Live music offers an escape. With all the uncertainty in the world, be it political, financial or environmental, there's always comfort and reassurance to be found in hearing one of your favourite bands sing one of your favourite songs, and being able to scream their lyrics back at them in person.
The statistics back up that the sentiment. This year has been another busy one for live shows, and here we take a look at which tickets were the most sought-after across the past 12 months.
This was Capaldi’s year. There was no getting away from the Scottish singer-songwriter. Someone You Loved reached the top of the UK singles chart and the Billboard Hot 100 in the US, as well as earning him a Grammy nomination for Song of the Year. The track appears on his debut album, ‘Divinely Uninspired To A Hellish Extent’, which dropped in May and again hit the number one spot on the UK charts.
People couldn’t wait to see the man live, with more than half a million of you searching for his tour dates. It's an amazing achievement considering he didn’t even make Stereoboard’s top 50 last year.
Capaldi is keen to capitalise on his newfound fame and keeps announcing more shows for 2020. Currently he’s got a UK and European tour in the diary for the spring and some huge outdoor dates in the UK and Ireland lined up for the summer, as well as numerous festival performances.
We said it last year and we’ll say it again, P!nk is a force of nature. She’s stood her ground and held second place on the ticketing list. Her Beautiful Trauma World Tour was one of her most ambitious yet and led to more than half a million people seeking out tickets.
The trek shared its name with the singer’s 2017 album, which she followed up with ‘Hurts 2B Human’ in April. The latest record came together while P!nk was on the road during the Beautiful Trauma World Tour andhit number one in the UK, US, Canada and Australia, among others.
P!nk brought the tour to the UK and Europe this summer, with two nights at London’s Wembley Stadium concluding the UK leg at the end of June. The trek is now over, having also travelled extensively across North America. For now, the multitalented performer is taking a well-earned break.
K-Pop fever swept the UK this year and leading the charge were BTS, who are now one of the world’s biggest pop groups. They can sing, dance and they can really put on a show, which is why 505, 904 of you sought out their live dates in 2019, earning them the number three spot on this year’s list.
They kept us wanting more, with the UK leg of their Love Yourself: Speak Yourself World Tour limited to two London shows at Wembley Stadium. The trek took its name from the group's ‘Love Yourself’ album trilogy that spanned 2017 and 2018.
This year is when things really went into overdrive, though. The seven-piece put out a mobile video game, BTS World, and accompanying soundtrack, released Bring The Soul: The Movie, two concert films, and then in August announced an “indefinite hiatus”, only to return just over a month later. There is no stopping these guys.
This spring Drake brought his God’s Plan lyrics to life when he turned to O2 into the O3 for his seven-night residency at the London venue. The dates formed part of the UK and Ireland leg of The Assassination Vacation Tour, which also saw him stop in Manchester, Dublin and Birmingham.
Over 444, 000 of you were eager to join the party, which featured a flying Ferrari, jaw-dropping pyrotechnics and numerous guests, including Giggs, Future, Dave and Fredo.
Touring aside, it’s been a busy 12 months for the Canadian rapper, who dropped the compilation record 'Care Package' this summer and became one of the producers for the third season of the UK show Top Boy, with his OVO Sounds releasing a selection of music inspired by the series. He even managed to fit in a few guest appearances on other artists’ tracks, including Gold Roses with Rick Ross, Chris Brown’s No Guidance and most recently Loyal by PARTYNEXTDOOR.
Elton John is still on the road! His ongoing Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour has meant he’s moved up from number six on last year’s list to number five this year. He may have been in the music business since the late 1960s, but people are more excited than ever to see him live, with over 380,000 searching for shows in 2019.
His final tour will see the icon play over 300 dates across five continents, performing in North America, the UK, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, South America and Australasia, with shows currently set to run until the end of 2020.
This year also saw the release of Rocketman, a film biopic about John’s life that introduced a new generation to the musical genius of the legendary songwriter and performer. He teamed up with the film’s lead, Taron Egerton, to record a new song for the soundtrack called (I’m Gonna) Love Me Again, which has since been shortlisted for an Oscar for Best Original Song. John is all about a big finish, and these final years in the spotlight are no exception.
