Taken from Billboard's run down of the 25 highest grossing tours of 2013, P!nk coming on top certainly wasn't what I was expecting after listening to the more rabid stanbases talking trash all year about their fav's ticket sales. The diva also had the highest position of any female (number 7) on Billboard's tally of the top 10 Year-End most popular songs across all genres with Just Give Me A Reason. Just two of the reasons, I suspect, the pop-rocker was deservedly named Billboard's Woman of the Year! Finally, girl be getting some recognition!
But it was a good year for Divas in general, with Rihanna, Taylor Swift and Beyonce all making the top ten highest grossing tours of the year- though it seemed some had to work harder, over more dates, to gross the amount they did. Interestingly, out of all the Divas, Taylor Swift was the only one who sold out all her dates, with Beyonce, conversely, failing to sell out 19 of the 59 shows.
Still, Divas be getting money!
1-10 of the Highest Grossing tours of 2013:
1.Bon Jovi
Total Gross: $205,158,370
Total Attendance: 2,178,170
Total Capacity: 2,178,170
No. of Shows: 90
No. of Sellouts: 90
2.Michael Jackson The Immortal World Tour
Total Gross: $157,299,100
Total Attendance: 1,425,442
Total Capacity: 1,853,022
No. of Shows: 205
No. of Sellouts: 0
3.P!nk
Total Gross: $147,947,543
Total Attendance: 1,581,939
Total Capacity: 1,583,801
No. of Shows: 114
No. of Sellouts: 111
4.Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band
Total Gross: $147,608,938
Total Attendance: 1,389,778
Total Capacity: 1,454,499
No. of Shows: 53
No. of Sellouts: 36
5.Rihanna
Total Gross: $137,982,530
Total Attendance: 1,595,161
Total Capacity: 1,600,851
No. of Shows: 87
No. of Sellouts: 84
6.The Rolling Stones
Total Gross: $126,182,391
Total Attendance: 326,998
Total Capacity: 326,998
No. of Shows: 23
No. of Sellouts: 23
7.Taylor Swift
Total Gross: $115,379,331
Total Attendance: 1,363,510
Total Capacity: 1,363,510
No. of Shows: 66
No. of Sellouts: 66
8.Beyoncé
Total Gross: $104,358,899
Total Attendance: 883,062
Total Capacity: 934,021
No. of Shows: 59
No. of Sellouts: 40
9.Depeche Mode
Total Gross: $99,972,733
Total Attendance: 1,390,141
Total Capacity: 1,400,298
No. of Shows: 54
No. of Sellouts: 51
10.Kenny Chesney
Total Gross: $90,932,957
Total Attendance: 1,186,925
Total Capacity: 1,214,694
No. of Shows: 44
No. of Sellouts: 31
Thoughts?
I find Beyonce's actual tour numbers particularly interesting in light of yesterday's over hyped statements ,claims and "predictions" .
ReplyDeleteAlso I had no idea of the attendance numbers of such tours. I am surprised as they are way lower than I suspected based on the way fans of such acts use tours to back up claims about worldwide popularity of their favorites.
I am surprised that Beyonce did not manage to make it into the Top 10 Highest Grossing Tour List, I mean, no offense, but she sings better than Taylor Swift...
ReplyDeleteBillboard didn't covered the whole touring year (it goes until November?) and Beyoncé will tour until March. A lot of her not sold out concerts were in Brazil, were concert tickets are highly overpriced by local concert companies (because people would pay more, big acts never performed over here), so, no international artist is selling out over here.
ReplyDeletewhich then should have equal effect on all.
ReplyDeleteIt would if they toured over here recently, what they didn't. =)
ReplyDeleteBut Gaga and Madonna failed to sell out in 2012 too. This came as a surprise because Madonna went from 3 to 5 stadium dates in 2008 or 2009 because of the huge demand.
But how many did actually attend Gaga and Madonna concerts in Brazil as compared to Beyonce?
ReplyDeleteDo you know the numbers on that?
Btw I meant all as in all. Not just the top ten.
Also considering the difference in attendance and total gross of Beyonce compared to the others in that top ten, it comes across as if Beyonce's tickets are more expensive everywhere?
I'm actually starting to like the "Vocalists" we have this decade... even Rihanna because although her voice may sound annoying at times, it can be soulful and those runs that she's finally doing are very adequate and up to my taste.
ReplyDeleteI was looking at her tour numbers... Her only concerts with poor attendance (60%, 70%) were in Brazil and Venezuela... They were also in stadiums, so she was playing to 20k, 30k people even with those sales. The other ones that didn't sold out had 98~99% of tickets sold, so, hardly a failure.
