This Week’s Top Tours: Kendrick Lamar and SZA Score Top 5 Appearances On Artist Power Index With ‘Grand National’ Tour Launch

With the launch of their 16-week “Grand National Tour,” co-headliners Kendrick Lamar and SZA both secure a ranking in the top five on the Artist Power Index, landing at Nos. 4 and 5, respectively. The global stadium tour’s kickoff on April 19 at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis was the first of 23 stadium concerts planned in U.S. and Canadian cities through June 18. Each performance features alternating solo sets by both artists as well as joint appearances together during the show.

The multiple Grammy Award winners are on the road together this year in North America and Europe performing at stadiums in support of 2024 releases by both artists: Lamar’s sixth studio album GNX and SZA’s Lana, a reissue of 2022’s SOS featuring additional tracks and guest contributors including Lamar. L.A. record producer Mustard is set as the opening act for the tour.

Among the highlights on the current trek are two-show engagements booked at both MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, and Rogers Centre in Toronto along with three Southern California shows at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood. The 16-show jaunt through European countries will begin on July 2 in Cologne, Germany, and run through the summer before ending with a finale in Stockholm on Aug. 9. Stadiums in Frankfurt, Paris and London will each host the tour for two nights.

Along with SZA, three other women score rankings in the top 5 on the Artist Power Index, beginning with Sabrina Carpenter who makes a fourth consecutive appearance at No. 1 following her “Short n’ Sweet” tour’s recent arena trek through Europe. Dua Lipa is second after playing the final two markets on her “Radical Optimism” tour’s Oceania leg during March and April. Then, Shakira is No. 3 after scoring the highest Live rank of any concert performer on the chart, based on the final 10 Latin American stadium shows on her “Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran World Tour.”

Shakira is the dominant force on the other two charts, however, as she ranks No. 1 on both LIVE75 and Global Concert Pulse. Her chart-topping stint on LIVE75 is based on her average number of sold tickets per show at nine stadium events: seven shows in March at Estadio GNP Seguros in Mexico City and two April concerts at Estadio Atanasio Girardot in Medellín, Colombia. The total number of tickets sold at both venues was 469,217 for a combined gross of $54.1 million.

On Global Concert Pulse, she ranks No. 1 based on a gross average of $5.85 million from 19 performances during the most recent three-month period ending April 23. Included is her tour’s opening night event in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil that grossed $2.9 million from 35,180 sold tickets as well as her seven-show Mexico City run that racked up $46.6 million at the boxoffice.

LIVE75’s highest ranked debut of the week belongs to country artist Cody Johnson who lands in the top 10 at No. 8 with a per-show ticket count of 8,474 from four concerts in Australia and New Zealand on the Oceania leg of his “Leather Deluxe Tour.” His largest crowds were at Sydney’s Qudos Bank Arena with 12,773 in attendance and Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne with 11,681 tickets sold. He began the tour in January with a string of arena dates in U.S. cities through February. Then, in March he performed at the “C2C” country festivals in three U.K. cities before heading Down Under for the remainer of the month.

On the Artist Power Index, Metallica debuts at No. 15 after resuming their ongoing “M72 World Tour” that launched on April 27, 2023 in support of 72 Seasons, released two weeks before the tour began. The first show on the group’s 2025 touring schedule was an April 19 concert at JMA Wireless Dome in Syracuse, New York. It was Metallica’s first headlining performance ever at the venue and their first concert in Syracuse in 29 years. They last performed in the area at the New York State Fairgrounds during the 1996 traveling Lollapalooza music festival.