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S SOCIAL DISTANCING AND SELF-
isolation become the norm, it’s easy to forget
that only last month in March, rock bands,
rappers and pop stars were out on tour. Filling
20 , 000 - seat arenas and 50 , 000 - seat stadiums
around the world, their concerts generally
continued through March 12 in the United States and stopped
worldwide by midmonth. In that time, artists were able to
squeeze in handfuls of shows, kicking off tours before resched-
uling the rest of the dates or wrapping up runs that carried over
from earlier in the first quarter.
Plans for stadium tours in North America and Europe are on
hold, but the Southern Hemisphere’s summer season allowed
artists to play outdoor venues and push their nightly capacities.
The most successful of these was that of the Backstreet Boys,
who completed the Latin American leg of their DNA world tour
and ruled Billboard’s Top Tours chart for the first time. The
boy band sold over 160 , 000 tickets and grossed $ 12. 1 million
from 10 shows in March, according to figures reported to Bill-
board Boxscore.
BSB’s March shows swept through Colombia, Chile, Argenti-
na, Uruguay and Brazil, peaking with the tour’s final date at São
Paulo’s Allianz Parque on March 15. That stadium show earned
$ 3. 3 million thanks to the 45 , 174 fans in attendance — enough to
place at No. 9 on the Top Boxscores chart.
The DNA tour began in May 2019 with 28 shows in Europe
before coming to North America for 46 dates, from Washing-ton, D.C. (July 12 ), to Honolulu (four
shows, Nov. 2 - 6 ). The group’s 15 - date
run through Latin America in Febru-
ary and March was certainly less
expansive than previous legs, but the
recent shows posted the best per-
night averages of the tour, with 15 , 246
tickets sold and $ 1. 17 million grossed.
The group’s chart-topping March
run pushes the DNA tour’s total sales
past the 1 million mark, with 1. 16 mil-
lion tickets sold and an overall gross
of $ 99. 5 million. The Backstreet Boys
are now the third group to hit No. 1
on Billboard’s monthly Top Tours
chart following The Rolling Stones
and Trans-Siberian Orchestra.
March not only marks the
Backstreet Boys’ first time atop
the monthly ranking but also the first
time a full South American tour has
taken top honors, following treks in
North America (Elton John, P!nk, BTS,
The Rolling Stones, Post Malone and
Trans-Siberian Orchestra) and stints in
Europe (P!nk), Australia (Elton John)
and Asia (Ed Sheeran).Maroon 5 follows closely at
No. 3 , also with a string of South
American shows. The group played
four dates in Brazil, along with
shows in Uruguay and Colombia,
adding up to 180 , 510 tickets
sold and a gross of $ 11. 1 million.
The Adam Levine-fronted band
played four fewer shows than the
Backstreet Boys, but Maroon 5
still managed the month’s most-
attended tour, leading BSB by 13 %
in total tickets.
Just as the Backstreet Boys
did, Maroon 5 also peaked with a
show at Allianz Parque, grossing
$ 3. 5 million and edging out BSB at
No. 8 on the Top Boxscores chart.
Those two shows alone make the
Brazilian stadium the month’s
second-highest-grossing venue at
$ 6. 8 million. Only Mexico City’s
Foro Sol surpasses it with nearly
double the earnings — $ 12. 6 million
— from shows by Billy Joel, Soda
Stereo and March’s top-grossing
boxscore, the Vive Latino Festival.Before the pandemic halted the live-music industry, the boy band played some
of its most lucrative gigs yet thanks to a South American tour legBY ERIC FRANKENBERGBackstreet’s Back On Top
Backstreet Boys in Las
Vegas in September 2019.BACKSTREET:^ DENISE^ TRUSCELLO/GETTY^ IMAGES.^ JOHN:^ MACKENZIE^ SWEETNAM/WIREIMAGE.52 BILLBOARD • APRIL 25 , 20208charts_touring_lo [P]_27890370.indd 52 4/22/20 1:38 PM