| Taylor Swift is making more than $10 million a night on her current tour, booking about $11 million or $12 million in ticket sales, according to people familiar with the numbers. She's sold out shows all over the country with her highest ticket prices yet. Swift is one of two artists, along with Beyoncé, threatening to break the record for the biggest tour in music history. That mark belongs to Elton John, whose career-ending Yellow Brick Road tour is the only one to eclipse $800 million. That tour had nine legs and is still going. If we are counting normal tours, the record belongs to Ed Sheeran with $776 million. Sheeran got there with a different strategy; he played 255 nights and charged only $88 a head. Swift and Beyoncé are likely charging more than double that but have booked only about 50 shows so far. If you extrapolate based on current numbers, Swift will settle between $500 million and $600 million with her current schedule. But she hasn't announced any dates overseas. If she goes to Europe and Asia, even for 15 or 20 shows in the right markets, she should challenge Sheeran. Swift hasn't been as strong (or as interested) in performing overseas, but her strength as a touring act jumped over the past few years. (While she doesn't keep all this money, we need not worry about her financial well-being.) Beyoncé does have overseas dates, but she could always add more dates — if she wants. The potential records for Swift and Beyoncé underscore a couple key trends in music, starting with the headliner: This is shaping up to be the biggest year for live music ever "We're seeing incredible demand for live at all levels," Live Nation's Omar Al-joulani told me last week. That should be good news for Live Nation investors. Shares in the company are down almost 40% over the last year as investors worried that the industry peaked coming out of the pandemic. (There's also the matter of a government investigation into whether the company is anti-competitive.) It's not just Swift and Beyoncé who are poised for huge years. Madonna and Pink are packing stadiums and arenas. The Weeknd and Coldplay are crushing it outside the US. Depeche Mode, Drake and Bruce Springsteen are all selling out tours that begin later this year. "There's a healthy top end of the business," said Jeffrey Hasson, co-head of the Nashville office at United Talent Agency. An informal ranking of the year's biggest tours, based on conversations with executives, goes something like this: Swift, Beyoncé, Springsteen, Madonna, Drake, Pink, Depeche Mode and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Almost all of those artists have something in common. The stadium is backThe 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 upUnfortunately 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 Netflix is restructuring its movie division to make fewer projects and centralize decision-making. It's all part of film chief Scott Stuber's fewer but better strategy and it led to the departure of two major executives. The shocking news is that Lisa Nishimura, who led the streaming service's move into stand-up comedy and documentary programming, will leave after more than a decade. Nishimura's departure upset a lot of people in the creative community. That is partly because she is one of the few east Asian women in the upper ranks of Hollywood. It's also because she's part of the Netflix old guard, and her departure is the latest reminder of the company's evolving programming mandate. Nishimura had taste and a distinct point of view. She oversaw a division that produces lower-budget movies (typically south of $30 million). Netflix is consolidating that group with one that makes more expensive films. It isn't going to make as many low-budget movies. Companies like Netflix, Amazon and Apple have inflated the market for independent movies and now seem to be moving away from it. They want more commercial projects. So who is going to buy the indies? The Disney cuts beginDisney began firing workers this week, shuttering its division for the metaverse, culling streaming employees in China and consolidating divisions in its programming and studio departments. But the two biggest cuts were incidental to the layoffs. The company fired Ike Perlmutter, the man who sold Marvel to Disney. Perlmutter had been sidelined from the main Marvel business for years, but he was still in charge of a group working on consumer products. The billionaire has been a thorn in Disney CEO Bob Iger's side for years. He is a major shareholder with strong opinions who often clashed with other people inside the company. He is also seen as egging on investor Nelson Peltz's battle with management. Now Iger has given him a public middle finger. Disney also cut ties with Victoria Alonso, one of the top executives at Marvel. While Disney is claiming it is because Alonso violated her contract for promoting a movie she produced for Amazon, the story is a bit more complicated. The No. 1 movie in China is… Suzume. The latest from anime filmmaker Makoto Shinkai opened to $50 million in China last weekend. It's outgrossing Hollywood superhero movies like the latest Ant-Man and Shazam! That is on top of the $100 million or so it has already made in Japan and another $11 million or so in South Korea. The movie will open in the US later this month, and it should be a good test of the commercial viability of anime at the box office. No anime movie has ever hit $100 million in the US, per BoxOfficeMojo – and only one has eclipsed $50 million. Speaking of movies… UTA published a study this past week exploring what it will take to get more people back to the movie theater. (The short answer: more movies in more genres.) Deals, deals, deals - Substack is asking its writers to invest in the company.
- Hollywood is dropping Covid safety measures. This will save studios a lot of money (and scare many employees).
- Apple is asking a girl group to help it compete with Samsung in South Korea.
- One of China's biggest video-game companies talked to Bloomberg about its growing ambitions.
I have recommended Arlo Parks before. She is a British singer-songwriter with delicate and lovely songs. I saw her live for the first time this past week. The show needs some work. The energy is a little low. But she played a couple of unreleased songs, and at least one of them is really great. | 
No comments:
Post a Comment