Being a headlining act at major music festivals and performing at sold-out concerts abroad not only allows Nigerian musicians to reach new fans but also opens up more revenue streams, BusinessDay has found.
Ayodeji Balogun commonly known as Wizkid recently sold out a 3-day concert at the O2 Arena in London and was reported by BusinessDay to have raked in over N5.2 billion from ticket sales.
With six other concerts scheduled in January at five different venues in Canada all hosting a combined capacity of 26,200 and ticket prices ranging from $188 to $300, the multi-award-winning singer could earn over N2.4 billion from ticket sales alone.
Music festivals are a multi-billion dollar industry all around the world and 2019 was a year to remember. In the United Kingdom, approximately 1,000 festivals generated £1.76 billion in revenue.
Coachella, which is the biggest music festival in the United States, hasn’t released complete ticket sales and income data since 2017, but it reportedly grossed over $114.6 million in that year.
With $29.63 million in revenue, Outside Lands Music & Arts Festival was the highest grossing festival in the world in 2019, followed by Life is Beautiful Festival and Lollapalooza Brazil, which made 17.7 and $14.48 million respectively. Although the Lollapalooza Brazil festival sold 246,000 tickets, making it the highest-grossing music festival worldwide based on ticket sales
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Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, an American music singer, set Coachella organisers back $3 million to perform on stage and according to Rolling Stone, can take as much as $4 million to get big headliners to perform on stage.
Belcalis Marlenis Almánzar, an American hip-hop artiste known professionally as Cardi B, before she became famous was paid $70,000 per day to play at Coachella. Burna Boy and Mr. Eazi, who were not headliners but part of the artistes who performed at the music festival, received payment ranging from $10,000 to $20,000.
With Nigerian music topping charts, more audiences would like to see these artistes perform live at bigger events like the Lollapalooza in Brazil or headline major events like the Coachella.
Artistes’ revenue from digital platforms is not enough to take care of expenses for music production, which according to experts are 62 percent of an artist’s expenses. This money needs to come from somewhere and concerts and tours pay the bills.
Although prices artistes collect for shows may vary, factors that determine how much they get paid per show are fame level, public demand, and trends.
Nigerian music artistes have achieved some of these feats. Wizkid has headlined Ends Festival in 2019 at Lloyd Park, London, headlining alongside reggae artiste Darmain Marley and American hip-hop legend Nas with Burna Boy, Wande Coal, Teni the entertainer, and Lady Donli who were also featured at the event.
Burna Boy performed at Coachella in 2019 after famously expressing his dissatisfaction with the public online listing in a small font. Another Nigerian artiste, Mr. Eazi also performed at the event that same year.
David Adeleke, popularly known as Davido has had his fair share of music festival performances as he has performed at Roots Picnic in Philadelphia as well as Hot 97 Summer Jam At the Metlife Stadium in New Jersey which he headlined alongside American artistes like Cardi B, Migos, and Meek Mill.
