Back Inside: Arena Season Well Under Way After Stronger-Than-Expected Summer

Arenas have been scrambling to get things ready for the return of business, with socially distanced shows pre-vaccine, smaller indoor productions more recently and, now the big blockbuster tours with the likes of Harry Styles, KISS, Eric Church, J. Cole, Luke Combs, Enrique Iglesias / Ricky Martin, Michael Bublé and many others taking to the regular arena-touring circuit as the summer outdoor season comes to a close in many markets.

While the production and transportation side had to kick back into gear and quickly overcome challenges from supplies to staffing, things couldn’t come fast enough on the talent side.

“We’re there, we’re back, but there are going to be speed bumps,” says CAA co-head of contemporary music Mitch Rose, adding that recently two tours got disrupted when two different lead singers tested positive for COVID within 24 hours of each other. The affected dates, about eight of them, were ultimately rescheduled. “That is going to be what touring in the age of COVID is for the immediate future – but touring? We’re back, it’s back,” Rose says. Harry Styles’ 40-date “Love On Tour,” like many, was scheduled for 2020 and postponed multiple times.

Unlike many indoor tours, though, Styles’ camp elected to go ahead in 2021, and now are maybe symbolically ushering in the end of the outdoor summer season post-COVID. 

Set in-the-round with a major pop star at the top of his game, Rose says “every show is sold out, and merch numbers are off the charts. That says it all, really.”

The agent adds that Styles’ show in Detroit set an attendance record. “A lot of tours, the drop counts are showing between 5% to 20% of people not showing up. For Harry, everybody is showing up.”

Another major arena tour to set out recently is Eric Church’s “Gather Again” run, which goes well into next year with 50-plus arena shows including Canada. Also set in-the-round, the country star tours regularly but on another level both production and ticket-wise, with 40-plus-song, three-plus-hour marathon sets for adoring fans eager to see the touring powerhouse where he left off following the success of his “Double Down” tour of 2019.

“Eric’s recent launch of the Gather Again Tour has proven that our business is healthy, despite the challenges we’re still facing,” says WME partner and Nashville co-head Jay Williams, who represents Church. “The tour kicked off on September 17 in Lexington, Ky., to a packed Rupp Arena and it felt like a normal explosive Eric show. Eric fed off that energy and played 40+ songs over 3 hours. Based on current counts and ticket wraps, we expect to see full arenas the rest of this year and into next year.”

Williams adds that the move indoors has been encouraging.

“Other WME artists are also seeing a lot of success as we move indoors,” Williams adds. “Luke Combs, Kane Brown and Chris Stapleton are paving the way with sold-out arena shows throughout the fall. I think as we cross the threshold of this variant spike, see vaccine rates increase, and approach herd immunity we are going to have a really strong indoor business again too.”

With so many rescheduled tours to go along with newly planned jaunts for ‘21-’22, this year’s calendar may be more of the dust settling rather than a coordinated, calculated effort, with each artist and its team having to consider a number of factors when deciding when to go out this year. 

“Every artist, whether they’re going out now or for ‘22 had to make a decision about their comfort level, their fans’ comfort level, and the availability of venues,” adds Rose. “We’ve booked tours over the last 18 months, and some you inevitably run into where you couldn’t fit the tour into a certain period of time you’d want to do. There’s tons of tours on tour now, and we’re going to have a very vibrant and fertile ‘22 touring season.”

This year has already been a pleasant surprise for many, depending on who – and maybe more importantly when – you asked. 

“The business had a bigger outdoor season than we might have anticipated in February or March,” says Rose. “If you would have asked me in January or February are we going to have an amphitheater season, I would have said ‘no.’ Not that I’m an epidemiologist, and I didn’t have a crystal ball, but we ended up having a pretty active amphitheater season. It’s the same with the arenas in the fall. There’s tons of arena business that’s going on, and it’s great.”

That calendar includes major Latin artists such Maluma, whose “Papi Juancho” tour is underway, as well as the just-launched Enrique Iglesias/Ricky Martin tour, along with major runs by Slipknot, Tame Impala, Dan + Shay, Pitbull and still others. 

Although fall and winter are notable for requiring indoor shows during COVID and a typically less-active season overall, Rose says business of all kinds and in all settings is looking gangbusters for 2022.

“I have never seen a calendar, from theaters, to arenas to amphitheaters, for ‘22 as busy this far in advance,” Rose says.  In response to whether the business is headed in the right direction or things are continuing to progress on the live side, he says, “They’re all going to happen. There’s no going back at this point.”