Tag Archives: sales

Grateful for Well-Funded Retirement

July 30, 2015 IM

The Grateful Dead’s Fare Thee Well retirement tour broke records both in concert attendance at live events and pay per view sales, possibly making it the most successful event in music history. The “full” reunion shows, billed as the last to feature Local 6 (San Francisco, CA) members Mickey Hart, Phil Lesh, Bob Weir, and Bill Kreutzmann together, were held June 27-28 at Levi Stadium in Santa Clara, California, and July 3-5 at Soldier Field in Chicago, Illinois.

The West Coast shows grossed $21.5 million from attendance of 151,650 fans, while Chicago concerts brought in $30.7 million from 210,283 attendees, for a grand total of $52.2 million. The pay per view broadcast of Fare Thee Well: Celebrating 50 Years of Grateful Dead was the biggest such event of all time, with more than 400,000 subscriptions and online streams so far. It is still available for streaming and to cable viewers until August 2.

Strong Streaming in SoundScan’s Half-Year Report

July 10, 2015 IM

In the first half of 2015, streaming nearly doubled in popularity, generating 135.2 billion streams, up from 70.3 billion in the same period of 2014. Even with all that growth, album sales still declined 4%, though that’s the smallest decline since 2012. However, track sales saw a lager 10.4% drop. Streaming equivalent albums (SEA) is the biggest driver of consumer consumption. Physical album sales fell to 62.41 from 67.3 million in the previous six-month period. CD sales were down 10% and vinyl grew by 38.4%.

Taylor Swift of Local 257 (Nashville, TN) topped many sales categories. Her 1989 was the best selling album in the first half of 2015, scanning 1.33 million units so far. (It topped in 2014 as well.) She also led in vinyl sales (34,000 units), and in a combined tally of album sales, track downloads, and streams (2.011 million album and album equivalent units).

Streaming Sales Rising

February 1, 2014 IM

According to Nielsen and Billboard’s 2013 Music Report, which compiles music sales, radio airplay, and music streaming data, more than 118 billion streams took place in 2013. While total sales of physical albums dropped by about 14%, the number of albums bought on vinyl increased by 33%.

AFM