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$1bn artists line up global tours as confidence builds

Some of the world’s biggest artists, collectively worth more than US$1 billion in ticket revenue between 2018 and 2020, will hit the road again in 2021 and ’22, as confidence builds for a return to international touring over the next 12 months.

Sir Elton John, Celine Dion, Metallica, Michael Bublé, Guns N’ Roses, Bruce Springsteen and Eagles – all of whom ranked among the highest-grossing tours of 2018, 2019 and 2020, grossing more than $1bn between them – have in recent weeks revealed plans for new or rescheduled global tours, many of them starting as soon as this summer.

Sir Elton has extended his disrupted final tour, Farewell Yellow Brick Road, with a bumper 30-date, six-month stadium run across across mainland Europe, the UK and the United States.

“Hello, all you wonderful fans out there. I’m coming to you today with an announcement I’ve been working towards for, well, all my life: the shows that I announce today will be my final tour dates ever in North America and Europe,” he says in a statement.

“I’m going to go out in the biggest possible way, performing at my very best, with the most spectacular production I’ve ever had, playing in places that have meant so much to me throughout my career.

“Whether it’s next summer in Frankfurt or at the legendary Dodger Stadium for the grand finale in the United States, I can’t wait to see you all on the road one last time. This has been an incredible tour so far, full of the most amazing highs, and I look forward to making more wonderful memories with you at these final shows.”

The Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour, Sir Elton’s farewell tour, was brought to a halt by the coronavirus pandemic last March, with the last show on 7 March 2020 at Bankwest Stadium in Parramatta, Australia. The tour resumes on 1 September at Mercedes-Benz Arena in Berlin and will conclude in Australasia in 2023.

The tour, produced and promoted by AEG Presents, grossed $212 million in 2019 and $71.2m in 2020.

“I’m going to go out in the biggest possible way, performing at my very best”

Springsteen, who grossed an incredible $88.3m from his Springsteen on Broadway shows, which had an average ticket price of $509, in 2018, also has live plans for 2022.

As well as reviving Springsteen on Broadway, Springsteen confirmed to E Street Radio on SiriusXM he is planning a full tour with his E Street Band in 2022. “I knew we were going to tour with the band next year,” he said, “[but] I had a friend who got so enthusiastic about it [Springsteen on Broadway] that he talked me into it sitting on my couch one night. The next day I said, ‘OK, we’ll do some shows.’ It really came around kind of casually.”

Eagles, meanwhile recently added another six dates to their long-delayed Hotel California tour, which kicks off at Madison Square Garden in New York in August.

While the band has only announced the rescheduled US dates so far (the first leg ends at Chase Center in San Francisco on 23 October 2021), pre-pandemic the Live Nation-promoted tour included included dates in London (Wembley Stadium) and Los Cabos, Mexico (Cabo en Vivo), so it is expected that additional European and Latin American shows are still to be announced.

Eagles grossed $166m from their 2018 North American tour.

Metal titans Metallica earlier this month announced six European festival shows for 2022, adding to the open-air shows pencilled in for the US in September, October and November 2021.

“We have waited far too long to say these words: we’re getting back out there”

Under the banner The Return of the European Summer Vacation, the band will play headline shows at Denmark’s Copenhell, the Netherlands’ Pinkpop, Italy’s Firenze Rocks, the Czech Republic’s Prague Rocks, Belgium’s Rock Werchter, Spain’s Mad Cool and Portugal’s NOS Alive. .

“We have waited far too long to say these words: we’re getting back out there and are finally announcing our return to Europe in 2022,” say Metallica in a statement. “Needless to say, we cannot wait to see all of you once again as our European ’tallica Family will finally have a chance to reunite in June and July of next year.”

The festivals next year will be Metallica’s first European shows since their Worldwired global tour, which grossed a total of $179m in 2019.

Elsewhere, Bublé (who grossed $115.8m in 2019 and $24.8m in 2020) is resuming his An Evening With Michael Bublé tour in North America in August, while Dion’s (2020 gross: $71.2m) postponed Courage world tour will finally kick off the same month in Winnipeg.

Also resuming a postponed tour this summer are Guns’ N Roses, whose world stadium tour – newly rechristened We’re F’n’ Back! – will begin at Hersheypark Stadium in Hershey, Pennsylvania, on 31 July 2021. The tour will include Australasian dates later this year and a string of European stadium shows next summer.

Opening the tour will be the late Eddie Van Halen’s bassist, son Wolfgang, with his band Mammoth WVH.

 

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Eagles to play Wembley Stadium in Europe exclusive

US rock band Eagles are bringing their Hotel California tour to London’s 90,000-capacity Wembley Stadium on 29 and 30 August 2020, the group’s only European dates of the year.

Eagles, consisting of Don Henley, Joe Walsh and Timothy B Schmit, along with Deacon Frey and Vince Gill, will perform the Hotel California album in full at the Wembley concerts, followed by an additional set of the band’s greatest hits.

The group recently performed three sold-out performances of the album – the third best-selling US album in history – in Las Vegas. The concerts marked the first time Eagles had performed Hotel California in its entirety and featured 77 musicians on stage, including a 46-piece orchestra and 22-voice choir.

As the best-selling US band of the 1970s, Eagles have won six Grammy Awards, were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998 and received the Kennedy Center Honors for lifetime contribution to US culture in 2016.

“We are delighted to welcome back The Eagles who played a huge part in this year’s success story”

The Live Nation-promoted shows see Eagles return to the stadium for the second time in as many years, following a sell-out show in June. The band contributed to a record-breaking summer for Wembley in 2019, with over 900,000 fans watching acts including the Who, Fleetwood Mac, Bon Jovi, Billy Joel and Pink.

“We are delighted to welcome back The Eagles who played a huge part in this year’s success story,” comments James Taylor, senior commercial manager for Wembley Stadium.

“Wembley is an iconic venue that attracts the biggest and best acts and we are thrilled this legendary band has once again chosen our world-class stadium for what will be their only performances in Europe in 2020.”

Tickets for Eagles 2020 Wembley Stadium shows go on sale on Saturday 14 December at 9 a.m. (GMT), available here.

 

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Live Nation, others planning own Desert Trip

Proving once and for all that imitation truly is the sincerest form of flattery, a coalition of non-AEG promoters are reportedly planning their own answer to AEG Live’s US$150 million-grossing Desert Trip festival.

Billboard reports the bi-coastal festival – comprising Classic East at Citi Field (41,922-cap.) in New York and Classic West at Dodger Stadium (56,000-cap.) in Los Angeles – will headlined by Eagles and Fleetwood Mac and organised by Live Nation, Irving Azoff’s companies Oak View Group and Azoff MSG Entertainment and Creative Artists Agency (CAA).

It will the first show by Eagles since the death of founder member Glenn Frey in January 2016. Both Eagles and Fleetwood Mac are represented by CAA Music.

The four companies hope to develop an annual festival franchise around Classics East and West

According to Billboard, the four companies hope to develop an annual festival franchise around Classics East and West.

The inaugural Desert Trip, held on the Coachella site in Indio, California, was a huge success for AEG’s Goldenvoice, with its line-up featuring a sextet of boomer greats – The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Neil Young, Roger Waters and The Who – delivering record-breaking revenue for the promoter and contributing to an estimated $250m economic impact on the surrounding area.

Goldenvoice has yet to confirm whether Desert Trip will return in 2017, although Rolling Stone speculates Bruce Springsteen, The Police, U2, The Kinks, Elton John and Led Zeppelin could be in the running to perform if it does. (Take those predictions with a healthy spoonful of salt, though: Fleetwood Mac are also on the magazine’s list.)

 

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