Taylor Swift And Beyoncé Concert Films Eying Blockbuster Returns

Not content with world tours set to pass the billion-dollar mark, Taylor Swift and Beyoncé – with help from their fans, the Swifties and Beehive, respectively – are set to turn their concert movies into box office strikes.

The deals both have struck with film distributors, in North America at least, is they get 50 percent of revenue.

Taylor Swift – The Eras Tour is expected to churn up US$100 million in the first three days in North America after its October 13 release. It’s already surpassed $100 million in global ticket presales alone, toppling Justin Bieber: Never Say Never (2011) as the highest-grossing concert film ever (that having brought in $73 million). It was the highest advance sales revenues in a single day in cinema giant AMC’s 103-year history. The previous record of $16.9 million was held by Spider Man: No Way Home.

The film’s footage comes from three shows in late August at the SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Los Angeles. It will open in 8,500 cinemas in 100 countries. In Australia it is expected to become the biggest concert film of all time, turning over A$10 million.

Its pre-sales here were impressive. According to The Age, that was $300,000 in the first 12 hours in just the Hoyts Group (58 cinemas, 497 screens, 50,000 seats in Australia and New Zealand), half the tickets in a few hours at the 700-seat Cremorne Orpheum in Sydney, and 2,000 tickets within the first 12 hours of sales at Palace Cinemas, which has 24 cinemas and 180 screens in 24 national locations.

Swift’s Australian tour promoter, Frontier Touring, declines to give data on concert ticket sales in Australia. But industry observers estimate it’s probably about 750,000 from multiple shows in Sydney and Melbourne. Globally the 146-date Eras Tour will make $1.9 billion, with each show generating an average of $13 million.

AMC is dropping Beyoncé’s movie about her Renaissance tour on December 1. The release is so far confirmed for the United States, Canada and Mexico, with tickets at $22, but other cities around the world will be added before then.

The Renaissance film is set for a box office blast given the figures for the first part of the tour, which began in Europe on May 23 and wrapped up in the United States on October 1. It played to over 2.7 million fans at 56 shows in 39 different cities.

Beyoncé is travelling with an entourage of 300, including musicians, dancers (which includes her oldest daughter Blue Ivy Carter), production teams and road crews.

Produced by her Parkwood Entertainment company, the film blends concert moments with doco footage on how the album and tour came together.

"When I am performing, I am nothing but free," she says in the movie trailer. "The goal for this tour was to create a place where everyone is free and no one is judged. You're unique. Start over, start fresh, create the new — that's what the Renaissance is about."

The Renaissance tour is set to be announced for Australia in 2024, playing at least six capital cities. Her last visit, the Mrs. Carter Show World Tour in 2013/14, sold 220,000 tickets in Australia and New Zealand, earning A$40 million and setting new attendance records in Perth. She also made her debut in New Zealand, selling out three shows in 15 minutes and declared the fastest selling tour of all time at Auckland’s Vector Arena. That tour globally grossed $229.7 million.

A third box office smash could come from P!nk, who’s also doing serious tour business. Her current Summer Carnival tour is set to equal her 2019 record, when she shifted 1.81 million tickets and cleared $215.2 million.

According to Live Nation, the Australian run in summer, taking in 16 stadiums, will click over 725,000 in ticket sales and make it the biggest-selling Australian tour by a female artist. Pollstar figures show that ten of P!nk’s 25 all-time biggest grosses have come from Australia or New Zealand. The two most successful have been at Melbourne’s Rod Laver Arena, with a mid-2013 run there producing $29.4 million from 235,187 fans. The second biggest show drew $20.2 million from 157,811 ticket sales.

The February 2024 run will see her pass the 3 million ticket mark over near-20 year visits to ANZ. She is unbothered by how media abroad seems more obsessed with Swift and Beyoncé. “I cannot be mad at that,” she told Pollstar. “I do get the competition question a bunch, and I don’t think any one of us women feels that way, because I think all of us have been around long enough to realize that we can all win at the same time. It feels pretty good to be among this group of women. And how could a person that sells two million tickets ever complain about anything!?”