STADIUM CONCERTS REACH EVENT STATUS

After some 20 years of near dormancy, the stadium concert business has returned with a vengeance in the past half-decade, increasing from a handful of elite acts capable of playing these largest of venues to more than a dozen dipping their toes into stadium waters each year.
Among the acts that will play at least some U.S. stadiums in 2017 are U2, Billy Joel, Justin Bieber, Metallica, James Taylor, Tom Petty, Dead & Company, and country acts Kenny Chesney, Zac Brown Band, Luke Bryan, Blake Shelton, Florida Georgia Line, and Jason Aldean. Live Nation is far and away the top promoter for these shows.
While many forces are driving this increase in stadium concerts in North America (stadium shows have remained consistently popular in the U.K., Europe and other international markets), the primary factor is nothing new: there are more acts that can sell 50,000 tickets or more.
“There are a lot of big stars out there that can do the business,” observed Rob Light, managing partner of Creative Artists Agency, which has seen such clients as Beyonce, Bruce Springsteen, Zac Brown Band and James Taylor venture into stadiums in recent years.
Few acts have more efficiently tapped into the stadium concert resurgence than has Billy Joel, who in 2017 will embark on his fourth consecutive year of adding stadiums to his route. Joel has put seven Major League Baseball stadiums on sale in January—Boston’s Fenway Park, Chicago’s Wrigley Field, Philadelphia’s Citizens Bank Park, Atlanta’s Sun Trust Park, Cleveland’s Progressive Field, Minneapolis’ Target Field, and Los Angeles’ Dodger Stadium. Three of those (Boston, Chicago and Philadelphia) were for the fourth consecutive year. All are at or near sellout, and two more cities will be added.
Longtime Joel agent Dennis Arfa, Artist Group International, said one stadium in a market (as opposed to back-to-back arenas) preserves Joel’s voice, makes better use of the artist’s time, and makes a lot of money. He added that there are “fewer roadblocks” for fans to attend stadium concerts these days. “Stadiums are modernized and, for a lot of people who are not necessarily sports fans, [a concert] gives them a reason to go to a park,” said Arfa. “Who doesn’t want to go to some of these iconic stadiums?”
Unlike the mid-‘90s, when classic rock acts like The Eagles, Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones, The Grateful Dead and Billy Joel/Elton John were all out on stadium tours, today the range of acts that are playing stadiums spans most genres. Stadiums are not only hosting those same venerable rock acts like the Stones, Joel, Springsteen, and (this summer) U2, but also rock acts like Coldplay, Guns N’ Roses, pop artists like Justin Bieber this year and Beyonce’s industry-leading Formation tour in 2016, and a wealth of country tours.
“Obviously the [stadium concert] money is fantastic, and it allows artists to see more fans in a more concentrated period of time,” said Light, adding that time is an even more important consideration as artists increasingly embark on global careers. “When you think about an artist having to play the whole world now, not just North America, [stadium capacities] allow them to see more fans. And, in the case of certain stadiums, it’s just a really cool vibe.”
U2's Joshua Tree stadium tour moved over 1.1 million tickets in 24 hours, with Live Nation confirming sellouts for the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif., CenturyLink Field in Seattle, Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif.; AT&T Stadium in Dallas, Soldier Field in Chicago, Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, FedEx Field in Washington, D.C., Gillette Stadium in Boston, MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J.; First Energy Stadium in Cleveland, BC Place Stadium in Vancouver, and Rogers Centre in Toronto. Second shows were added in Chicago, East Rutherford, N.J., and the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif. The U.K./Europe leg is also sold out.  The tour begins May 12 in Vancouver.
Another factor likely contributing to the new wave of stadium shows is, ironically, large numbers of music fans flocking to that other large-capacity venue on the musical landscape: festivals. With the growth in the last 15 years of festivals that routinely draw 50,000-80,000 per day, fans have become more accustomed than ever to taking in live music amid huge crowds and, in fact, seem to crave the “event” status that stadium shows enjoy.
