A number of artists have cancelled or cut down tours in the last couple of years, citing the growing costs – and often the stress of dealing with them.
Now Chartmetric has been analysing its data to quantify this trend, looking at the top 1,000 ‘mid-level’ and ‘superstar’ artists in its database to see how many played at least 10 concerts in the years 2022 and 2024.
“Between these two years, the share of mid-level touring artists decreased from around 19% to 12%. Among superstars, touring numbers went down at an even higher rate, from 44% to 36%,” it reported in a blog post.
“The function of touring has changed, and become relatively decentralized from the listener’s experience,” is one of the conclusions.
“However, the decentralization of touring does not stem from a desire of fans to see less live music, nor a desire of artists to tour less, but rather as the result of systemic issues that leave both groups in the lurch.”
