The concert business is being pushed to its breaking point.
A celebrity's fame is essentially more like a form of valuation. It seems valuable on the surface, but it is merely an intangible asset. Merely stating its supposed worth means nothing—it has to be monetized through a specific channel.
Some time ago, Xie Na hit the trending searches after announcing her upcoming concert tour, only to quietly cancel the event later due to overwhelming public controversy.
Many of you may have noticed that concerts have become noticeably far more frequent in recent years. Beyond professional singers, actors, hosts, and even internet influencers are all putting on concerts, to the point where nearly every public figure seems to be staging shows everywhere.
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The surge in the number of concerts is not an illusion.
In 2024 alone, the number of concerts with an audience capacity of over 10,000 people saw an 84% year-on-year increase, followed by another sharp 14.9% jump in 2025.
Compared to two years prior, the total number of large-scale concerts has doubled.
In 2025, the total attendance for large-scale domestic concerts in China reached nearly 38 million, with total ticket revenue hitting 29.5 billion yuan—a figure that has multiplied 7 times over 6 years.
For context, the total box office of Chinese films in 2025 was around 51.8 billion yuan. Concert revenue has already reached 60% of the total film box office. I would not be the slightest bit surprised if concert revenue overtakes film box office in a couple of years, especially as the film industry continues to decline.
A major reason for the abundance of concerts is, of course, that they are extremely profitable.
For example, Joker Xue's *Extraterrestrial* tour ran from 2021 to 2024, staging 140 shows across 61 cities, with a total cumulative audience of 4.9 million people.
Estimating based on a per-show revenue of 20 to 25 million yuan, the total box office of this tour falls between 2.8 billion and 3.5 billion yuan.
Joker Xue is not even the highest-earning artist. In 2024 alone, both G.E.M. Tang and Jacky Cheung grossed over 2.5 billion yuan from their respective concert tours.
Naturally, singers do not keep all of this ticket revenue for themselves.
For top-tier singers, the revenue of a single concert is generally distributed as follows: the artist's side, consisting of the talent agency and the singer themselves, takes roughly 40%; the event organizer takes around 40%; the remaining portion goes to ticketing platforms and the show's production contractor.
This so-called "event organizer" is typically a professional performance company responsible for venue rental, stage construction, permit applications, security arrangements, and promotional operations. This is how they earn their "equal split" with the artist's team.
However, a growing number of entertainers are unwilling to let organizers take this lucrative share, and are starting to act as their own concert organizers.
For instance, "B'in Music", Mayday's talent agency, was co-founded by the members of Mayday themselves, and the agency also serves as one of the organizers for their concerts.
Joker Xue's talent agency, "Chaoshi Music", is owned in part by his father, and acts as the organizer for many stops of his *Extraterrestrial* tour.
In this scenario, combining the over 40% share belonging to the artist's side with the over 40% share of the organizer, roughly 80-90% of the profits flow directly into their own pockets, naturally resulting in far greater earnings.
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Beyond expanding their revenue split, singers are also finding ways to cut operational costs.
The most common tactic we see everywhere is this phenomenon: the same singer will hold multiple consecutive shows, sometimes even a dozen or more, in the very same city.
This arrangement is directly tied to the cost structure of concerts.
Take the Beijing National Stadium (Bird's Nest) as an example: the base venue rental fee is 3 million yuan per day. A single concert requires setup, rehearsals, and teardown, which takes at least 4 to 5 days in total, meaning the venue cost alone can exceed 10 million yuan.
But if you hold 16 consecutive shows there as Zhang Jie did, you only need to build the stage once. The fixed costs are spread across a dozen shows, significantly reducing the cost per single performance.
Additionally, according to the Bird's Nest's operating team, the more audience a concert attracts, the more negotiable the venue rental fee becomes, which further reduces overall venue costs.
In other words, the marginal cost of adding an extra show is extremely low, while the artist gains greater bargaining power, directly translating to higher profit margins.
And this is only revenue from concert tickets themselves. Beyond ticket sales, singers can earn extra income through other channels, such as selling official merchandise.
The most ubiquitous merchandise item is the official glow stick.
Today, nearly every singer who holds large-scale concerts has their own exclusive branded glow stick, which can sell for over 100 yuan, or even more than 200 yuan per unit.
