BeLive Entertainment Group
Latin music artists aren’t the only ones elevating live entertainment and shattering records across the globe. The promoters who put on the first shows for Colombian superstars like Shakira and Karol G are also on the rise, putting countries like Chile and Argentina on the map and making artists from all genres consider South America when routing their tours.
One of those leading the charge in the region is Be Live Entertainment Group, a holding company that operates across multiple verticals. They own and operate Movistar Arenas in Santiago, Chile, and Bogotá, Colombia, as well as Bizarro Live, ranked No. 3 on Pollstar’s South America Focus Promoters chart. Be Live also owns ticketing platforms, a hospitality company and a foundation dedicated to promoting techno-creativity.
Read more here.
Bruno del Granado On The State & Global Influence of Latin Music
In a world of hyperbole and exaggeration, Bruno del Granado has done it all. Rising from CBS college rep through product management at Epic and Columbia Records in New York, the seasoned Latin music executive has served as a personal manager for Ricky Martin for over a decade, launched MTV in South America, established Maverick’s label and publishing interests in Latin America and has spent the last dozen years as CAA’s head of global touring for their Latin Music Division. An avid fan of music of all kinds, the passion he brings to helping artists forge meaning and develop long term inspired a desire to return to artist management “where it is about every aspect of what an artist is doing, putting those pieces together to create a career in the largest sense.”
With Latin acts Luis Miguel (No. 4), Bad Bunny (No. 7) and Karol G (No. 11) on Pollstar’s Year End Top Tour Artists chart, as well as burgeoning superstars Feid, Morat, Natiruts, the number of state-of-the-art arenas being built, a culture that loves going out and four of the world’s biggest concerts happening in Brazil, which del Granado addresses below, the time of a truly global impact for South America is upon us. Few are better situated to discuss the current emergence.
Read more here.
Latin music stars Karol G and Luis Miguel are the two highest-grossing artists among concert headliners who performed at venues in South America in 2024. They head up a slate of 50 artists representing multiple genres and nationalities, yet only 38% of them hail from South America. In the top 10, though, it is 50/50, with five headliners native to the continent and five more from elsewhere in the world.
Of the 50 touring artists, 19 are from South America while other Latin American regions are home to six others – three from Mexico and three from Puerto Rico. Five of the South American performers come from Brazil, six are from Argentina and one is from Chile. Colombia is the homeland for seven on the chart, with three of those landing in the top 10. And Medellín, Colombia’s Karol G heads up that list at No. 1.
Read more here.
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