Pollstar: 2020 Live Concert Industry Lost Revenue Of More Than $30 Billion

Pollstar 2020 Year-End Issue

Live music trade magazine POLLSTAR released its 2020 year-end special issue putting the year’s total lost revenue for the concert business at more than $30 billion since shuttering in MARCH due to the pandemic. The magazine's box office database, the largest in the world, predicted a record-setting $12.2 billion in revenues in 2020, but instead incurred $9.7 billion in losses.

The projected $30+ billion figure includes unreported events, ancillary revenues, including sponsorships, ticketing, concessions, merch, transportation, restaurants, hotels, and other economic activity tied to the live events. Additionally, these calculations took into consideration the losses among the 147,000 live businesses featured in POLLSTAR’s directories as well industry studies, which included 2018’s PRICEWATERHOUSECOOPERS’ Global Entertainment and Media Outlook 2018-2022 report and the 2017 Arts and Cultural Economic Activity study undertaken by the BUREAU OF ECONOMIC ANALYSIS and the NEA. 

OAK VIEW GROUP Media & Conferences Division President RAY WADDELL commented, “It’s been an extraordinarily difficult year for the events industry, which has been disproportionately impacted by the CORONAVIRUS. As painful as it is to chronicle the adversity and loss our industry and many of our colleagues faced, we understand it is a critical undertaking towards facilitating our recovery, which is thankfully on the horizon. With vaccines, better testing, new safety and sanitization protocols, smart ticketing and other innovations, the live industry will be ramping up in the coming months, and we’re sure that at this time next year we’ll have a very different story to tell.” 

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