Calculated at 150 yuan per stick, selling 50,000 units during a single tour run would generate over 7 million yuan in revenue just from glow stick sales alone.
This revenue figure is higher than the total concert earnings of many mid-tier and small-scale singers.
Meanwhile, the production cost of these glow sticks is only around 20 to 30 yuan. Not only do they boast an extremely high profit margin, but unlike ticket revenue, they do not need to be split with other parties, meaning the vast majority of the profit goes straight to the celebrity and their talent agency.
On top of that, a full range of other merchandise, including custom T-shirts, fan support wristbands, limited-edition albums, themed photo booth areas, and co-branded food and beverage products, continuously generates additional income for singers.
In essence, a concert venue functions as a temporary themed commercial complex, where every product tied to the singer's IP can command a premium price in that specific time and space.
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In reality, a single concert drives far more than just ticket revenue—it boosts consumption across the entire host city.
Taking Mayday as an example: during their concert run at the Beijing Bird's Nest, hotel bookings within a 5-kilometer radius of the venue skyrocketed by 2400%.
And this only accounts for hotels. The vast majority of concert attendees are not local residents—many take time off work to travel in from other cities, meaning they will spend money on local dining, taxi rides, accommodation, and even squeeze in shopping, tourism, and sightseeing trips.
The total amount of this consumption is no less than the revenue generated by the concert itself.
During Jacky Cheung's concert in Chengdu, the total on-site audience reached 121,000 people, nearly 60% of whom traveled to the city from other locations.
During that period, nearby Holiland bakery locations saw an extra 100 to 200 transactions per day, while popular grilled fish restaurant Kaokao welcomed dozens of additional tables daily. Some local restaurants even arranged dedicated shuttle buses to pick up fans directly from the concert venue and bring them to dine.
Data from the China Association of Performing Arts shows that the multiplier effect of concert ticket spending on local consumption can reach 1:4.8. For every 1 yuan a spectator spends on a concert ticket, they will spend an extra 5 yuan on other local consumption.
Take Jay Chou's concert in Xi'an as an example: over 4 days, the event brought 480,000 out-of-town visitors to Xi'an, directly driving 976 million yuan in tourism revenue for the city—a figure that exceeds the total tourism revenue many cities generate during small week-long public holidays.
This is exactly why local governments across China are eager to attract concerts to their regions, and even go all out to fully support these events.
For instance, many cities extend subway operating hours deep into the night specifically for concerts, and organize dedicated volunteer shuttle fleets to transport fans to and from venues.
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At this point, it is easy to understand why hosts like Xie Na, as well as some actors and internet influencers, are crossing over to stage their own concerts.
Because this is the shortest possible path to convert accumulated fame into tangible cash.
A celebrity's fame is essentially more like a form of valuation. It seems valuable on the surface, but it is merely an intangible asset. Merely stating its supposed worth means nothing—it has to be monetized through a specific channel.
To use an analogy: in the past, people often claimed certain A-list celebrities "guaranteed massive box office", with estimates of their drawing power ranging from 800 million to over a billion yuan. But when they actually starred in a film that flopped at the box office, it became clear their supposed market value was overinflated.
In short, converting fame into real revenue always requires a specific channel. It can come from acting in films, appearing on variety shows, or selling products through livestreaming.
As everyone knows, the film and television industry has struggled severely in recent years. Not long ago, a large group of actors publicly spoke out about "job hunting", revealing that they had not received any work offers for a long time.
The number of new long-form drama projects starting production has also plummeted sharply, with reports indicating that the production startup rate in Hengdian World Studios has dropped to one-fifth of what it was two years ago.
Looking at variety shows, there have barely been any breakout hit programs in recent years. The variety show market has become highly fragmented, with most programs only appealing to a small niche segment of viewers.
In the past, entertainers considered appearing on livestream shopping platforms to be beneath their status. Now, many cannot even secure a spot in livestream rooms if they wanted to, as the once-booming livestream dividend is drawing to an end.
Concerts are now one of the few remaining viable windows for quick monetization.
Compared to acting in films or appearing on variety shows, concerts offer a far shorter, more direct path to converting fame into revenue.
Even if entertainers have no other work opportunities temporarily, their public popularity does not vanish immediately. Film productions can be put on hold, but accumulated fan appeal cannot be left unused.