ReplyDeleteGaga's concert had tickets given out for free and a lot of campaigns where you bought 1 and took 2. People were all joking about this at the time. The official numbers say she sold 100% of the sits, but the capacity was expanded based on the sales (like, they put 10k tickets for sale, if it sells out, they put 5k more), to the point of her having a "sold out" date on the same venue Madonna did, but Madonna played for 10k+ people (and had a larger stage). Madonna used a similar strategy, so, she also has "sold out" concerts with strangely small numbers compared to the venue capacities. I would say, basing myself on venue capacities and attendance, that Gaga sold 60%~70% of her 3 dates and Madonna 70%~80% of her 5 dates.
Brit Brit also had lackluster sales over here during 2011 (>50% one date, 80% on the other).
Thanks Vinicius but I meant hard numbers. Because percentages say little unless they played the same stadium and I know the capacity of those stadiums.
ReplyDeleteWhich I don't of course. :-)
Wouldn't giving tickets away influence the "total gross" negatively though?
But clearly in yet another aspect of the music biz..an awful lot of cheating is going on.
It's positively saddening to see/hear.
How many concerts btw did Beyonce play in Brazil and Venezuela? In total
ReplyDeleteI admit it was a revelation to me reading the breakdowns.
ReplyDeleteFailing attracts more failing. People will not pay to watch a concert other people are not watching... So I "get" I get Gaga's team. But let's be honest, even her numbers put image over substance.
ReplyDeleteBeyoncé's numbers in Brazil (without counting Rock in Rio, where she played for +-85k people):
dates: 4
total attendance: 123,500
capacity: 170,000
Lady Gaga's numbers in Brazil:
dates: 3
total attendance: 79,222
capacity: 115,000
Madonna's numbers in Brazil:
dates: 4
total attendance: 162,488
capacity: 189,000
Both Madonna and Gaga performed at a place in Rio with a capacity for 85,000 people... It's a open space, so, it's easily adatable. I don't believe any of them actually believe they would sell out 85,000 tickets for the same date, so I estimated 40,000, that is little less than the capacity of their São Paulo venue.
Well, I don't hate Rihanna, but she puts in very little if not zero effort in her live performances, only at award shows does she bother to show off her vocals. That is what irks me a bit.
ReplyDeleteIs there a big lag between the data and the dates here? Beyonce had performed something like 90 shows by November 12th 2013? I also don't understand why they don't release these lists in January so the cut off points are January 1st to January 1st to actually reflect 2013... marketing purposes I guess...
ReplyDeleteBut when you think about it, comparing the success of tours in an artificial time frame, with artificial cut off points is a kind of meaningless exercise to some extent anyway.
But well done Pink, would love to see her live at some day!
Wow! So Madonna clearly did the best there. Impressive commentary on the longevity of her career.
ReplyDeleteJust for fun I tried to find the stats on the Krauss/Plant Raising Sand tour.
ReplyDeleteJust a quick Googling showed halfway down their tour the attendance was 77,000. Suddenly, all things considered around a, let's say, 140,000 becomes pretty damn impressive for that act.;-)
Madonna is the best selling international act in Brazil if I'm not wrong, she is HUGELY popular. But Beyoncé is HUGE too, and we have several artists copying her lately. Gaga has only her usual teenagers/lgbt people with low self-steem fandom.
ReplyDeleteMJ is already gone (RIP) but still making money!!!
ReplyDeleteand Bon Jovi is doing great, good for him.
Yes. I do agree on that part. I don't know why I'm starting to like Rihanna's vocals... Taste? lol
ReplyDeleteTaste is a reason of course, another reason could be that her low notes are smokey in texture and really dark - impressive. :) But I only like her low notes of course, the rest of the notes at the fifth octave for Rihanna is like not sung in live shows in her tours. :p
ReplyDeleteCan you review the Beyoncé album?
ReplyDeleteYeah she celebrated her 100th show of the Mrs Carter show like 4 days ago. Slightly strange, as with the updated numbers she would likely be above Pink's tour. The sellout statistics can also be taken out of context as some performers repeatedly return to certain places where they're bound to sell out.
ReplyDeleteEither way Pink deserves it, she is definitely one of the best performers around.
when you said "big acts never performed over here" it just makes so much sense why every diva's YouTube comments consist of 50% "COME TO BRAZIL"
ReplyDeleteThey started performing over here during 2007 or so... The tickets were pretty expensive, mostly because people WOULD pay anything to see those stars who were never over here. This had 2 major consequences:
ReplyDelete1 - Tickets are overpriced and concerts are flopping.
