MUSIC
Will Beyoncé’s ‘Renaissance’ tour outsell Taylor Swift’s ‘Eras Tour’?
Two of the worlds biggest music stars are touring the globe and selling billions of dollars in ticket sales alone.
The tours are in motion, with several months of screaming fans still to come before we know the final result of the question: which of Beyoncé's ‘Renaissance’ and Taylor Swift’s ‘Eras Tour’ will pull in the most revenue from ticket sales. But it’s worth us considering what Forbes predicted as tickets went on sale earlier in the year.
‘Renaissance’, they say, could make about $500 million more than the ‘Eras Tour’, with Queen Bey’s tour expected to sell $2.4 billion in tickets.
How Beyoncé's ‘Renaissance’ stacks up vs Swift’s ‘Eras Tour’
The results of the analyses were published early May, which included assumptions based on the number of tickets sold, how expensive the tickets are, and the amount of merchandise sold at each show. The data suggests that ‘Renaissance’ is going to be one of the highest-grossing tours in history, reporting an estimated gross of $2.4 billion from ticket sales by the final show scheduled for September.
Should Beyoncé hit the $2.4 billion mark, ‘Renaissance’ will well surpass ‘Eras Tour’ — by half a million dollars. Swift’s tour predictions top out at $1.9 billion.
Tickets for Beyoncé's ‘Renaissance’ tour cost on average $700, a high price for which Forbes assumes fans are willing to pay to satisfy their “pent-up desire” to see live music post-COVID-19 pandemic.
How the merchandise factors into the equation
While ticket sale predictions favor the ‘Crazy in Love’ singer, Swift is taking initiative in selling merchandise. David Herlihy, Northeastern University Teaching Professor and Music Industry Program Coordinator, pointed out that Swift advertises and sells ‘Eras Tour’ merch online, generating a lot more sales than Queen Bey.
“[Swift is] likely to sell out 30,000 pieces of merchandise at an average price of $80 per item [per show]”, the prof said, while Beyoncé's merchandise is only available at the venue — and generally at inflated prices, leading to less people willing to pick up the goods.
We’ll be back once the singers take a break from touring to add up the respective revenues.