Sign up for IQ Index
The latest industry news to your inbox.
Colombian reggaeton superstar Karol G has become the first Latin act to sell out two straight nights at the Rose Bowl in Los Angeles.
The 32-year-old singer, who is managed by Noah Assad’s Rimas Entertainment, attracted a total of 120,000 fans across the 18-19 August dates in Pasadena, California.
The three-hour shows were also the highest-grossing concerts by a Latin female artist, earning US$12.8 million (€11.8m) and $12.6m, respectively.
G’s Live Nation-produced Mañana Será Bonito Tour kicked off at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, Nevada, earlier this month, and has also visited San Francisco’s Levi’s Stadium and Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium. Pollstar reports the first four shows of the tour grossed $39.6m.
Karol G is the first female artist to reach No.1 on the US Billboard Top 200 with a Spanish-language album
The trek continues tonight (29 August) in Texas at Houston’s, followed by stops at the Alamodome in San Antonio (31 August), and the Cotton Bowl in Dallas (2 September). It then heads to MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey (7-8 September), Soldier Field, Chicago, Illinois (15 September), Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia (21 September), Camping World Stadium in Orlando, Florida (24 September) and Gillette Stadium in Boston, Massachusetts (28 September).
In early 2023, G became the first female artist to reach No.1 on the US Billboard Top 200 with a Spanish-language album, courtesy of her Mañana Será Bonito LP.
In March, meanwhile, she made history in Puerto Rico by becoming the first artist ever to sell out three nights at Hiram Bithorn Stadium in San Juan, drawing more than 100,000 fans across the trio of Move Concerts and Noah Assad-promoted gigs.
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.
Global K-pop sensations BTS have confirmed dates for eight stadia across the Americas, Europe and Asia, as part of the group’s Love Yourself: Speak Yourself world tour.
The worldwide stadium tour kicks off on 5 May at the Rose Bowl stadium in Los Angeles (90,888-cap.), before travelling to Chicago’s Soldier Field (61,500), Rutherford’s MetLife Stadium (82,500), Allianz Parque in São Paulo (55,000), Wembley Stadium in London (90,000) and the Stade de France in Paris (80,000).
Two dates are scheduled for Japan, in Osaka’s Yanmar Stadium Nagai (47,000) and Shizuoka’s Stadium Ecopa (50,889).
BTS played their first-ever stadium show in a sold-out New York Citi Field stadium (41,922-cap.) last October, as part of the Love Yourself world tour.
BTS played their first-ever stadium show in a sold-out New York Citi Field stadium last October
The announcement comes following a record-breaking 2018, in which the Korean boy band were crowned Ticketmaster’s ticket of the year and sold the highest-ever number of tickets for an ‘event cinema release’ with their film Burn the Stage: the Movie.
The stadium tour builds on last year’s Love Yourself tour, which saw the popular boy band play in arenas across Europe and in the band’s hometown of Seoul, South Korea.
Tickets for the tour go on sale to the general public starting 1 March at 10 a.m. local time for North America dates, 8.30 a.m. local time for the London show and 9 a.m. local time for the Paris date. Tickets for the São Paulo concert will be available from 11 March at 10 a.m. local time.
The full tour schedule can be found below:
5 May – Los Angeles, USA
11 May – Chicago, USA
18 May – E. Rutherford, USA
25 May – São Paulo, Brazil
1 June – London, UK
6 June – Paris, France
7 June – Osaka, Japan
7 July – Osaka, Japan
13 July – Shizuoka, Japan
14 July– Shizuoka, Japan
Get more stories like this in your inbox by signing up for IQ Index, IQ’s free digest of essential live music industry news, via email or Messenger.
A kiosk showing film clips was surreptitiously fitted with a facial-recognition camera in order detect stalkers at Taylor Swift’s recent show at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California.
A special kiosk that broadcast footage from rehearsals – while concealing a camera which IDed viewers’ faces – was set up for Swift’s 18 May concert at the 90,888-seat stadium. The images were then sent to a ‘command post’ in Nashville where they were cross-referenced with a database of the star’s known stalkers, according to Mike Downing, chief security officer of Oak View Group.
“Everybody who went by would stop and stare at it, and the software would start working,” Downing, who attended the Live Nation-promoted show, tells Rolling Stone’s Steve Knopper.
Thought not without controversy, the use of biometric identification is growing in the concert business. Live Nation/Ticketmaster earlier this year invested in Blink Identity, whose technology, said CEO Michael Rapino, could enable a concertgoer to “associate your digital ticket with your image, and walk into the show”.
Swift’s Reputation stadium tour recently became the highest-grossing in US history.
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.