THE COUNT: ZACH BRYAN, BAD BUNNY HIT THE ROAD

It's only been three months since Warner's Zach Bryan wrapped his sold-out, 28-date Burn, Burn, Burn arena tour, but the alt-country artist is eyeing even bigger box-office returns for his upcoming AEG-promoted, 76-date Quittin Time outing, which begins with a sold-out 3/5-7 engagement at Chicago’s United Center and will hit 60 arenas and 16 stadiums through December.

The Oologah, Oklahoma-bred musician—managed by Danny Kang and Stefan Max—has already sold out the first eight shows of the run, with several others close to going clean. It could add up to record numbers for Bryan, whose rise has led to three Grammy Award nominations. He will also headline a number of country festivals in 2024, including Hangout on 5/19 in Gulf Shores, Alabama, both nights of Buckeye Country in Columbus, Ohio, 6/22-23 and Danny Wimmer Presents’ Bourbon and Beyond in Louisville, Kentucky, 9/19-22.

Though often touted as a country artist, Bryan was signed outside Nashville by Aaron Bay-Schuck and Warner Records' A&R team—and has been virtually ignored by Country radio. His audience is also outside that world; one could argue he has more in common with a young Bruce Springsteen than, say, Luke Combs.

Zach Bryan, Stefan Max, Jay Marciano

The Quttin Time arena shows will be performed in the round—increasing the capacity of a venue by several thousand tickets per show (also see Bad Bunny below). And Bryan is hitting many of the same markets he visited on Burn, Burn, Burn, demonstrating how demand for the 27-year-old act’s live shows continues to grow. The tour has already sold over 1.6 million tickets.

In that way, Bryan’s live business is mirroring the swift rise of his recorded music, which first reached a wide audience in 2022 with the release of his major-label debut, American Heartbreak. That set is at 2.67m units, while its single "Something in the Orange" is nearing 691m global streams on Spotify and has exceeded 1b audio streams on U.S. DSPs.

In August 2023 Bryan’s self-titled fourth album debuted at #1 and has since been propelled to nearly 1.3m units by the hit "I Remember Everything" with Kacey Musgraves. The song is Top 5 at both Spotify U.S. and Apple Music and closing in on 326m streams at the former.

In September, he released his third EP, Boys of Faith, which included tracks featuring Noah Kahan and Bon Iver. Bryan has said his fifth full-length will be coming at some point this year; releasing it while on tour would comport with his irreverence toward industry norms. After all, this is a guy who titled his surprise Christmas 2022 live album All My Homies Hate Ticketmaster.

Bryan may just be getting started as a major live draw, but international superstar Bad Bunny is now aiming to outdo himself. So how does he follow up the highest-grossing concert tour of 2022 and a headline performance at Coachella in 2023? By getting a bit more intimate in 2024.

The Rimas artist kicks off his Most Wanted arena tour 2/21 in Salt Lake City with new, 360-degree staging. Bad Bunny grossed more than $435 million in 2022 on 81 shows across two legs—his stadium El Último Tour Del Mundo and World’s Hottest Tour.

Tickets for his upcoming Live Nation-promoted, 47-date, 31-city North American jaunt have not blown out but are wrapping well and odds are good that most of the dates will sell out. B-Bun is booked by Jbeau Lewis at UTA; the tour will be overseen by Live Nation SVP of Global Touring Hans Schafer.

Bad Bunny, Jbeau Lewis, Hans Schafer, Noah Assad

Instead of waiting for a show to go clean before putting another on sale, as is often the industry standard, Bad Bunny’s management team, led by Habibi and Rimas boss Noah Assad, was so confident in the demand to see the Puerto Rican sensation perform that they put multiple nights on sale in major markets at the same time.

As Team Bunny did with previous arena and stadium tour launches, the Most Wanted Tour was announced during the release week of his most recent LP, the trap album nadie sabe lo que va a pasar mañana. While notching an easy #1 debut last October, that project hasn't achieved the blockbuster numbers posted by 2022’s Un Verano Sin Ti. The latter set global Spotify records and remains the platform’s all-time most-streamed album. Before being dethroned by Taylor Swift last year, Bunny was the DSP's most-streamed artist three years running.

But it appears the Puerto Rican headliner is beginning to roll out a new campaign—Bad Bunny recently cleared his socials and is starting to activate his base with fresh content. A potential new Bunny album would naturally send demand, sales and streams into overdrive.