Moreover, concerts have an unparalleled advantage over other monetization channels.
They draw far fewer casual onlookers, and attract a far more dedicated fan base. The genuine sense of connection and immersion that offline concerts deliver is something that film and television productions, as well as variety shows, can never replicate.
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But does this mean the concert industry has no problems at all?
Certainly not.
The biggest risk in any industry is excess that overshoots the mark.
It is worth remembering that before concerts became the current hot trend, the film industry, variety show sector, and even livestream shopping all once generated substantial, real cash income for celebrities.
Celebrities always follow the hottest, most profitable trends of the era.
When the film market was booming, even singers were crossing over to make cameo appearances in movies, regardless of their acting skills—everyone wanted to try their hand at becoming a film star.
When variety shows became the best way to gain widespread public attention, actors no longer prioritized maintaining a sense of mystery, and flooded every variety program screen. To the point where audiences would instinctively feel disconnected seeing those same actors appear on the big screen later.
When livestream shopping became highly profitable, countless celebrities joined in the trend. Even if they did not treat it as their main career, making occasional guest appearances in livestream rooms became a common practice.
The end result is always the same: massive crowds of people flood into a single lucrative industry all at once, until the market becomes completely oversaturated and collapses rapidly.
The concert industry will face the exact same fate. Whether it is Xie Na's concert being widely mocked by the public, or the many previous failed concerts by influencers and unqualified celebrities, at the end of the day, audiences attend concerts to listen to good music.
Professional singers can profit from concerts because their earnings are the reward for decades of dedicated professional accumulation in their craft.
Nowadays, people who have barely released any songs, and whose singing skills are worse than the average person singing in a KTV, are also rushing to stage concerts. At this rate, this profitable business model will not be far from collapsing.
Therefore, this monetization window offered by concerts is not an endless, inexhaustible resource.
Once the concert industry, just like all the previous monetization channels before it, completely wears out the patience of audiences, where will the next viable monetization channel for celebrities be?
References:
Every 1 Yuan Spent on Concert Tickets Drives 4.8 Yuan in Additional Consumption, CCTV Finance
Large-Scale Concert Box Office Hits New All-Time High! Securities Times
*2025 Live Performance Market Report*: Large-Scale Concert Box Office Exceeds 29.5 Billion Yuan, China News Service
Box Office Multiplies 7 Times in 6 Years, Concerts Will Become the Ultimate Value Terminal for Pan-Entertainment, New Music Industry Review
Single Show Box Office Hits Nearly 30 Million Yuan: Who Earns the Most Money from Staging Concerts? Mirror Entertainment
One Concert Energizes an Entire City, Illuminating a Hundred-Billion-Yuan Industrial Chain, Hangzhou.com
Differentiated Competition for Large Performance IPs: Artist Box Office Pulling Power and Immersive Scene Experiences, Music Finance
Concert Glow Sticks Sold for 140 Yuan Have a Production Cost of Only 10 Yuan: Who Is the Biggest Winner? Veken Semiconductor Lighting
Manufacturer Responds to 140 Yuan Concert Glow Sticks: Prices Are Not Excessive and Profits Are Low, as K-Pop Glow Sticks Already Sell for 300-400 Yuan, Shangyou News
40,000 Attendees Drive 45 Million Yuan in Consumption: How "Concert Economy" Is Boosting Local Cultural Tourism, Entertainment Unicorn
Complete Breakdown of the Concert Industry Chain, Running Deer · Investment Media
Renting Glow Sticks and Offering Makeup Services Earns 30,000 Yuan in 13 Days: How Profitable Is the Wild Informal Economy Driven by Concerts? Financial Gossip Girl
"Ticket Stub Economy" and "Fan Economy" Become Core Business Strategies: Why Is a Single Concert a "Walking GDP Generator"? Sichuan Daily
300,000 Tickets Sell Out in Seconds, Fans Find Creative Ways to Listen to Shows From Outside Venues: How Hot Is the Offline Concert Market? Shanghai Securities Journal
From Karen Mok and G.E.M. Tang to A-Mei, Zhang Jie Stages 16 Consecutive Shows: Why Is the Beijing Bird's Nest the "Olympus Mountain" for Singers? China Music Finance