Concert tours rock the global economy

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SAY SOMETHING: Fans record Drake looking into the audience at his Miami show on October 27th. On his It’s All a Blur tour, Drake performed 44 songs from his most recent albums including Passionfruit, Too Good and God’s Plan and brought out special guest 21 Savage. Photo courtesy by Angelina Analis

By: Savannah Anselmo

Small towns and major cities alike are experiencing celebrity treatment as popular artists such as Taylor Swift, Beyonce and Drake go on tour. These tour stops impact both the local economy and awareness of the town itself. Not only do these cities appeal to the artists visiting, but the local economy is also greatly impacted. This industry brings in billions of dollars every year globally.

These tour stops bring in both commercial activity to the visiting cities and are responsible for the creation of local jobs. They lead to vast amounts of money and a dramatic upswing in commercial activity after tours including Taylor Swift’s The Eras tour and Beyonce’s Renaissance tour. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, concert revenue took a downward turn as tours were being put on pause or canceled altogether. However that changed after the pandemic lifted, and concerts started to come back larger than ever. In 2022, the Live Nations concert revenue was a total of 13.49 billion U.S. dollars, up 4.72 billion from the year before and the global revenue was 31.2 billion.

“Concerts are usually a huge thing that brings people to a new area, so that way, you get tourism, and you get tourist dollars in that area,” Said science teacher Dr. Darius Horne. “It works just like the Super Bowl but [with] music.”

When a popular tour comes into a city, fans will spend hundreds of dollars on food, housing, travel, and other expenses to have a once-in-a-lifetime experience. According to QuestionPro, the US leg of Taylor Swift’s The Eras tour could generate around 5 billion U.S. dollars for the economy from consumer spending, with ticket sales alone generating around 2.2 billion U.S. dollars. The Federal Reserve has found a boost in hotel revenue since the Eras Tour began on March 17th from fans flying into cities to see the tour. Due to the success of her Eras tour and rerecording of her albums, Taylor Swift has recently become a billionaire, now worth 1.1 billion.

“If you just turn on the news [Taylor Swift has] most definitely has boosted economies.” Said junior Alexis Perez. “She has made cities completely sell out hotels just in a day because of her concerts. Even her movie that she’s coming out with for the Eras tour was the number one fastest-selling movie to ever exist. She definitely has changed our economy for the better.”

**YEAR 3000:** The Jonas Brothers stand on a platform singing hit songs from five different albums on The Tour. Fans came from all across South Florida to Kaseya Center Stadium to watch them perform songs from the past seventeen years.
*Photo by Savannah Anselmo*

In addition to Taylor Swift, other incredibly popular artists such as Beyonce, Drake, Elton John and The Jonas Brothers have made their dent in the concert industry boost. Beyonce’s Renaissance world tour has been named a “cultural phenomenon” by Variety Magazine, earning 579 million US dollars. This made it the seventh highest-grossing tour in history. During the tour, she made a stop at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens on Friday, August 18th, selling out the stadium as her only South Florida stop. Local businesses prepared for her as they expected a boost in sales, hiring extra staff and buying supplies. Other artists that visited Miami were Drake and The Jonas Brothers, selling hundreds of tickets and bringing people to the city willing to spend extra money to have an enjoyable night. Currently, the top-grossing tours in 2023 have been held by Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Ed Sheeran, Coldplay and P!nk.

“Music brings a lot of people joy,” Said Horne. “So sometimes you get some of the best combinations of people from all over enjoying one thing and that’s still pretty peaceful, and they’re spending money. So it does nothing but do really good for the economy and usually all those involved.”

Not only do major tours bring in large sums of revenue, but due to the sheer amount of labor that’s involved in operating large-scale concerts, they also create an abundance of jobs. To run a large-scale concert, you need anything from merchandise sales associates to stage builders. In Cincinnati, Ohio, The Eras tour was predicted to create around 900 jobs alone.

“It definitely creates jobs because a concert takes a lot to run so there are obviously dancers, there are people behind the scenes like stage managers,” said Perez. “There are also makeup artists and hair stylists that have to travel with all these people, not only the ones who have to build the sets entirely.”