Stadiums are packed, tours are breaking billion-dollar records, and French artists are standing shoulder to shoulder with global icons. Live music has not just recovered post-COVID, it’s exploded. Since the end of lockdowns, the world has witnessed an unprecedented appetite for in-person concerts. And it’s not limited to traditional markets like the US or UK. From Rio to Milan, Paris to Dubai, the global stage is thriving with collective energy.But behind the dazzling lights lies a sophisticated economy, fueled by millions of tickets, publishing royalties, and a shifting perception of live performance as a strategic cornerstone of the music industry. This is a global transformation with far-reaching artistic, financial, and cultural implications. Here's what you need to know.
A Global Live Industry in Full Swing
The live music industry is experiencing unprecedented growth. According to Live Nation, concert revenues reached $34.5 billion in 2023, marking a 29% increase from the previous year. This surge is fueled by the rise of global tours and artists' ability to captivate worldwide audiences.
Recent top-grossing tours include:
- Taylor Swift – The Eras Tour: Having already grossed over $1.1 billion by the end of 2023, it's poised to surpass $1.4 billion in 2024, making it the most profitable tour in history.
- Coldplay – Music of the Spheres World Tour: This global marathon has amassed over $700 million in revenue since its inception, with sold-out dates across all continents.
- The Weeknd – After Hours til Dawn Tour: Garnering over $350 million, this tour has delivered memorable shows throughout Latin America, the Middle East, and Europe.
- Beyoncé – Cowboy Carter Tour (2025): Following the success of her Renaissance World Tour, this new tour boasts a 94% sell-out rate and is projected to generate $325 million across 31 concerts.
Public spaces have also witnessed record-breaking shows:
- On May 3, 2025, Lady Gaga performed a free concert on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro, attracting 2.1 million attendees. This surpassed the previous record set by Madonna at the same venue in 2024, which drew 1.6 million fans.
- On July 23, 2024, Travis Scott electrified Milan's La Maura Hippodrome with 80,000 fans during his Circus Maximus tour. The energy was so intense that local residents reported feeling seismic tremors, highlighting the show's impact.
French Artists Achieving Record-Breaking Performances
Within a single month, several French artists achieved the remarkable feat of filling the Stade de France, a venue historically reserved for international superstars or once-in-a-career milestones. This sudden clustering of record-breaking shows by domestic acts signals a major shift in the live music hierarchy, where homegrown talent now commands the same gravitational pull as global icons. It’s not just an exception, it’s the new standard.
- On May 4, 2024, Jul captivated 97,816 spectators, setting a new attendance record for the venue. Jul will play two more dates at Marseille's Stade Velodrome on May 23 and 24.
- Ninho followed with two consecutive sold-out shows, drawing approximately 160,000 attendees in total
- That same month, DJ Snake transformed the Saint-Denis stadium into a massive dance floor, reaffirming the global appeal of French live performances.
These milestones signify a structural transformation in live music, establishing it as a cornerstone of the cultural industry.
Festivals: A Parallel Dynamic That Remains Strong
Beyond arena and stadium tours, festivals continue to play a central role in the live music economy:
- In 2024, Coachella attracted over 250,000 attendees across two weekends, featuring headliners like Lana Del Rey, Tyler, The Creator, and Doja Cat.
- Europe's Glastonbury Festival remains iconic, with nearly 210,000 festival-goers attending in June.
- In France, Solidays surpassed 247,000 entries, while We Love Green and Rock en Seine continue to draw audiences with their eco-friendly and artistically rich formats.
Festivals have evolved into brand showcases and launchpads for new projects, monetized through ticket sales, merchandise, partnerships, live recordings, and ancillary rights.
Special Tours and Iconic Comebacks
Live performances are not solely the domain of current artists; they also serve as platforms for nostalgia and the revival of classic catalogs:
- In May 2025, Oasis will embark on a special tribute tour. While Liam and Noel Gallagher won't reunite, the band's original musicians will perform the entirety of Definitely Maybe to commemorate the album's 30th anniversary. Initial UK dates are already sold out.
- IAM and NTM have announced joint performances in 2025, including festival appearances, generating significant excitement among fans of 1990s French rap.
These events demonstrate that tours can function as heritage tools, breathing new life into established works and resonating emotionally across generations.
Why Live Music Is Booming: From Post-COVID Rebound to Strategic Reinvention
The global surge in live music isn’t just a numbers game, it’s a profound shift in how audiences engage with music.
Part of it stems from post-COVID emotional rebound. After years of lockdowns, cancelled tours, and social isolation, fans and artists alike were starved for real-world connection. Concerts returned not just as entertainment, but as essential emotional release. In a digital-heavy world, live music offers something irreplaceable: physical presence, shared energy, and moments that justify the price of admission, and often sell out months in advance.
But beyond this rebound effect lies a deeper transformation. Streaming platforms have changed how music is consumed, but they’ve also made the live experience more vital. Tours today are no longer just promotional vehicles for albums, they are immersive storytelling platforms. Artists use concerts to build narratives, express their visual identity, and cement their place in culture. In an age of social media, every show becomes content, every setlist a brand statement.
Meanwhile, the production value of live shows has skyrocketed. With LED walls, custom stage design, and cinematic choreography, concerts now resemble blockbuster experiences. This evolution turns each tour into a cultural event, one that fans won’t risk missing.
The live music boom is also shaped by market consolidation. Since their merger in 2010, Live Nation and Ticketmaster have formed a vertically integrated powerhouse. Live Nation now promotes over 40,000 concerts annually worldwide, while Ticketmaster controls an estimated 70% of ticketing sales in the U.S. This dominance has triggered regulatory scrutiny, with ongoing antitrust investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice raising questions about fair competition and consumer choice in the live entertainment sector.
Royalties and Economic Impact: The Real Earnings from Live Performances
Beyond ticket sales, each concert initiates a series of substantial economic flows, particularly concerning author rights.
When an artist performs a song live, they generate public performance royalties, known as publishing royalties. These are collected by collective management organizations (like SACEM in France or ASCAP in the U.S.) and distributed to rights holders based on the concert's setlist.
Compensation is determined by:
- The number of songs performed
- The duration of each song
- The venue's capacity
- Ticket sales (for paid concerts)
- Potential television or radio broadcasts
For instance, a song performed before 80,000 people in a stadium can yield several thousand euros in royalties for its creator, especially if it's featured in multiple countries during a tour. You can discover how music rights generate royalties in our dedicated article.
In 2022, SACEM distributed over €84 million in royalties related to concerts and live performances, underscoring the significant financial impact of live music on rights holders.
Towards a New Asset Class: Music Rights
These figures reveal that live performances benefit not only artists and concert producers but also generate tangible value for music rights holders, particularly those owning a share of the publishing rights for performed songs.
A player like Bolero now enable music rights investments in a song's publishing rights with full transparency to any retail or professional investor. When tracks by artists like Jul, Travis Scott, Beyoncé, or Lady Gaga are performed live, rights holders receive their share, and so do investors holding a fraction of these rights.
Live music doesn't just elevate audiences; it also enhances the value of music catalogs. In an economy where playlists and stadiums coexist, understanding the connection between live performances and revenue has become essential, for artists, publishers, and investors alike. Behind every standing ovation lies a distribution of royalties backstage.
