Inside the Latin Touring Boom

A few hours before Argentine hip-hop duo CA7RIEL & Paco Amoroso were to perform a sold-out show in Madrid on Sept. 17, Paz Aparicio surveyed the calendar at Movistar Arena, where she is GM. In 2019, the venue that holds more than 17,000 fans put on six concerts by Latin American music stars; this year, that number will be 55 to 60. “I’m feeling the incredible change,” Aparicio says. “The artists from Latin America are selling more tickets. The audience is bigger when a Spanish speaker is performing than when an English speaker is performing.”

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, Latin artists have grown into dominant international touring stars: In 2024, Luis Miguel, Bad Bunny and Karol G were among the five performers who grossed over $100 million apiece, according to Billboard Boxscore, while last year, Shakira set a record with the highest-grossing Latin tour for a female artist. As Latin artists from Bad Bunny to Peso Pluma have evolved into the world’s biggest pop stars, they’ve regularly headlined in Spanish-speaking countries worldwide, a trend that has helped push officials and concert promoters in Medellín, Colombia; Lima, Peru; and elsewhere to build new arenas. In July, Live Nation announced it is partnering with a São Paulo city district to build a 21,000-capacity venue; OCESA Colombia is celebrating the one-year anniversary of its Vive Claro Distrito Cultural open-air arena that fits 40,000 and has moved over 300,000 tickets in the past 12 months; this October, Colombian promoter Breakfast Live is inaugurating DAVIarena, the first state-of-the-art covered arena in Medellín. And most of these arenas are built for live events, predominantly concerts, as opposed to just sports.

For years, according to Juan Toro, vp at agency THE·TEAM, industry agents and managers had a “fear” of touring in Latin America, rarely making the effort to connect with key promoters or study regional markets. Since the pandemic, these agents and managers have become more bullish. “They’re looking at the numbers that the Latin artists are producing and the kind of money they’re making in these markets and they’re starting to understand there’s real economic viability here,” Toro says. “There’s real money in these markets.”

The more sophisticated Latin American markets, where arenas, stadiums and state-of-the-art production technology are plentiful, plus corresponding hotels and restaurants, have thrived in recent years. In Mexico, more artists have been willing to tour, according to Alejandro Arce Saldivar, director general of regional arena promoter Zignia Live, because of newer venues like Arena Guadalajara (which opened a year ago with a Maroon 5 concert) and 11-year-old Estadio BBVA in Monterrey (where Paul McCartney and Shakira have performed). Mexico City-based OCESA is the world’s third-biggest event promoter — a fact not lost on Live Nation, which spent $646 million last year to increase its share of the company from 51% to 75%.

“This has been a fight to make the industry understand that we are on the same level as Chicago, San Antonio, Miami,” Saldivar says. “We have the same infrastructure of hotels, restaurants, entertainment, sports as the big cities of the world. More acts are willing to come into cities in the country. We have infrastructure in Guadalajara; we have infrastructure in Monterrey; they will go to the Baja [Peninsula] because they have all the festivals” — a reference to the annual Baja Beach festival in Rosarito Beach, which reportedly drew 90,000 attendees in August.

International stars have demonstrated huge regional fan demand periodically in Latin American countries, from The Rolling Stones topping 100,000 attendance in Rio de Janeiro in 1995 to Interpol drawing 160,000 in April 2024 to Shakira setting an attendance record with 400,000 at Mexico’s Zócalo in March. “For English-speaking artists, it’s become part of their plan: They put an emphasis on wanting to get to Latin America,” says Carlos Abreu, a UTA agent who oversees international touring for Bad Bunny, Rawayana, CA7RIEL & Paco Amoroso and others. “They have so much demand for this music; artists will tell you they feel there’s the best fan response on earth [in these markets]. Try to get a date at Movistar Arena in Argentina and you can barely find anything 12 months out.”

Still, for all the progress in the Latin American concert infrastructure, gaps persist that make widespread touring difficult. Abreu refers to “freighting gear” and other logistics being more difficult than, say, hauling buses and trucks overnight from Chicago to St. Louis. “When an artist comes from beneath the stage, like in a K-pop show, they might need seven lifts — they might be available in Argentina, but not São Paulo, [or] Mexico City, [or] Bogotá,” says Irvin Benitez, Miami-based director of touring for Latin music entertainment company Cárdenas Marketing Network. “That’s when the economics go left on you.”

Some international acts have relied for years on South American markets — Rock in Rio, which starred Queen, Iron Maiden, Whitesnake and others in 1985, drew 1.5 million fans to Brazil over 10 days. Death metal band Sepultura has built its following from a home base in Brazil and is on its current and final Latin American tour in Uruguay, Chile and Argentina before the Oct. 11 finale at Mexico City’s Pepsi Center WTC. Andy Farrow, manager of Swedish prog metal band Opeth, which concludes its fall tour Nov. 11 at Ciudad de Mexico’s Arena CDMX, adds that South America can be spotty for international artists, especially in clubs and theaters with a less reliable network of local promoters. “It’s a great market, but it needs fine-tuning,” he says. “At the top end, it’s there.”

The phenomenon of non-Spanish-speaking stars setting attendance records in Latin American countries also works in reverse. Latin American stars such as Maluma, Rauw Alejandro and Rosalía have sold out arenas throughout Europe recently, and not just in Spain but in Paris, Milan and Amsterdam. In Zürich, Hallenstadion’s 2026 lineup has included J Balvin, Marc Anthony, Don Omar and a reggaetón night, all of which have put up big attendance numbers. And in September, Carín León became the first Latin artist to perform at Sphere in Las Vegas, with more dates announced for 2027. “After the coronavirus pandemic, it started to just get more and more,” Hallenstadion CEO Philipp Musshaffen says. “It’s a good crowd. They also drink a lot. That’s very good for the economics.”