Everything, Everywhere All At Once: Pollstar Live’s An Exquisitely Timed Think Tank, Great Hang & Societal Barometer

Another whirlwind year, with the news of the day directly impacting the live business: war; record-setting gas prices; trade barriers; visa and travel restrictions; security threats; AI disruption; civil unrest; federal policies against sustainability and DEI; the Epstein files somehow upending the music agency business; and, not least, an antitrust trial that could profoundly change this industry as we know it. It’s a lot—and we’re only three-and-a-half months into the year.

This is par for the live-industry course. The world spins, seemingly faster every year, churning out breaking news that all too often touches this business. Because the live business, much like the 2023 Oscar-winning Best Picture, “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” is everywhere, everything, all at once—and it’s a good bet that when a conflagration erupts, it will somehow connect to live.

This is exactly why, for this industry, Pollstar Live!—the world’s largest gathering of live industry professionals—is indispensable, especially now. Helping this industry navigate choppy waters, whether in boom years or fallow, amid positive or negative disruptions, man-made crises or natural disasters, is our annual gathering of the live business’s best and brightest. It is a think tank, onstage and off: panelist or attendee, we are all chewing on the latest developments, taking in information, processing data, devising strategies, and determining the best course of action for our businesses.

Look no further than this year’s excellently curated panels—praise be to Ray Waddell for his programming prowess and unconventional wisdom—which offer some of the most pertinent and topical discussions shaping today’s industry: “Reconfiguring the Global Touring Equation”; “Big Tech to Box Office: AI’s Next Chapter in Live”; “Breaking New Artists”; “The Power of Female Fandom”; “You May Have to Scale This Back: Production Budgeting”; “So 2026 Is Booked—What Does 2027 Look Like?”; “The State of Independents”; “Whose Responsibility Is Sustainability?”; “The Encore Economy: Converting Live Concerts Into Cinematic Events”; “How Artists Can Protect Fans in the Secondary Market”; “From Headliners to Fine Print: Putting the Festival Puzzle Together”; and “Power Players: When Flat Is Down, Up Is Awesome”—just a few of this year’s topics.

And let’s not forget this week’s Pollstar cover subject, KISS, which—with the help of Pophouse, producers of the wildly successful ABBA Voyage in London—is building a virtual show for Las Vegas. Here, founding members Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons (still the longest tongue in rock ‘n’ roll), and outspoken manager Doc McGhee will break down what could be the next era of live in a keynote.

PSL! is also just a great hang. Beyond every lunch, coffee break, after-party, networking session, and roundtable is the loud thrum of the hotel lobby and bar. We’re not a very shy bunch, and you can literally hear deals being made and strategic planning unfolding in real time while noshing and imbibing.

Worth noting, too, are the incredible Pollstar Live! artist keynotes and Pollstar Award honorees and presenters—a veritable hall of fame in itself— which over the years has included appearances from Prince, Elton John, Stevie Nicks, Eddie Vedder, Garth Brooks, Dave Grohl, George Clinton, Eagles, Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne, Bob Weir, Jelly Roll, Big Daddy Kane, Jon Bon Jovi, Ted Nugent, Linkin Park, Los Tigres del Norte, Missy Elliott, Doug E. Fresh, Sebastian Maniscalco, and Scott Stapp, among others.

For whatever reason, Pollstar Live’s timing is impeccable. 2026 will mark the fourth time in the tumultuous 2020s that this conference has arrived during a moment of major change, this time landing almost squarely on the razor’s edge of what could become a tectonic plate shift for our industry—or not (see Pollstar Now!)

As this page is being sent to the printer, closing arguments are being made before the Southern District of New York in the states’ antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation. The verdict could very well arrive during PSL. It is not yet clear what either a legal victory or defeat for Live Nation—the world’s largest promoter —will mean for the industry, especially considering the DOJ–Live Nation settlement is already in place. That said, there is no better place on Earth than Pollstar Live! to discuss and deconstruct the implications of the impending decision.

This is hardly the first time Pollstar Live! has unfolded amid major industry change. There was the infamous Concert Industry Consortium, Pollstar Live!’s precursor event, in February 1999, when Robert Sillerman, founder and CEO of SFX Entertainment—having just rolled up most of the country’s successful local concert promoters—gave that year’s keynote and assured the crowd he would not sell his assets. The following year, Sillerman sold SFX to Clear Channel for $4.4 billion, which eventually became Live Nation.

