Box Office Insider: Forecast Bright For Chesney’s ‘Here And Now’ Tour

As Kenny Chesney heads into the summer with his “Here and Now” tour that kicked off just over one month ago, box-office results from the first seven shows reported on the tour hint at a possible record-setting run for the country star. He appears to be on track to top the $100 million mark in box-office grosses for a third time in his career and perhaps even score his highest overall tour gross ever. His most successful tour on record is 2015’s “The Big Revival” that grossed $116.4 million, while 2018’s “Trip Around the Sun” tour had a box-office haul of $114.4 million.

Based on reported sales figures from the first five stadiums and two outdoor amphitheaters on “Here and Now,” the tour has grossed over $29 million from 254,354 sold tickets. Using averages from those seven venues alone would place the tour’s overall gross near $140 million when all 41 scheduled shows are completed in August, yet not all the sheds have the same seating capacity, nor do all the stadiums.

But early results from the tour show plenty of promise in what could potentially unfold for Chesney as the year progresses. His tour opener at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Fla., was his most successful at the box office among the first shows on the schedule. He smashed his own gross and attendance records at the venue with an $8.6 million total from 58,369 tickets, topping his 2018 performance that produced $6.2 million in sales and a ticket count of 55,292.

Ticket pricing was a factor in Tampa as his top price reached $475 – considerably more than the most expensive tickets sold at any of the other four stadiums with top prices ranging from $244 to $355. It was also substantially higher than $257.50, the highest ticket price offered at his Tampa stadium performance during the 2018 tour.

But setting the bar high is nothing new for Chesney, who has conquered the box office throughout his performing career. He is one of only 11 concert headliners – and the only country artist – to top $1 billion in ticket sales since the beginning of 2000. U2, The Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, Madonna, Elton John, Bon Jovi, Celine Dion, Eagles, Paul McCartney and Coldplay round out that group of legends.

His box-office records in the archives show an overall gross of $1.1 billion from all headlining performances during the past 22 years. His total number of sold tickets in all venues is more than 16.4 million at 926 reported concerts. He has sold over one million tickets on 12 of his annual tours, 11 of them in consecutive years from 2003 through 2015 (no tour in 2010 or 2014).

Among his highest-grossing concert engagements throughout the years, the top seven were all held in Foxborough, Mass., at Gillette Stadium, the venue that has established a tradition of hosting the finale on his most recent tours. However, his best results there were not reported from one of the tours, but at one of only four headlining dates he played in 2017. He performed two concerts there on Aug. 25-26 that summer, grossing $12,095,688 from 121,642 sold tickets.

His two-show runs at the stadium in 2018, 2015 and 2016 logged grosses of $11.63 million, $11.62 million and $11.46 million, respectively. Then, his Foxborough concerts in 2012, 2013 and 2011 land among his top grossers with sales in the $9 million range.