The live music industry classifies artists in tiers. Newer artists aim to sell out a club, a standing-only venue that usually holds a few hundred to a couple thousand people. Then they upgrade to a theater, a seated show typically with thousands of seats. Then you get to an arena, basketball and hockey venues that hold between 10,000 people and 20,000 people. Most big stars play arenas.
The rare artist ascends to stadiums — football and baseball venues that seat more than 40,000 people (and up to about 100,000). As recently as a few years ago, music industry figures worried that there weren’t many artists who could sell out stadiums, said Lucy Dickins, the head of the music group at talent agency WME. There weren’t a lot of big new stars.
There are now more than a dozen stadium acts, and possibly two dozen. Swift and Beyoncé are selling out stadiums all over the world. Springsteen has done it, as have legacy rock acts like the Eagles and Guns N’ Roses. Newer stars like The Weeknd and Bad Bunny did it last year. Drake could, if he wanted to. Pink can, especially overseas. Let’s not forget about Sheeran, Coldplay or BTS.
The loser in all of this is festivals. “A lot of artists who would have been festival headliners are doing their own shows,” Dickins said.
That’s because playing stadiums can be easier and more lucrative.
“Stadiums are easier than playing a cow pasture in the middle of Manchester, Tennessee,” said Shane Quick, a concert promoter and founder of the Alabama festival Rock the South. (That’s the home of Bonnaroo.) Gregg Perloff, who hosts San Francisco’s Outside Lands, said top acts want so much money that it’s hard to book a Beyoncé or a Rihanna.
To be clear, the biggest festivals are still doing just fine. But they are booking a lot of the same acts for their events, or having to settle for a headliner who is one rung below the top tier. (Bad Bunny at Coachella is an exception, but Coachella is almost always the exception to the rule.)
The good news for festivals is that there are a lot of new stars. The music industry has been fretting about the dearth of new stars and blaming TikTok. While we can see this dilemma on the charts, this problem doesn’t show up in the live numbers.
SZA is selling out arenas, as are Karol G and Lizzo. (Lizzo may seem like a veteran, but she was playing theaters her last time out and now sells out arenas.) It’s also worth nothing that a lot of the big new stars – and biggest tours this year – are women.
The cost is still going up
Unfortunately for those of us who like to see live music, it’s also going to be yet another record-setting year for pricing. SZA, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Marc Anthony are charging more than $120 a night. Elton John is close to $170. We’ll get numbers for Swift and Beyoncé soon, but we know the prices are high.
Many artists — especially those at the top — have realized fans will pay almost anything to see them perform. (Fans are spending more than $2 million a night on Swift merchandise as well.) Swift only comes to a city every couple years, if that. Beyoncé hasn’t toured in seven years. With very limited supply and almost unlimited demand, it’s no wonder that buying tickets to see Swift was such a headache.
Charging more is a necessity for some artists. The cost of putting on a show has soared due to a tight labor market and supply-chain issues. “Rising costs on the artist side are a continual issue,” said Hasson. “Bus shortages, crew concerns, fewer crew members.”
Some artists, like Lizzo, Sheeran and Coldplay, have still opted not to charge a lot. The Cure is the poster child of that this year.
But more and more artists are going for top dollar because they believe they are otherwise leaving money for the scalpers. Springsteen used to charge low prices, but he’s now got some of the most expensive tickets in the world.
Agents and promoters are raving about the continued growth of live music, and the constant flow of new records. But if there is one cloud looming over the business, it’s that no one can agree on how to make the process of buying tickets and seeing artists better or cheaper for fans. — Lucas Shaw
- Adidas announced an endorsement deal with Kanye West in November 2013.
- By 2019, Adidas sales of his Yeezy brand eclipsed $1 billion annually.
- In October, in the wake of antisemitic comments, Adidas ended the partnership.
In November 2013, Adidas sales in North America, the most critical territory for sportswear sales, were down 1% for the year. Across the company, sales were flat.
The company had just five shoes on the influential Complex list of best 50 sneakers of 2013. Industry leader Nike had 30 shoes on the list and had just reported an 8% annual sales increase.
But that same month, Adidas announced a partnership with Kanye West, the polarizing musician and fashion designer, now known as Ye.
Three years later, Adidas reported an 18% annual sales increase, more than doubling Nike's fiscal-year percentage gain. Yahoo Finance named Adidas Sports Business of the Year, citing a string of hot products, including the NMD, Ultra Boost, and West's Yeezy, and the company's ability to capitalize on a consumer shift away from performance products to more casual athleticwear.
While analysts debated West's role in the company's resurgence, Mark King, who was the president of the North America division at the time, gave credit to the artist.
"I think Kanye definitely helped mak
e the brand cool again," he told Yahoo Finance in 2016. "But I think, had it only been Kanye, it would have gone up and gone down very quickly."
By 2019 West had started referring to himself as "Ye" — legally changing his name to it in 2021 — and Adidas sales of Yeezy products had surpassed $1 billion for the first time. But Ye's relationship with Adidas had also started to deteriorate.