2023 Women of Live: Elena Sotomayor

Executive Vice President | Cárdenas Marketing Network

Latin music has been a colossal force in the live entertainment industry, but the genre was elevated to new heights in 2022 with artists dominating just about every chart, including Pollstar’s Year-End Top 200 Worldwide Tours.

Reggaeton legends Bad Bunny and Daddy Yankee were among the top live acts last year and both had something in common aside from their Puerto Rican heritage and dominant box office performances: Their tours were produced by Cárdenas Marketing Network with an assist from Executive Vice President Elena Sotomayor.

She has helped CMN, a family-operated company, become not only the leading Latino live entertainment group but one of the biggest promoters in the industry with successful tours from artists such as Ana Gabriel, Banda MS, Christian Nodal, Nicky Jam, Manuel Turizo, Feid and Marc Anthony, whose tour grossed more than $32.6 million last year and ranked No. 58 on Pollstar’s Year-End list.

The top two Latin acts of 2022 were Bad Bunny and Daddy Yankee, with the former shattering records and setting the all-time touring record of grossing $435.3 million in a calendar year, according to box office reports submitted to Pollstar. That mark was enough to surpass Ed Sheeran’s “Divide Tour,” which garnered $432.4 million in 2018.

Daddy Yankee, known as the “King of Reggaeton,” also had impressive numbers, grossing nearly $110 million and finishing No. 8 on Pollstar’s list with his farewell tour. The Puertorriqueño, whose game-changing song “Gasolina” was ranked No. 50 in Rolling Stone magazine’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time in 2021, was recently awarded the Tour of the Year award at Premio Lo Nuestro for his “La Última Vuelta World Tour,” which supported his seventh and final studio album Legendaddy. His farewell run was the highest-grossing of his storied career, selling more than 1.9 million tickets across 85 performances throughout North America.

In a release from CMN celebrating the artist’s latest honor, the company stated that “receiving this Los Nuestro Award is transcendental for Daddy Yankee and CMN since it represents their farewell to the world stages after being considered the greatest of all time.”