Ever Forward: Eric Church Set To Continue Box Office Brilliance With New Trek

Early in April when country superstar Eric Church announced a 2021 return to the road with his “Gather Again” tour set for a mid-September launch, he was one of the first arena-level touring headliners to unleash plans for a full-capacity run through North America. Since then, a litany of tour announcements have arrived as the live entertainment industry carries on toward recovery following a disastrous 2020.

Church’s arena trek, which stretches through May 2022, will feature something new for his “Church Choir” community of fans and all in attendance at one of its 55 scheduled dates. For the first time, his show will be presented in the round with the stage at the center of the arena floor. Along with the intimacy of the star’s closer proximity to the audience, the in-the-round configuration increases an arena’s ticket availability, and that’s the primary objective for Church, who wants to accommodate as many fans as possible.

Considering how anxious music fans are to get out and about after shutdowns, quarantines and social distancing restrictions, it’s difficult to imagine a situation this year where ticket sales for top-tier entertainers will not skyrocket once full-capacity arena tickets go on sale. That spells box office success for any touring artist, and most certainly for Church, whose per-show averages have increased with each of his solo headlining treks.

Most recently in 2019, he traveled through North America with his “Double Down” tour, which included two back-to-back arena performances in most markets. He averaged 14,387 sold seats per arena show, an 87% increase in the averages from his first arena headlining effort in 2012-2013, “Blood, Sweat and Beers.” And “Double Down” topped the successful “Holdin’ My Own” tour, which preceded it in 2017, in tickets sold by 5%.

A more prominent jump in box office averages for “Double Down” in contrast with Church’s tour two years earlier was in the overall gross. The later tour averaged $1.31 million per show in arenas, an increase of 55% over the 2017 gross average. A significant determinant for that bump was the ticket prices on both tours. The earlier run had an average ticket price of $61.67 from tickets priced from about $30-$90, while the 2019 tour averaged $91.02 per ticket with an approximate price scale of $30 to $150.

This December, Church will return to The Anthem in Washington, D.C., where he performed two nights on his last tour. His 2019 concerts there drew 12,456 fans total over both nights, the most tickets sold for a solo headliner at the building that year. He also topped $1.6 million grossed, second only to Kenny Chesney’s two-show April run, which edged out Church with a $1.7 million take. Chesney and Church were the only two artists to top the $1 million threshold for a single engagement at The Anthem in 2019, based on box office figures reported to Pollstar.

Currently, Church has no stadium dates planned for “Gather Again,” unlike “Double Down,” which featured an event at Nashville’s Nissan Stadium on May 25, 2019. Church performed for 56,521 fans that day in Music City and smashed Taylor Swift’s attendance record of 56,112 at the venue, set the previous year. Playing for three-and-a-half hours, sans an opening act, it remains the sole headlining stadium performance of his career.

Looking back at his box office history as a touring headliner, the growth in per show averages from tour to tour begins with Church’s first stint atop the bill, 2010’s “Jägermeister Country” tour. Playing clubs and theaters, he averaged 1,412 tickets and a $29,286 gross per show. His jump to arenas with “Blood, Sweat and Beers” produced averages of 7,696 tickets and $307,911 in sales, while the “Outsiders” trek (2014-2015) logged a per show ticket average of 11,558 and gross of $559,151. The 2017 “Holdin’ My Own” jaunt produced a gross average of $846,901 from 13,732 tickets per show.