Beyoncé is now a billionaire, according to a report from Forbes – becoming the fifth musician to obtain the status.
The Grammy award-winning artist, 44, has joined the world’s wealthiest people following the success of her Cowboy Carter tour, which grossed more than $400m in ticket sales, and an additional $50m in merchandise sales. Her previous Renaissance world tour brought in about more than $579m.
Her husband, Jay-Z, was the first musician to become a billionaire on Forbes’s list in 2019. Rihanna, Bruce Springsteen and Taylor Swift have also achieved the elite status.
So that’s five more to be subject to extortionary taxation then.
Right?
If not, why not, and fearing the Swifites defending their Goddess does not, no, work.
Fun fact. I helped to get here there, in a small way (did some website work for a campaign, no I didn’t get to meet her).
But a lot of this “billionaire” stuff is a bit Clownworld business reporting:-
“has joined the world’s wealthiest people following the success of her Cowboy Carter tour, which grossed more than $400m in ticket sales, and an additional $50m in merchandise sales. Her previous Renaissance world tour brought in about more than $579m.”
That’s all gross, of course. People have to set things up, t-shirts have to be printed and sold, venues want money to host it, government want sales taxes, there’s the band, lighting guys, legal, transport, security etc etc. She’s still making good money, but it won’t be more than 10% of it.
Exactly what I came to say, WB. Touring is a bloody expensive business. The insurance costs alone must be eye watering.
Tours are usually about promoting records and bands are lucky if they make anything at all. Festivals are the places where a payday is guaranteed.
I wonder how all these tribute bands keep appearing, but of course they are mostly doing it out of vanity rather than making oodles of dish.
My local little theatre requires just under 2/3rds capacity for a production to break even.
It’s a similar situation with “blockbusting” or “smash hit” films being reported as grossing hundreds of millions.
As the likes of Critical Drinker and Nerdrotic point out the theatres keep half of all takings and after deducting the enormous production and marketing costs it is not unknown for a film with a worldwide gross in excess of half a billion to actually end up costing the studio money.
Having said that the actors and actresses are still sitting pretty until someone in the accounts dept looks at the full picture and decides how much their services are truly worth – if at all.
Oh no. Touring is a money maker now. They used to be about promoting music but that’s done via the internet.
Is your little local theatre charging Swiftie prices (£50+) and playing to 90k per night? This stuff works because of scale. Yes, lots of costs but split over 90k. Whether you play to 1000 or 90,000 you still only have one singer, one guitarist.
Theatre is really expensive because it scales poorly. You play to a few thousand people so to play to a million you need to employ actors for 3 years. You could shoot a low budget movie in a fortnight that sees more than that
https://variety.com/2024/film/news/taylor-swifts-the-eras-tour-highest-grossing-theatrical-concert-film-1235863956/
Whatever you think of her Ms Swift has some seriously good and inventive advisors (as previously evidenced by the re-recording and re-issuing of a large part of her early catalogue to the chagrin of the organisation that legally owns the original recordings).
One single tour/concert film earned her 57% of the $261m ticket sales with, relatively speaking, minimal production costs. This on top of the presumably vast sums she made from the actual tour admissions & merchandising. Basically a new way of re-hashing and cashing in on events you have already been richly rewarded for. It’s not remotely tough at the top.
Oh it’s still tough in total, but one can enjoy spells of relative ease. Having seen people close to the top in that game it’s not a position I’d like. Way too many salaries dependent on you dragging popular ideas out of your head.
.
Not very snappy is it?
So they should give all their money to ME!!!!!!
Three women and two men? I demand that one of the women has their money confiscated in the interests of equality.
Isn’t Paul McCartney a billionaire as well? Or is the article only listing American artists?
Also, how much of the rising number of billionaires is due to inflation and the declining value of the US$?
Everyone in Zimbabwe was a billionaire eventually.
Can’t say I’ve heard much of either of their stuff, but I can’t help thinking “musician” is doing a lot of work there. I wonder what Wolfgang and Ludwig are thinking swanning around up there plucking their harps…
Le’s be honest. Entertainer. They’re all good at that, and worth it if that’s what you like, and nearly all have an actual musician or two involved somewhere in the production. No-one forces people to spend their money on them.
From the clips I see of singers these days the choreography seems more important than the music.
Music? That’s either on tape, or played by whizz session musicians behind a curtain. Oh, and their computers.
That depends on the genre.
I recently saw a concert with Apocalyptica, Lindsey Sterling and Halestorm.
With Lindsey Sterling, the choreography was half the show. With the other two, as far as I know there was no choreography at all. Admittedly the only singing was with Halestorm, so there’s that.
The way to look at Taylor Swift is more that it’s a fusion with her social media. The music is like a soundtrack to a parasocial relationship that her audience have with her. Like she writes a song, and people try and figure out what it’s about in her life.
You don’t meet people who just like the music. They’re involved in all the gossip too. It’s different to Madonna, where people just liked the songs and didn’t give a stuff about her. The songs are really bog average.
My theory on all this is that the shift of money from selling music to touring shifted talented songwriters away from pop music to other places. The most talented lyricist around is Lin-Manuel Miranda who wrote Hamilton and the songs from Moana. The best new music is now soundtracks by people like Hans Zimmer and Ludwig Goranson.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALTR1WNk120
Oh god, save me from Zimmer. I did a session with him once. Absolutely full of himself, Buggles or no.
The money drained out of recorded music when digital copying became a thing which is why modern bands and pop stars essentially run gift shops. It’s all in the merch, and the tickets. So much for the post-scarcity digital economy.
You’re right about the rest of it, though and the parasocial relationship. Someone else reckons modern pop is all choreography. In the modern era this started with Michael Jackson and Madonna. As a muso I was mighty offended that when Madge did her famous conical-tits tour it was all about the dancing and the musos were invisible. At least Swift has visible musos at the back of the stage.
“The money drained out of recorded music when digital copying became a thing which is why modern bands and pop stars essentially run gift shops. It’s all in the merch, and the tickets.”
And I swear a lot of the tickets are now more about showing off to friends. I’ve done one big gig and hated the experience. £100 tickets, loads of travel, overpriced food, then you sit half a mile away and watch a screen. I’d rather see Tosca at Covent Garden.
Concert tickets as Veblen goods.
In opera, people pay for huge names who are over the hill. Like £150 for Placido Domingo. At his peak in the 1980s he was one of the top tenors in the world. But he’s an old man with a baritone voice and it’s not that strong.
True, but he retains his musicality. Judi Dench has lost her looks, but she can still act.
The best way to be extremely wealthy is to have a constant stream of money paid to you by lots of people for ever, regardless of your complete lack of talent and the state of the economy of the country that’s paying you, combined with the pleasure of said public paying for your lifestyle, so your only expense is for the unmentionable indulgences that you couldn’t get people to pay you for. But then if you’re a very close friend of a rich gay Muslim, perhaps he pays for the Ukranian rent boys as well as you suits ‘n specs. And the HIV test is free…
Got anyone in particular in mind, Grist?
I wonder that it might be the next former PM of the UK – but I don’t think he’s going to be anywhere near as wealthy as a certain predecessor in office from the same Party despite his gold plated personal Act of Parliament pension
Click bait.
Guardian gets to use her name without paying her by pretending it’s news.
And she’s a real billionare having sold loads of product and banked the proceeds, not a fake billionaire who’s only a billionaire because they own a valuable company.
Generally, although not always, the “valuable company” is only valuable because they have “sold loads of product,” jgh.
Yebbut, if she receives a tax bill for £100m, she could just write a cheque, whereas James Dyson would have to liquidate part of his company.