Goltaylor

• Concert Tours Are Where The Real Money Is Going
• Concert Tours Are Where The Real Money Is Made
• Concert Tours Are Where The Real Money Is Going

For artists at the top tier of the industry, it's a good time to be touring, with concerts in the first half of 2018 bringing in a record amount of money. Unfortunately, this extra load of cash doesn't appear to be result of more tickets selling.

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Dec 29, 2020 Everywhere I look, people are saying tours are where the real money is made in the music industry. True, concert attendance and participation is up. But we live in a time when even the tours of mainstream artists can bomb and backfire. The Real Cost Of A Free Concert: The Record A look at the money, and the growing pains, faced by the organizer of a series of free concerts in Brooklyn.

Guest post by Bobby Owsinski of Music 3.0

If you’re an A-list artist then times are very good for you. According the recent Pollstar mid-year report, the top 50 best selling tours in the first half of 2018 generated a record amount of cash. Those tours brought in $2.21 billion in sales revenue, which is up 12% over last year at the same time. The problem is that the increase isn’t necessarily a result of more tickets sold.

According to the same report, the increase came from increased ticket prices, with the average price for a ticket now at $96.31. This is a 14% increase over last year, meaning that the number of tickets sold actually went down from last year from 22.8 million in 2017 to 19.1 million. In fact, the average number of tickets sold per event went from 9,129 in 2017 to 8,637 in 2018.

Anyone who attends concerts knows that when the ticket price reaches a certain level you think a lot harder about making the purchase. If it’s an artist that you’d like to check out but don’t really love you’ll probably pass if the ticket price is too high, especially when all the “convenience fees” are added on.

This sentiment is not lost on the concert industry, however their solution is to shift the reason for problem. According to Pollstar,”At the beginning of 2018 there was a great deal of consternation in the industry over empty seats at major tours with tickets – often nosebleeds – going unsold on the secondary market at rock bottom prices. The tours were erroneously decried as “disasters” based on those factors. However, when contacted, tour promoters pointed to record revenues from those same tours, begging the question: How could this be?

Strategic ticket pricing in 2018, which often meant a greater range and more tiers often resulted in greater revenue generated often from the more in-demand lower bowls while some of the more inexpensively priced upper seats, for which there can be less demand, were left in the hands of the secondary market or unsold.”

What that means is promoters are charging more for the best seats, but consumers are passing up the less desirable “nosebleed seats” even at a better price.

To me it looks like there will be a day of reckoning soon when concert goers will refuse to pay inflated prices even for the good seats and decide to stay home instead. We’re beginning to see the cracks in the system already, but we haven’t reached the point where the average ticket price is just too high to consider. That day is coming soon, however.

American singer-actress Cher has embarked on seven concert tours and three concert residencies. As a solo artist, Cher has made concerts in North America, Europe, Australia and Asia. Cher's first ever concert was with her ex-husband Sonny Bono in 1966 at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles.^[1]

In 1979, Cher started her first solo concert tour, the Cher in Concert Tour, with performances in Europa and North America in 1979. After the success with disco music, Cher and her boyfriend at the time, Les Dudek, formed the new wave band Black Rose with which she did her first mini-tour, The Black Rose Show. Black Rose band during their tour were the opening act for Bob Seger in Europe and for Hall & Oates during the 1980 summer in North America.^[2]

After eight years off the road, Cher did her second solo sold-out tour in 1990, the Heart of Stone Tour, which was followed up by 1992's Love Hurts Tour. The Love Hurts Tour is well known by fans for cancellations due to Cher's illness.^[3][4]

After the huge success of the Believe album, she did her 1999/2000 Do You Believe? tour.Finally, in 2002, she embarked on her so far last concert tour, the marathon Living Proof: The Farewell Tour, which lasted from June 2002 until April 2005. The tour featured a total 325 shows, the most ever for a concert tour by a female solo artist, and grossed more than $250 million,^[5] becoming Cher's highest-grossing tour ever. Cher closed the farewell tour in April 2005 at the Hollywood Bowl. It was the most successful tour by a single female solo artist at that time.^[6]

From May 2008 until February 2011, Cher performed at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada with her new show, Cher at the Colosseum. She signed for 200 shows over the span of three years. She was paid $60 million for her return.^[7]

After her residency at the Caesars Palace which lasted from 2008-2011, Cher began touring with the Dressed to Kill Tour in 2014 after the release of her album Closer to the Truth.^[8] Cher is one of the most successful touring artists, she was placed at number three among most successful female artists and at number twenty three overall on Billboard'sTop Live Artists From 1990-2014 list.^[9]

Concert tours[edit]

Concert residencies[edit]

Concert Tours Are Where The Real Money Is Going

References[edit]

Concert Tours Are Where The Real Money Is Made

1. ^'Cher to Take Final Bow in Los Angeles'. PR Newswire. 2005-01-31. Retrieved 2010-01-07.
2. ^Kozak, Roman (1980-10-25). O Records offering 7-inch Mini Albums. Billboard. Retrieved 2009-07-22.
3. ^'Cher DK about the Love Hurts Tour'. Geocities.com. Archived from the original on 2009-10-26. Retrieved 2009-07-22.
4. ^'Love Hurts : by Edriel'. Just Plain Cher, 2003-07-15. Retrieved 2009-07-22.
5. ^'Cher Biography'. Bio: The Biography Channel. British Sky Broadcasting. Archived from the original on 2010-01-10. Retrieved 2010-10-27.
6. ^'Madonna world tour 'sets record''. BBC News Online. 2006-09-26. Retrieved 2010-01-07.
7. ^''Cher Is Back...Again'. Abcnews.go.com. 2008-04-30. Retrieved 2021-03-16.
8. ^Leach, Robin (2010-04-23). 'Strip Scribbles: Cher plans to tour after Colosseum residency ends'. Las Vegas Sun. Archived from the original on 2013-07-25. Retrieved 2010-04-27.
9. ^'Rolling Stones No. 1 on List of Top 25 Live Artists Since 1990'. Billboard.com. 2014-05-27. Retrieved 2014-05-27.

Concert Tours Are Where The Real Money Is Going