2 - Brazilian popstars (lead by both tradition and contemporary megastars like Ivete Sangalo) created a very particular aesthetic of pop concert focused on controlled improvisation and audience interation that makes the over choreographed strict international pop concerts to feel very... boring, cold and impersonal.
A recurrent criticism is "oh well, it was exactly like last night, she is not very good, is she?"
Yay for those Brazilian popstars! And LOL at that recurrent criticism
ReplyDeleteWe expect our popstars to change the setlist, to improvise new music, to interact to the public. Ivete Sangalo recorded a concert at the Madison Square Garden (bow down, putas) and you can see her taking off her heels in the middle of a number because it was bothering her and preventing her from running arround the stage. An american popstar would never do something like that.
ReplyDeleteYes. Taste does come into play when I rate or commend artists concerning their vocals. As you had already described, I do like Rihanna's lower register (I don't tend to like low notes). I do agree, Rihanna's belts and her upper register can be pushed but, I think I actually like her C's and D's better than her controlled low notes. (lol)! I just really like it for some reason... :D
ReplyDeleteHaha :) I guess you do like Rihanna. :)
ReplyDeleteShe has a career that spans over 20 years. Of non stop singing, vocal fatigue, sickness, travels etc. If you had a career as long as her in a very competitive and hard career field. I am pretty sure your voice would also suffer. No singer is a robot and our vocals are only flesh and blood, we are susceptible as singers to fall victim to these things. Even more after 20 years.
ReplyDeleteAnd if you get a compilation of her live singing since 1990 till now, this is the worst? Really? This was bad, but her thousands plus performances still made her Mariah, This performance won't even be remembered compared to her vocal greats in years... Please. Her Christmas song keeps making it it to the top billboards and iTunes every year that was recorded in the 90's since, and it is still being listened to now. This woman is a music genius.
"Maiah was the only one showing legs and boobs. That's the price she had do pay." LOL.
ReplyDeleteDD, quite bitchy of you to post that GIF. I see what you're trying to get at by posting it. The war is already ON below. Expect casualties. I am having my share of lulz and buzzing the fuck off. lol. :p
ReplyDeleteYikes
ReplyDeleteShe's 17...
ReplyDeletelol Christina
ReplyDeleteI can't grasp the fascination with this chick. Her music is so bland to me.
ReplyDelete"Anyone wanting to not deal with the reality of the situation, please stop reading at this point"
ReplyDeleteDD, you little sneaky b****! lol. No, really. You are becoming quite playful and notorious with such instigation. You really enjoy the blood bath down below, don't you? In your own sadistic little way. :D
And that Christina gif was like cherry on top. Killed me.
Listen to Nicole Scherzinger, then come back and say she is unmatched as the vocal queen of today. Can Lady Gaga belt up to a B5 with perfect technique, power and resonance? Can she hit proper head voice notes up to G6? Can she sustain an E5 for 10 seconds with vibrato and clarity? Could she sing Ave Maria full-on operatic style? Would she able to hit the last few notes in Phantom of the Opera? No to all of them.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't say "any day". Mariah is the better vocalist overall but I've heard Christina sing far better than this and didn't dub it at the end.
ReplyDeleteEven in her later years, Whitney was not that terrible - there were times where she was of course bad, but she was good on quite a few occasions (or at least in parts of songs) - she would change the key, tempo or arrangement of the song a lot of the time to fit her new voice and sing around that. Mariah sometimes lowers the key but doesn't change it as such, just plays with the riffs and runs. But in my opinion, the performances posted here of Mariah singing All I Want For Christmas and Joy to the World are just as bad as some of Whitney's worst even though her overall vocal quality isn't as bad - she was out of time, out of breath, off-key, cracked on a lot of notes, strained a bit and was rather thin and shrill throughout, etc.
ReplyDeleteActually, the vast majority of the people posting are in fact fans and are objectively looking at possible reasons as to why she wasn't in top form. They're just not delusional enough to think she's perfect and flawless and doesn't need to rest and look after herself and her voice properly, it doesn't mean they're haters. And though Christina isn't as a good as Mariah overall, I've heard her sing a lot better than this without the need to dub her performances - she's never been as out of time, out of breath, off-key, cracked as often on falsetto/head voice notes, sounded as whiny or shrill and made it glaringly obvious in her facial expressions or stage presence that she knows her performance is bad, as Mariah did in these performances.
ReplyDeleteIf your listen closely to her after the tree lighting performance she says "oh how grateful I would be for a redo. I wasn't even at the mic. It is what it is santa."
ReplyDelete