Then came the Great Recession of 2008, which produced a two-year lull in the live business. Then the Live Nation–Ticketmaster merger in 2010, which required federal hearings, legal challenges, and a consent decree. And in the turbulent 2020s, marked by a pandemic shutdown of all live events worldwide, Pollstar Live!, much to our credit, did not miss a year despite near impossible odds. In those years, the conference became more than an industry confab—it became something of a life raft.

February 2020’s PSL! got in just under the wire before the March COVID shutdown that eviscerated our industry. There were informal discussions then about a looming pandemic that still seemed remote. Yet the relationships built, nurtured, and maintained at PSL and throughout this industry undoubtedly helped many deal with a disastrous pandemic and get to the other side.

It felt like divine intervention on June 14, 2021, when Pollstar Live! kicked off. That date, chosen arbitrarily, turned out to be the exact day Los Angeles County reopened for business and dropped all social-distancing mandates. After more than a year without live events and much human contact, that conference felt like a warm, exuberant embrace. The industry had spent the previous 16 months figuring out how to survive: booking, canceling, and rebooking tours; experimenting with livestreams and drive-in concerts; pivoting to manufacturing PPE and delivering produce to food banks amid supply-chain failures. In profound ways, that year’s conference showcased the best of the live industry—its grit, resolve, and ingenuity in finding ways to carry on while helping others and planning for a different future.

That year also came just after NIVA—the National Independent Venue Association, formed at the outbreak of the pandemic following SXSW’s cancellation—secured one of its greatest triumphs: $16.25 billion worth of government grants toward independent venues and related live businesses, the largest government arts grant in history. It was also one of the few bills to win major bipartisan support in deeply divided political times.

That victory for our industry, along with the post-pandemic boom that followed, was one of the few welcome byproducts of the pandemic. It was clearer than ever before that one of the few things society wholly agrees upon is the value of live. Not a day passed during COVID when Pollstar wasn’t asked when concerts would return. It was an immutable truth long understood by this industry and hardcore fans alike that the rest of the world came to fully appreciate: some of life’s greatest experiences happen on stages in front of you.

That collective realization helped fuel live’s explosive boom period from 2022 through 2024, which Pollstar aptly dubbed “The Great Return.” Record-setting grosses and ticket sales were driven by a confluence of factors: insatiable demand, a stadium boom, higher ticket prices, and more international touring than ever before. The industry worked tirelessly to keep pace, hiring and training new personnel, bridging supply-chain gaps, and making sure shows went on—which they did in record numbers. The Top 100 Worldwide Tours gross jumped 71%, from $5.54 billion in 2019—the last pre-pandemic year—to $9.5 billion in 2025. Ticket sales climbed 23%, from 57.7 million in 2019 to 71 million in 2023. Drinking from a fire hose became daily life.

But not for everyone. The Great Return did not lift every part of the live business equally. Many clubs and smaller venues continued to struggle under lower attendance, inflation, and diminished alcohol consumption.

Then came PSL! 2025, originally scheduled for February, when Los Angeles—the live music epicenter—was struck just weeks earlier by the most ferocious and destructive wildfire in this country’s history. Moving the conference to April allowed time for recovery, relief, and healing. That included FireAid, one of the most prominent and successful fire benefits among many supported by this industry’s time, money, and effort. Once again, those actions reflected the enormous generosity and communal spirit that define this business.

And if you are good enough—often now with marketing and promotion help from social media—you can take that talent directly to the marketplace and get immediate feedback and data: small clubs, all-ages shows, dances, lodges, event spaces, warm-up gigs, and early festival slots where young artists hone chops, forge mettle, and build audiences.

While plenty of Boomers and Gen X artists in their 50s, 60s, 70s, and even 80s remain firmly planted on the Top 100 Worldwide Tours chart, what is equally notable in recent years is the pipeline of young talent. It has expanded dramatically, with more media platforms supporting more artists than ever before. Witness the sheer number of artists under 25 breaking through at unprecedented scale: Sombr, Tate McRae, Benson Boone, Malcolm Todd, PinkPantheress, Rich Amiri, KATSEYE, Geese, Jessie Murph, Ella Langley, Ivan Cornejo, The Linda Lindas, and The Kid Laroi, among many others.

While opportunities and challenges abound, and plenty of dust has yet to settle (especially this coming week), one thing is certain: the live business is crucial to our world, and no matter the chatter, noise and shifting sands, this industry is remarkably resilient, resourceful, and determined and together will rise to the moment and make sure the shows go on.

Pollstar—and Pollstar Live!—is here to help.