Last week, we wrote about the summer box office season and theme parks. This week, we've turned our attention to live music.
The summer 2024 concert season was going to be unusual on a year-over-year basis given last year’s Taylor Swift and Beyonce stadium extravaganzas. Additionally, last year benefitted from a lot of very popular acts that returned following the pandemic like Ed Sheeran and Coldplay, which were stadium events. And so, this summer, concerts were always going to be more at arenas and less at stadiums which Placer shows (below).
At an investor event this week, Live Nation Entertainment CEO Mike Rapino said that 2025 was again going to be a “monster stadium year” with it looking “bigger than 2023.” Moreover, he also expects arenas to be up next year as well. In describing how the industry is driving through the current economic climate, Rapino said, “I have three young boys, and it doesn't matter if I take them this week or May. As long as I tell them some time, we're going to go to Disneyland, they'll be okay. But my son wanted to see Green Day last week, I had to do it, right? That's the one scarcity moment that Green Day's in town. So we have this great, great thing called scarcity...They tour every 3 or 4 years, once in your city, not 80 home games a year. So that's scarcity… Probably like the NFL has it, right? If they're reporting numbers, I don't think anyone in an NFL is going to say that they're feeling any pullback.”
