Nearly $1B In Concert Revenue Lost

Lady Gaga (Doug Mills photo)

More than 500 concerts scheduled for arenas and stadiums in 2020, representing 13.4 million potential fans and nearly $1 billion in total projected revenue, have been canceled or postponed since mid-March by the coronavirus pandemic.

That's according to a Sports Business Journal analysis of hundreds of sport venues and musical acts’ schedules and recent box office data from Pollstar.

Concerts have long been used to fill what would otherwise be dark dates, and promoters and venue operators were banking on this year’s strong slate of acts to top 2019’s blockbuster box office.

The summer’s biggest draw was expected to be the Rolling Stones’ 15-stadium “No Filter Tour.” The band played 16 shows at 14 stadiums last summer (all sellouts), averaging $11.1 million in ticket sales per show at an average of $227 a pop, according to Pollstar. Using those numbers as a reference, the band would have easily topped $160 million this summer.

On the arena side, the Eagles were scheduled to play two nights each in five cities as part of their “Hotel California Tour.” Illustrating the challenge the industry is having, those dates were first bumped to this fall and then were pushed last month to the end of 2021. A perennial sellout, the average cost of a ticket during the band’s 2019 tour was $366, the priciest of any act.

Based on per-show averages from each act’s most recent tour, the 519 postponed or canceled concerts would have generated approximately $674 million in ticket sales. The majority of that money stays with the performers and their promoters.

Based on concert per cap data provided to SBJ by industry sources, those shows also would have generated approximately $300 million in food, beverage and merchandise revenue for the owners and operators of the buildings. Performances actually canceled, and not just postponed or rescheduled, will wipe out an estimated $144 million in revenue and reduce attendance by more than 6.2 million fans.

The dark venues don’t just mean a loss of revenue for the bands and venue owners. Behind the scenes are hundreds of local companies that handle staging, trucking, catering, rigging and other production-related work for touring acts. Meglen said that they have 200 people on the road with the Rolling Stones, which requires 200 hotel rooms. The production crew uses 24 18-wheelers and each stage needs 12 to14 more.