Beyoncé is on track to have the highest-grossing tour of all time.
via Forbes:
Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter — also known as Queen Bey — could clear nearly $2.1 billion from her “Renaissance” World Tour — some $500 million more than the $1.6 billion Taylor Swift could earn from “Eras.
Those eyepopping estimates are based on the most optimistic assumptions of the number of fans buying tickets at their concerts and high average ticket prices of about $700.
They also assume the artists take home a considerable share of merchandise proceeds and pay tour expenses of 20% of revenues — leaving them with the other 80%.
“Renaissance” could gross between $275 million and $2.4 billion from tickets alone by the time it ends in September. Beyoncé’s most optimistic ticket revenue estimate — $2.4 billion — is well above Era’s $1.9 billion most optimistic box office.
Due to fans’ pent-up desire to attend in-person concerts at the end of a more than three year pandemic, using optimistic assumptions makes sense to me.
Born in Houston, Texas, Beyoncé entered the music industry in the 1990s with Destiny’s Child; achieved solo success with number-one albums (like Dangerously in Love and B’Day;) headlined the NFL Super Bowl 50 and so much more.
Odds are good “Renaissance” could be Beyoncé’s most lucrative concert tour — possibly exceeding the revenue she has earned from all her previous concerts combined.
In addition to being exceptionally talented artists, Beyoncé and Swift are excellent business executives.
A key part of the executive job is choosing a business strategy — making decisions about which products to sell, where to sell them, and how much to charge customers — and executing it flawlessly.
The experts I interviewed — who have not reviewed their contracts — highlight some business strategy differences and similarities between them:
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- Swift may retain a larger share of ticket sales than does Beyoncé.
- Swift has a more extensive merchandising strategy than Beyoncé.
- Beyoncé and Swift have high tour expenses and their average ticket prices for their 2023 tours are around $700.
That’s a lot of money! You can continue reading the key differences between Beyoncé and Taylor’s tour strategies here.
