The decade in live: 2016
The start of a new year and, perhaps more significantly, a new decade is fast approaching – and while many may be thinking ahead to New Year’s Eve plans and well-meaning 2020 resolutions, IQ is casting its mind back to the most pivotal industry moments of the last ten years.
Future historians will likely remember 2016 as a year of political shockwaves – Britain’s vote to leave the European Union and the election of Donald Trump as US president chief among them – but in live music it was very much business as usual, with the world’s biggest artists shifting millions of tickets and the industry continuing the growth trajectory it started in 2013.
But it wasn’t always plain sailing: festival bosses in Europe weathered one of the most turbulent festival seasons in living memory, and promoters and event producers worldwide were left out of pocket for increased security costs following a string of terrorist attacks.
In the ticketing sector, meanwhile, Amazon went up against Ticketmaster with the launch of its own platform, the ultimately unsuccessful Amazon Tickets, while alternative forms of entertainment, such as esports and shows by YouTubers, first began to stake their claim on a slice of the live entertainment pie.
And while Live Nation continued to roll up concert businesses across Europe, North America, Australia and South Africa, Robert Sillerman (the creator of its indirect predecessor, SFX Entertainment) finally threw in the towel with the EDM-focused SFX mkII, beginning a messy divorce that would continue throughout the year and beyond…
2016 in numbers
In 2016, the top 100 global tours grossed a collective US$4.88 billion – up around 4% on 2015, and just shy of the record $5bn recorded in 2013.
According to Pollstar’s traditional year-end chart, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band had the year’s biggest tour, with the Boss raking in a career-best $268.3m in sales from 2.4m tickets. Beyoncé’s Formation world tour was second, with $256.2m from 2.2m tickets sold, and Coldplay third – though the British band’s A Head Full of Dreams trek, which earnt $241m, sold more tickets (2.7m) than anyone else that year.
In total, seven acts grossed more than $100m: the top three plus Guns N’ Roses ($188.4m), Adele ($167.7m), Justin Bieber ($163.3m) and Paul McCartney ($110.6m), with eighth-placed Garth Brooks narrowly missing out with $97m.
Additionally, more than 60m tickets were sold worldwide for the first time since 2013, with consumers buying 60.5m in 2016, up from 59.8m in the previous 12 months.
On the festival side, AEG’s one-off Desert Trip – aka ‘Oldchella’ – set a new single-event world record, grossing $160.1m over two weekends with a blockbuster line-up (see ‘2016 in brief’ below) and tickets starting at $399.
2016 in brief
January
Tomorrowland announces it will expand again in 2016, this time with a new edition in Spain.
AEG Live’s British Summer Time festival is granted a two-year extension to stay in London’s Hyde Park until 2019.
February
Robert Sillerman’s SFX Entertainment files for bankruptcy owing estimated US$500 million, mostly to partner promoters and suppliers.
StubHub moves into primary ticketing with a new platform combining primary and secondary markets. Its first client is basketball team the Philadelphia 76ers.
March
Telecoms company SoftBank makes $250m investment in WME-IMG, allowing the agency to “advance [its] global growth strategy”.
The Rolling Stones perform a historic free concert in Havana, Cuba, later released as concert film Havana Moon.
The Rolling Stones perform in Havana on 25 March (© Smwkeywest/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0))
April
Following recent terror attacks, six major Belgian festivals collectively adopt a number of new security measures ahead of the festival season.
The government of Buenos Aires announces it will cease issuing permits for dance music festivals in the wake of five drug-related deaths at the Time Warp event.
May
Goldenvoice’s Desert Trip sells out both weekends, thanks to a superstar bill featuring the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Roger Waters, the Who, Neil Young and Paul McCartney.
StubHub expands its reach with the acquisition of global ticket resale platform Ticketbis, which has operations in 47 countries.
June
The UK votes to leave the European Union, delivering an unwelcome surprise to festival promoters throughout Europe as they finalise preparations for the busy summer ahead.
The global live industry will grow at a rate of 3% through 2020, as live events increase in popularity among smartphone-saturated consumers, reveals PwC’s Global Entertainment and Media Outlook.
The UK voted to leave the EU on 23 June (© Bankenverband)
July
Australian promoter Paul Dainty sells his Dainty Group business to Sydney-based ticketing, touring and data analytics firm TEG.
Over 23m people visited a music festival in the Netherlands (population 17m) in 2015, as attendance grows to all-time high.