Michael Bublé is moving up in the world. Well, from number 14 on last year’s list to an impressive number six this year. A whopping 373, 322 people searched for one of the festive season’s most popular performers.
Due to the overwhelming success of his Evening With Tour, which recently wrapped up at London’s O2 Arena, the crooner will return to the UK in 2020 for a summer run at beautiful outdoor venues. He’s also lined up shows in North America for the spring and Australia in February.
This year also found the Grammy Award-winning Canadian vocalist releasing his 10th studio album, ‘Love’, which hit number one in his home country and the UK.
She may have recently been nominated for four Grammy Awards, but I’m pretty sure Ariana Grande would still be pleased to know she’s made it to number seven on our list by racking up a very respectable 367, 741 searches in 2019.
The Sweetener World Tour, named after her 2018 album, took the powerhouse vocalist across North America, to the UK, Ireland and mainland Europe this year. Surprising a lot of people, Grande decided to release another album before it began, dropping ‘Thank U, Next’ in February.
Despite being on the road, the singer also found the time for some collaborations, appearing on a remix of Lizzo’s track Good As Hell, working again with Social House for the single Boyfriend, and teaming up with Miley Cyrus and Lana Del Rey for Don't Call Me Angel, a track written for the new Charlie’s Angels film. Grande is a prolific artist, and we’re very much on board with that.
You may be thinking: who? This cult hero has stayed under the radar for far too long. But after selling out Hampden Park in Glasgow in just a few hours, there’s no escaping the spotlight for the Scottish singer-songwriter. There were an impressive 364, 234 searches to see him live in 2019.
Next year will find Cinnamon releasing his new album, ‘The Bonny’, the follow-up to his 2017 top 20 effort 'Erratic Cinematic'. He’ll support the record with some of his biggest headline shows to date during spring and summer, including a stop at Cardiff Castle and Alexandra Palace in London, among many others.
Very impressively, Cinnamon has gone from number 29 on last year’s list to number eight in 2019. Could we be looking at next year’s top spot holder? At the rate he’s going, it’s a very likely possibility.
Little Mix have broken into Stereoboard’s top 10 for 2019, having last year just missed out at number 11. The pop group got a whopping 344,542 searches this year and the number keeps on rising.
Jade Thirlwall, Perrie Edwards, Leigh-Anne Pinnock and Jesy Nelson are a hard working bunch, touring extensively almost every year since 2012 and somehow managing to put out five albums during that time. That’s no small feat, especially considering the quality of their output continues to mature and grow emotionally along with them and their fanbase.
Next year will find the quartet hitting the road in the summer for another huge UK tour, this time swapping arenas for stadiums and outdoor venues. The trek will include a London show as part of BST Hyde Park with support from special guests Rita Ora, Kesha and Zara Larsson, with more names still to be added. It’ll be another busy year for the singers, just the way they like it.
He was last year’s number nine and in 2019 takes the last spot on our top 10, but something tells me Ed Sheeran won’t be too bothered, with the Divide Tour having this summer broken U2’s record for the highest grossing and most attended tour of all time.
The singer-songwriter has been supporting his 2017 album of the same name around the world for the last two and a half years, wrapping up the extensive run in August with a four-night stand at Ipswich’s Chantry Park.
During that time, Sheeran also managed to release ‘No. 6 Collaborations Project’, a 15-track record that features collaborations with Cardi B, Camila Cabello, Stormzy, Khalid, Chance The Rapper, PnB Rock, Yebba, Justin Bieber, Travis Scott, Eminem, 50 Cent, Young Thug, J Hus, Ella Mai, Paulo Londra, Dave, H.E.R, Meek Mill, A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie, Skrillex, Bruno Mars and Chris Stapleton. The man must never sleep.
We looked at what fans were searching for on Google and we’ve crunched the numbers from our Google Ads account to bring you the definitive list of the hottest tickets sought in 2019.
We did this by analysing Stereoboard’s impression share, from millions of search queries, and extrapolated that data. That enabled us to estimate, to a high degree of accuracy, the total number of fans searching for ticket related terms on Google’s search engine for each artists’ UK tour throughout the past 12 months—covering over 3,000 artists in total.
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