“The most important thing that has become apparent to everybody is the fans like the [stadium] experience,” said Light. “If they didn’t, we wouldn’t all be doing it, because the tickets wouldn’t sell.”
Light agreed that the growth in festivals in America could indirectly be contributing to the increase in sold-out stadium shows. 
Additionally, most stadium shows aren’t the long, hard slog they used to be, with subpar amenities and little in the way of creature comforts. “Facilities have done a great job of making the experience better for fans, the food’s great, they’ve figured out things like public transportation and parking,” said Light. “Everything about the experience has gotten better.”
When stadium shows fell off as the previous century wound down, and only a handful of bands—primarily U2 and the Stones—played stadiums, many of the biggest acts tapped into their demand in certain markets by simply doubling up on arena and amphitheater shows. So what tips the scale toward a stadium play?
“Every artist has a different motivation,” said Light. “Sometimes it’s time, sometimes it’s the scope of their vision for production, sometimes it’s at a pinnacle in their career where they want to make a statement that they’ve reached a certain level. There’s no one factor that covers every artist, and most of the time when you’re making that move, you’re sitting with that artist and that manager and saying, ‘here are all the options,’ and every artist has a slightly different motivation.”
Marc Geiger, head of William Morris Endeavor Entertainment’s music division, said he considers several factors when determining whether an act should take the stadium leap. “Is the client dying to play them? Do they have the show to justify the experience?” he wonders.
“Does the business justify the cost, risk, or sales, and huge venue expense?” Finally, “does the audience tolerate the stadium over an indoor arena with a higher ticket?”
It’s not a decision to be taken lightly. More so than arenas, which frequently host concerts, and certainly than sheds, which are purpose-built for music, production costs at stadiums are huge, and the financial risks follow suit, even with proven draws. Production costs for stadium concerts run about triple those in arenas, roughly $1.5 million, plus tax of 5-to-7% on average. So with those expenses, an act expecting a $1-million guarantee would need a box office gross of about $2.8 million just to break even and, with an acceptable promoter profit of $300,000-$400,000, the gross would have to top $3 million before the band would get into overage.
Scaling, at best an inexact science, becomes critical for stadium shows. Stadiums provide the capacity to put 8,000-9,000 tickets at the P1 price point (commonly $200-$250, providing the band can sell at that level), and a typical downward scaling for a superstar act would be $200, $150, $100, $80 and $60. Simply making the nut on moderately produced shows can require a $100 average ticket price on 50,000 fans, or a $90 average ticket price on 60,000 tickets sold.
For the past three years, promoter Live Nation has split production costs between two non-competing acts that play back-to-back concerts in specific stadiums, saving as much as $500,000-$700,000 in the process. When acts like Joel can split costs on expensive line items like staging and labor with country acts like Luke Bryan and Jason Aldean, the economics of stadium shows become much easier to absorb.
For acts that can do this level of business, the upside is eye-popping. If a show does get into overage (meaning the gross is big enough to exceed the guarantee), it can add another $200,000-$500,000 to the artist’s earnings. Additionally, bigger crowds mean bigger merchandise sales, as much $750,000 to $1 million or more for the bigger acts, with the lion’s share also going to the artist.
Beyond a doubt, the biggest consideration for artists considering making the leap into stadiums is being realistic about demand, as 40,000-60,000 tickets is a heavy lift and no one wants to see a half-empty stadium.
To call the current stadium concert renaissance a “boom” would be an over-statement. The number of stadium shows annually in the U.S. are still only a fraction of the numbers seen in the 1980s and 1990s, and it’s doubtful they’ll ever return to that level. 
For Arfa, booking Billy Joel into stadiums is a matter of “recognizing that his music resonates, and reacting to what I see out there,” he said. “It’s like a quarterback reading a defense, ‘there’s an open hole, I can do that.’ You keep doing things that help him resonate. I think he’s having the time of his life.”