August
France’s minister for culture, Audrey Azoulay, hails the “exceptional” ticket sales for the country’s music festivals this summer, the vast majority of which have seen attendances rise in spite of challenges posed by fear of terrorist attacks.
A hologram of the late Ronnie James Dio makes a surprise appearance at Wacken Open Air festival, thanks to LA-based developer Eyellusion.
September
Tim Leiweke and Irvin Azoff’s Oak View Group launches Arena Alliance, bringing together 22 North American arenas.
Former Metropolis Music directors Paul Hutton and Conal Dodds launch new UK promoter Crosstown Concerts.
The Ronnie James Dio hologram made its debut at Wacken 2016 (© Eyellusion)
October
Global expands its UK festival footprint to a total of 11 events with the multimillion-pound acquisition of South West Four, Field Day, Boardmasters, Rewind, Y Not and Truck festivals, as well as taking a further stake in Broadwick Live.
Live Nation festival brands Lollapalooza and Download announce plans increase their European presence in 2017 with events in Paris and Madrid, respectively.
November
The Bataclan in Paris announces plans to reopen earlier than expected with a 12 November show by Sting.
Former AEG Live CEO Randy Phillips is confirmed as the new chief at SFX, which is to be renamed LiveStyle as it emerges from bankruptcy.
December
Anti-touting campaigners in Italy celebrate after the country’s parliament ratifies legislation to ban the resale of tickets to concerts and other events.
Live Nation’s aggressive acquisition strategy shows no sign of abating, with the company adding big-name festivals to its portfolio in Australia (Splendour in the Grass/Falls Festival) and Sweden (Sweden Rock).
Who we lost
Matthias Müller, founder and president of Baloise Session, Sziget head of international booking Dan Panaitescu, Brazilian promoter Bianca Freitas (pictured), artist manager David Enthoven, Yardbirds manager Giorgio Gomelsky, Nederland Concerts’ Jimmy Nederlander and Manchester music mogul Alan Wise all passed away in 2016.
The year also saw the deaths of two musical icons, in the forms of David Bowie in January and Prince in April, along with Leonard Cohen, George Michael, Eagles’ Glenn Frey and the young British band Viola Beach, who were killed in a car accident, along with their manager, on the way back from Where’s the Music? festival in Sweden.
Get more stories like this in your inbox by signing up for IQ Index, IQ’s free email digest of essential live music industry news.
Top 100 tours grossed $5.65bn in 2017
The 100 biggest concert tours of 2017 collectively generated a huge US$5.65bn in revenue – a 15.8% year-on-year increase – in a “record-crushing” year for the international live music business.
That’s according to the 2017 edition of Pollstar’s traditional year-end special features, which track the value of the year’s biggest tours, promoters, arenas, festivals, individual concert grosses and more. The top 100 worldwide tours chart, topped by U2’s Live Nation-promoted Joshua Tree 2017 tour, also shows the tickets sold by the top 100 reached a new record high of 66.79 million – a 10.4% increase on 2016.
Average ticket prices rose by nearly 5% to $84.63, with 11 tours generating more than $100m worldwide – U2, Guns N’ Roses, Coldplay, Bruno Mars, Metallica, Depeche Mode, Paul McCartney, Ed Sheeran, the Rolling Stones, Garth Brooks and Celine Dion – compared to 2016’s seven.
Tickets sold by the top 100 tours reached a new record high of 66.79 million – a 10.4% increase on 2016
This, says Pollstar, demonstrates that “the most successful artists are clearly getting better at recapturing some of the revenue that had leaked into the secondary ticket market”, with Taylor Swift’s tout-beating ‘slow ticketing’ model putting her in pole position for the biggest tour of 2018.
Other headline year-end figures include Live Nation once again taking the number-one promoter spot, reporting a record 52.2m tickets sold, followed by AEG Presents (14.4m tickets), Mexico’s Ocesa (4m), Feld Entertainment (3.2m) and SJM in the UK (2.4m); Goldenvoice’s Coachella generating 2017’s biggest festival gross, at $114.6m over two weekends; and the UK punching above its weight in the top 100 arenas chart, with first-placed The O2, third-placed Manchester Arena and fourth-placed SSE Hydro leading a British invasion of the top five.
The top 20 venues, especially, show the “importance of the growing global concert market”, says Pollstar – confirming the findings of PwC, which noted the business is becoming “increasingly international”, earlier this year – with only seven located in the US; five are in the UK, two in Mexico and one each in Germany, Spain, Canada, France, the Netherlands and Belgium.
Get more stories like this in your inbox by signing up for IQ Index, IQ’s free email digest of essential live music industry news.