Finally, some good news from the music business; kind of. Ray Waddell at Billboard Biz writes….
For the overall touring industry, grosses reported to Billboard Boxscore totaled slightly less than $4 billion worldwide, the most ever for a year and up almost 13% over last year.
That’s the good news right there. The other side of the coin is…
But global reported concert attendance is virtually flat, with 6% fewer shows. And North American concert attendance is down nearly 2%, after a nearly 20% decrease last year, continuing a troubling trend. Better news is evident on a show-by-show basis; the average box office gross in North America is up 18% and average attendance is up 6.3%, reflecting that some of the attendance decline can be attributed to a decrease in the overall show count.
So, fewer shows, higher ticket prices and more fans per show is the trend. Here are the top ten acts based on data reported to Billboard Boxscore from Nov. 14, 2007, through Nov. 11, 2008.
Bon Jovi $210.6 million
Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band $204.5 million
Madonna $162 million (still-underway)
the Police $150 million
Celine Dion $91 million
Kenny Chesney $86 million
Neil Diamond $81.2 million
Spice Girls $70 million
the Eagles $56.6 million
Rascal Flatts $55.8 million
The initial thing that I think when I look at that is; no new acts. I mean, that’s a pretty well seasoned crew there. Strike a couple of names there and it looks like a list from nineteen eighty something.
Also, if you add up the grosses of the top ten, it comes to almost $1.2 Billion…well over 1/4 of all the touring money for the year. The rest of the pie is divided up between every other act on the planet.
How many more extravaganzas do these old war horses have in them? What does this list look like ten years from now?
If the idea is to concentrate on less shows with increasing ticket prices, where will the new acts come from?
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