Pollstar Live! 2026: Reconfiguring the Global Touring Equation

The international business took center stage at Pollstar Live! 2026, when a panel of promoters, venue operators, and agents from across the world joined on stage to examine the global touring market, with special emphasis on UK/Euro, India, and the Middle East.

Hosted by Gary Hutchinson (Oak View Group International), the panel featured Laura Chiplin (Tottenham Hotspur Stadium), Tony Goldring (CAA), Ashish Hemrajani (BookMyShow), Simon Jones (AEG Presents) and Austin Sarich (Live Nation).

Sarich set the tone by talking about the “exponential growth” of artists across genres, from all part of the world, playing markets they never have before, citing recent tours by Bad Bunny, and Shakira as prominent examples. Shakira, for instance, brought her “Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran World Tour” to Mexico, where she ended up playing some 30 dates in total, visiting cities that aren’t usually part of a major tour, like Chihuahua or Hermosillo, but also played 14 nights at Estadio GNP Seguros in Mexico City, breaking all kinds of records.

Goldring, who said he’s settling in well at CAA, said there were more opportunities for artists than ever before, citing Pitbull’s stadium success in markets like Lithuania, Latvia and Poland as examples, but also more challenges than ever before.

Jones talked about “the growth of developing markets, Asia in particular,” which he said was “a real focus.” The expansion of Country across Europe has also created tremendous opportunities to tour artists in new markets.

He said promoters often explain the importance to management and agents about going into these developing markets, where there was much value to be found.

Hemrajani summed up the state of play in India, where recent milestones include the largest ticketed stadium shows in history, Coldplay’s two nights at Ahmedabad’s Narendra Modi Stadium, Jan 25-26, 2025, where the band moved more than 111,000 tickets per show; and Ed Sheeran’s run across eight cities, marking the first full tour leg by an international artist coming through India.

Lollapalooza welcomed some 72,000 people at its fourth edition, Jan 24-25, headlined by Linkin Park and Palyboi Carti. Coupled with the many international artists BookMyShow has promoted throughout 2025 and 2026, it’s clear that India is a real market, one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, driven by a very young demographic that’s grown up listening to the global sound on Spotify, YouTube, Instagram, which are all available and popular in the country.

“India is a real market, it’s not an exotic market anymore,” said Hemrajani, adding that the remaining challenge concerned routing due to India’s seasonality. Its weather patterns work well with Middle East and South-East Asia, with multiple flights between multiple cities between those countries, but not well with the European open-air season.

The way around that is indoor venues, which will open up the market all year round. Hemrajani explained that India had 20-plus cities with a population of more than 5 million, with the top 10 cities populated by more than 8 million people. A built-our venue infrastructure could turn it into a “residency market”.

Jones and Hemrajani have worked on many a show over the past decade, and in Jones’ experience, “the development of the country has been dramatic, the middle class especially emerged over 10 years that wouldn’t have been able to afford a ticket when I first worked in India. In another ten years, it could well be one of the biggest markets in the world.”

And he summed it up, “if you have a deep connection with the artist and their teams, you can really launch tours successfully.”

Chiplin talked about the stadium play, saying that non-football major events were a real focus at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, which recently increased its event license from 16 to 30 non-football events.

“We have the world’s first dividing retractable pitch. Venues in London and areas that are built-up, and especially football clubs, that want to use their venues 365 need to get creative about the design,” she explained, adding that making the stadium a 365 destination had been part of the design plans.

The stadium’s design, especially the quick removal of the entire pitch, means the team can be flexible and maximize the summer window, and host shows from right at the end of May up to the beginning of August. But there’s also more opportunities mid-season, simply because the pitch on which the “beautiful game” is played, as the British refer to it, is left undamaged during all non-football events.

Goldring said the fact that availability is more flexible at Tottenham Stadium “does help.” It allowed artists to perform two nights at Tottenham instead of just one at Wembley.

Jones said, Tottenham Stadium “completely revitalized the stadium scene in London,” adding that the 45,000/50,000-capacity range really added something to the market it was lacking. It was comfortable to get to for both fans as well as the artist, everybody was looking forward to doing shows there.

He added that more stadiums across Europe with a roof could “completely transform the touring market” in that region.

Both Hemrajani and Jones warned about the practice of some governments waving huge one-off checks in front of an artist to entice them to come, even when they may not be ready yet.

Jones said, “it takes strong agents and managers to make the decision on behalf of their artists to say no to those things. There’ll be cash bounded around that may not be appropriate for that artist’s level. Ed has taken the right steps every step along the way. Many people have thrown a lot of money at him, but there’s a great agent and manager in place.”

Sheeran properly built his Indian profile, as Hemrajani explained, “the first time we did a show 8 or 10 years ago was 12,000 capacity, $25 ticket price. He comes back into the market and does 12,000-capacity in another venue with $70 ticket price. He comes back a year later, and does 55,000 people in the round, $130 ticket price. And then he comes back and does between 15,000 to 20,000 and 40,000 capacities in eight cities. The music video for ‘Sapphire’ was born on this run. He did a collab with Diljit, which led to Diljit playing Coachella. He’s understood the market, he’s smart.”

The current situation in the Middle East was also touched on. Hutchinson said, shows were being moved from April and May through to September. The F1 in Abu Dhabi was currently going ahead in December, but there was an obvious sensitivity around confirming artists to play the market.

Goldring said that the main thing was planning. “When you’re planning global tours, it’s very difficult to know when you can go to the Middle East.” He said other markets have been affected by what’s happening.

The money was also a consideration, because, generally, artists get paid higher fees in the region, which helps finance expensive global tours. He recalled one sitation, where an artists wanted to visit Australia after their Dubai show. But because the latter is not happening, Australia suddenly made no more financial sense.

Austin talked about Shakira, who had to postpone a planned extensive run across the Middle East, including Jordan, Egypt, Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia. He, too, couldn’t say for sure yet if those plans would go ahead in full, or in part.

Hutchinson summed it up, “hopefully, for everyone, things settle down, and we get back to business in the Middle East and wider region as soon as possible.”

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