As reported by Pollstar, the Mercedes-Benz Arena in Shanghai was recently named China’s most dynamic large-scale performance venue of 2013. The announcement took place at the 2014 Dao Strategy Performing Arts Industry Summit.
Rankings were decided based on the total number of performances hosted during the 2013 calendar year and total attendance, as well as weighted rankings for various factors.
The essential insight that comes from The Dao Strategy Research Center (the only authoritative source of data on China’s domestic performance market) is that the Shanghai concert market has grown on an annual basis in terms of box office revenues, audience size, and performance numbers to the extent that it now outperforms Beijing, constituting China’s largest concert market.
The Pollstar feature details other statistics: the arena hosted 148 performances in front of an aggregate audience of 641,000. The majority of these events involved foreign artists, including The Rolling Stones, Metallica, Justin Bieber and Bruno Mars. In fact, artists from North America and Europe accounted for 19 percent of all concert box office revenues in China.
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The news is certainly a boon for John Cappo, who shared some bullish views on the live sector toward the beginning of the year.