Chart Scene: Ed Sheeran Back To No. 1 With Oceania Tour Launch

Ed Sheeran jumps 26 positions to No. 1 on the Artist Power Index after completing three warm-up shows in Wellington, New Zealand ahead of the first stadium date on his “Mathematics” world tour’s Oceania leg that runs through March 12. Prior to his concert at the city’s Sky Stadium on Feb. 2, he appeared at the 1,380-seat Opera House from Jan. 24 through 26.

He also performed a string of warm-up dates last year in the U.K. and Ireland leading up to the launch of the opening European leg of the tour. Between March 21 and April 20, 2022, he played multiple shows at three venues in London, one in Brighton and two more in Dublin before the first stadium event, also held in Dublin at Croke Park on April 23.

Sheeran’s 2022 tour through Europe continued until Sept. 25 and grossed over $251 million to earn the third-highest ranking among the Top 200 Worldwide Tours of the year. However, he had the highest sold-ticket count of any touring artist last year with attendance logged at 3,047,694.

Harry Styles also makes a large jump of 32 positions on the Artist Power Index to rank second based on five recent performances in California before his “Love On Tour” heads to Australia and New Zealand later this month. Three make-up concerts in Los Angeles at Kia Forum on Jan. 26, 27 and 29, postponed from last November, along with two concerts at Acrisure Arena in Thousand Palms on Jan. 31 and his birthday, Feb. 1, produced a Live rank of seven, which powers his chart movement this week. 

He also moves up one position on LIVE75 to take the No. 1 ranking based on a 43,593-ticket average from 11 earlier concerts during the Latin American leg of his tour back in November and December. Styles has appeared on the chart every week this year so far – never outside the top three – yet this is his first appearance at No. 1. In fact, it is his first time ever to top the chart since it debuted in 2019, but he has earned LIVE75’s “Heavy Hitter” classification, as the artist with the highest gross average, four times in the past: once in 2021, twice in 2022 and earlier this year in the Jan. 9 issue.

The “Heavy Hitter” on LIVE75 this week is Billy Joel who scores a $5.5 million gross average from four performances. Two of them were sold-out concerts as part of his ongoing monthly residency at Madison Square Garden in New York City, while the other two were December stadium dates in New Zealand and Australia. His ticket average from all four concerts is 36,693 per show, which lands him at No. 2 overall for the week.

His concerts in New York were the Nov. 23 and Jan. 13 shows (the December 19 performance was postponed) that together moved 37,218 tickets. Down Under, stadium events on Dec. 3 in Auckland and the 10th in Melbourne produced a ticket total of 109,555.

The highest-ranked chart debuts this week belong to YG on the Artist Power Index and Phish on LIVE75. The rapper enters at No. 20 with a Live rank of 37 based on the first seven dates of his “The Red Cup” tour booked in North American venues. His chart appearance comes from January shows beginning with a concert on the 20th at Denver’s Fillmore Auditorium through a Jan. 31 event at the Reno Events Center in Nevada.

Phish bows on LIVE75 based on the band’s traditional three-show New Year’s Eve run at Madison Square Garden, the first at the arena in three years. Entering at No. 6 as the “Hot Shot” tour of the week, the group averaged 13,083 sold seats per show.