Chart Scene: Nicki Minaj Jumps To No. 1 On Artist Power Index

Nicki Minaj moves up from No. 4 to the top of the Artist Power Index, claiming the No. 1 ranking based on concert performances during the North American leg of her “Pink Friday 2 World Tour.” The rapper’s 15 most recent headlining concerts, along with her March 15 appearance at “Rolling Loud California” in Los Angeles, all fall in the chart’s eligibility time frame, earning her the third-highest Live score among performers on the chart.

The total gross figure from her tour, promoted by Live Nation, currently surpasses $34.8 million based on 219,938 sold tickets at the first 17 headlining dates that have been reported. Included are all shows, beginning with her opening night performance in Oakland, California, on March 1 through the April 5 concert in Hartford, Connecticut.

Among the tour’s box-office highlights so far, Minaj sold a total of 40,375 tickets in the New York City metropolitan area alone with sold-out concerts at Newark, New Jersey’s Prudential Center, Madison Square Garden in Manhattan and Barclays Center in Brooklyn. The combined gross from those three shows totals $7.19 million, including the Garden’s $2.86 million haul, the highest gross recorded for a single performance on the tour. Also among the shows that have already occurred, Charlotte, North Carolina’s Spectrum Center can claim the best single-night ticket count with 14,704 sold seats at the arena on March 26.

The “Pink Friday 2” tour will remain on the road in the U.S. and Canada through May 13 before heading to Europe for a 23-show trek featuring both headlining dates and festival appearances. Venues set to host Minaj for two performances are Accor Arena in Paris; Lanxess Arena in Cologne, Germany; Amsterdam’s Ziggo Dome and Co-op Live in Manchester, England. In North America, the venues with two shows on the upcoming schedule are Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena and Chicago’s United Center. She has already played two-night engagements in Atlanta and Boston and her second Barclays Center date is coming up on May 1.

On LIVE75, while Latin stars Karol G and Luis Miguel maintain their hold on the top two positions for a fourth consecutive week, Zach Bryan enters at No. 3 with the highest-ranked debut on the chart. The Grammy-winning alt-country star has the highest sold-ticket average for an arena headliner, as Karol G and Miguel both played stadiums. Bryan averaged 16,564 sold seats per show based on box-office totals reported from two venues on his ongoing “Quittin Time Tour.”

His shows on March 14-15 at Prudential Center drew a total of 33,833 fans during the run, and two concerts at Barclays Center, March 27-28, moved 32,425 tickets. Together, grosses from all four performances totaled a whopping $12.6 million for a gross average of $3.15 million per show. He joins Drake and Eagles as the only headliners with an average in the $3 million range, yet Bad Bunny remains the “Heavy Hitter” on LIVE75 as the artist with the highest gross average: $4.8 million. The Latin trap star has owned that chart classification for six consecutive weeks, ever since the first box-office figures were reported from his “Most Wanted Tour,” booked in North American arenas.