Who else is killin’ it on tour this summer? Surrounded by a sea of big-name popstar tours, country music tours are thriving, led by Luke Combs, Morgan Wallen, and George Strait.
In a summer of stadium tours dominated by major pop sensations like Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, Beyonce, and Madonna, the often-overlooked world of country music is thriving in box office sales. New data from Pollstar reveals that among the top concert performers this summer are country stars Luke Combs, Morgan Wallen, and George Strait.
While some artists such as Taylor Swift are taking an unconventional approach by reporting their tour earnings after the fact, most report their per-show sales data, leading to Pollstar uncovering a notable trend: country stars are leading the pack this summer in average concert gross and tickets sold.
Pollstar’s Global Concert Pulse ranks artists by reported average box office gross over the last three months. At the top of that list is Luke Combs, with an average gross of $5.2 million with tickets at an average price of $98. Morgan Wallen ranks behind him with a $4.5 million average gross and tickets averaging $182.
“Combs is grossing $5.2 million a night (…) while performing in front of 53,000-plus people. Wallen is making almost as much while playing for audiences about half the size because he’s charging more,” notes Bloomberg‘s Lucas Shaw. “While Combs charges about $98 a night, Wallen charges more than $180.”
Combs is also killing it in his average number of tickets sold, based on data from Pollstar of worldwide active tours for shows performed in the last 30 days. He’s Number 3 on that list with 52,879 tickets sold across five shows — only behind country legend George Strait (56,125 average tickets sold across three shows) and pop singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran (65,633 average tickets sold across eight shows).
Notably, country star Kenny Chesney is having a successful run this summer at Number 17 on Pollstar’s Top 20 Global Concert Tours. He’s raked in over $1.2 million across his shows this summer, with an average of 11,000 tickets sold at about $114 each.
