Finalists for the 2012 Billboard Touring Awards boast a diverse mix of genres, touring strategies, venue types, and positions on the career arc and their broad geographic footprint points to the increasingly global nature of the touring industry.
Register today for the Billboard Touring Conference & Awards
Among the finalists are mega-tours by such veteran artists as Roger Waters, Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, Madonna, Coldplay and Kenny Chesney, along with newer stars like Jason Aldean, Miranda Lambert, Lady Antebellum, the Black Keys and Taylor Swift.
The Billboard Touring Awards are primarily based on actual numbers reported to Billboard Boxscore, reflecting real business being done, as opposed to any sort of voting procedure. The exceptions would be such honors as Legend Of Live (Neil Diamond), the Concert Marketing & Promotion Award, the Humanitarian Award (the Apollo Theater), the Road Warrior Award presented by Shell ROTELLA, and the Creative Content Award (Michael Jackson Immortal by Cirque du Soleil), as well as the Eventful Fans’ Choice Award, the latter determined by online fan “demands” at Eventful.com for Boxscore’s top tours.
The awards are based on numbers reported to Boxscore from Oct. 1, 2011, through Sept. 30, 2012.
The finalists for the Top Tour, based on Boxscore gross, are Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band’s Wrecking Ball tour, Madonna’s MDNA tour and Roger Waters’ The Wall Live tour. The finalists for Top Draw, based on Boxscore attendance, are Springsteen, Coldplay and Waters.
The Top Package award, which goes to the top-grossing tour with three or more artists on the bill, are seven-time winner Chesney for his Brothers of the Sun tour featuring Tim McGraw, along with Grace Potter & the Nocturnals and Jake Owen; Swift’s Speak Now tour, which included Needtobreathe on all dates, along with such acts as Danny Gokey, Frankie Ballard, Hunter Hayes, Randy Montana, Josh Kelley, and several others; and Aldean’s My Kinda Party tour, with Luke Bryan, Lauren Alaina/Rachel Farley, and DeeJay Silver.
Finalists for the Breakthrough award, which goes to an artist still in its first decade of headlining that breaks into the ranks of the top tours for the first time, are Lambert, the Black Keys and Lady Antebellum. The Top Boxscore award, which goes to the highest-grossing single engagement of the year, are the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, Indio, Calif.; Waters at Estadio River Plate, Buenos Aires; and Lollapalooza at Chicago’s Grant Park.
Among the industry awards, finalists for Top Manager are Jon Landau Management (Springsteen), Mark Fenwick (Waters) and Guy Oseary (Madonna). The Top Agency finalists are Creative Artists Agency, Paradigm Talent and William Morris Endeavor Entertainment. Top Promoter finalists are AEG Live, Live Nation Entertainment and Time 4 Fun, and finalists for Top Arena are the O2 in London, Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne, Aus., and the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Finalists for Top Club are the 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C., the Fillmore in San Francisco, and House Of Blues Houston.
The complete list of finalists for the 2012 Billboard Touring Awards is as follows:
TOP TOUR
Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, Wrecking Ball
Madonna, MDNA
Roger Waters, The Wall Live
TOP MANAGER
Jon Landau Management (Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band)
MFM/Mark Fenwick (Roger Waters)
Guy Oseary (Madonna)
CONCERT MARKETING & PROMOTION AWARD
Demi Lovato/Hallmark
Lady Antebellum/Lipton
Linkin Park/Honda Civic
Madonna/Smirnoff
Tim McGraw/Pennzoil
Zac Brown Band/Jack Daniel’s