The summer of the stadium tour

This summer became a landmark season for live music, as a slate of blockbuster stadium tours led by the biggest names in pop reaffirmed the primacy of the large-scale live spectacle and drew enormous crowds, in a striking demonstration of the enduring, even growing, power of the concert in the streaming age.

Two of the year's defining tours, mounted by the era's two biggest pop superstars, ran concurrently, each a massive, meticulously staged production that turned every date into a major event. Fans travelled across regions and countries to attend, and the tours generated enormous revenue and extraordinary cultural attention.

The phenomenon reflected a broader shift in the economics of music. As recorded-music income had migrated to streaming, which pays artists relatively little per play, live performance had become ever more central to how artists earned a living and connected with audiences, and the top tours had grown into vast commercial enterprises.

The season also demonstrated the intense hunger for communal, in-person experiences after the disruptions of the pandemic years, with fans embracing the chance to gather and share in the spectacle. Host cities reported significant economic boosts from the influx of concertgoers.

The summer of the stadium tour underscored a music landscape in which the live concert reigned supreme as the ultimate expression of an artist's cultural power and the deepest point of connection with fans. In an age of infinite, frictionless digital access to recorded music, the irreplaceable, ephemeral experience of being there, in the crowd, had become more valuable than ever.