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VERY DECEMBER, THE YEAR’S MOST
dedicated road warriors reach the end of their
touring cycles and wrap monthslong treks or
pause ongoing runs for a holiday break. But while
the biggest names in pop, rock, hip-hop and
beyond enter the briefest of hibernations, Trans-
Siberian Orchestra ramps it up — and rakes it in.
Last year was no different, as the holiday-rock symphony
ascends to the top of Billboard’s monthly Top Tours ranking with
a $46.8 million December gross following a roughly $20 mil-
lion warmup in November. The group played 69 shows and sold
705,863 tickets between Dec. 1 and 30, according to figures re-
ported to Billboard Boxscore.
The overall $66.8 million haul makes 2019 a record year for
Trans-Siberian Orchestra, marking the biggest gross of its 20-year
touring career. The $613,000-per-night average is worlds away
from the $83,300 pace of its debut 1999 tour, while 2019’s average
of 9,324 tickets per night nearly quadruples 1999’s 2,447 average.
Playing nearly 70 shows in one calendar month requires a com-
bination of hard work, ingenuity and a bit of magic. Each year, TSO
employs two separate touring ensembles that split up the North
American market. Since its tours are family-oriented, the group
also adds matinee shows in most cities. In 2019, the tour included
43 markets with two shows and 23
markets with a single show — adding
up to 109 shows in 66 cities over the
course of 48 days.
Of the 66 engagements in North
America, TSO broke the million-dollar
mark in 32 of them, or 48%. The top
markets of the 2019 tour include Tam-
pa, Fla. ($1.7 million, Amalie Arena);
Dallas ($1.7 million, American Airlines
Center); and Cleveland ($1.7 million,
Rocket Mortgage Center). All three
of those bookings were in December,
as were almost all of the tour’s top 20
highest-grossing engagements; the five
lowest occurred in November. It’s a
familiar pattern, as TSO’s snowballing
seasonal momentum peaks with the
holiday rush around Christmas and
New Year’s Eve.
In all, TSO has reported career-
spanning earnings of $613 million,
making the holiday act one of only 23
artists to gross over $600 million in
Billboard Boxscore history — and one
of only three to do so without any Bill-
board Hot 100 hits to its name. André
Rieu has grossed $633.7 million, while
Roger Waters has grossed $714.9 mil-
lion — though the latter did score five
charting singles as a member of Pink
Floyd, including the four-week No. 1 hit
“Another Brick in the Wall (Part II).”
TSO isn’t the only entity that
enjoyed a holiday boost. The top-
grossing venue of December is New
York’s Radio City Music Hall, making
this monthly Boxscore recap the first
in which a theater has outearned all
other venues. Thanks to the annual re-
turn of the Radio City Christmas Spec-
tacular with the Rockettes, the venue
grossed $69.2 million — the biggest
one-month gross for a venue of any
size since the February 2019 launch of
Billboard’s monthly recaps.
Perennial holiday favorite Trans-Siberian Orchestra made 2019 its
most successful year ever with only two months of shows
BY ERIC FRANKENBERG
Rock The Halls
Joel Hoekstra (left)
and Tony Dickinson
of Trans-Siberian
Orchestra in Atlanta
on Dec. 8, 2019.
156 BILLBOARD • JANUARY 25, 2020