$30 Billion Loss Projected For Live Music Industry

The impact of Covid-19 on the American live music industry is expected to top $30 billion across 2020 alone.

Pollstar has estimated live music losses based on ticket sales, sponsorships, merchandise, productions and other economic activity tied to live events. This includes loss of income for restaurants, hotels and transport, all industries that benefit from the activity created for a live music event.

The losses include data from 147,000 businesses connected to live music.

“It’s been an extraordinarily difficult year for the events industry, which has been disproportionately impacted by the Coronavirus. As painful as it is to chronicle the adversity and loss our industry and many of our colleagues faced, we understand it is a critical undertaking towards facilitating our recovery, which is thankfully on the horizon,” said Ray Waddell, president of Oak View Group’s Media & Conferences Division, which oversees Pollstar and sister publication VenuesNow. “With vaccines, better testing, new safety and sanitization protocols, smart ticketing and other innovations, the live industry will be ramping up in the coming months, and we’re sure that at this time next year we’ll have a very different story to tell.”

Elton John’s Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour was the highest grossing tour of 2020 with $87.1 million revenue. By comparison Pink had the number one tour worldwide in 2019 with a gross revenue of $215.2 million.

Elton’s tour ended after his Sydney show on March 7 2020.

The remainder of the Top 10 were Celine Dion, Trans-Siberian Orchestra, U2, Queen + Adam Lambert, Post Malone, Eagles, Jonas Brothers, Dead & Company, and Andrea Bocelli.

Noise11.com