News January 29, 2024

Country Artists Dominate Tixel’s Hottest 100 Events of 2023

Head of Content

While Doja Cat was painting the town red last year, country music – and Luke Combs in particular – was having a mighty hoedown.

Following his nine-date trans-Tasman arena tour last August, Combs, the U.S. country superstar, comes in at No. 1 on Tixel’s Hottest 100 Events of 2023, published Saturday (Jan. 27) to coincide with triple j’s annual countdown.

The tally, compiled by Tixel, the “honest” ticket marketplace, using data pulled from across 12,000-plus live events, tours, shows and festivals across Australia in 2023, has Combs at the summit following his sold out shows that hit every capital city, produced by Frontier Touring and Chugg Entertainment.

Country music was the big show in 2023.

Zach Bryan drops in at No. 6 after “huge demand” for his once-off date which was pushed from St Kilda’s Catani Gardens to the larger Flemington Raceway, while Morgan Wallen, who led both the ARIA Singles and Albums Charts last year, had “solid demand for his shows,” according to Tixel.

The appetite for country concerts shouldn’t come as any surprise. Wallen last year became the first male American country singer to pull off the ARIA Chart double in more than three decades (the last was Billy Ray Cyrus back in October 1992).

And last June, Wallen stood alone with the longest-running No. 1 in Australia by a male American country when “Last Night” notched eight weeks, beating Ray Cyrus’ seven-week run with “Achy Breaky Heart” back in 1992.

Separate data published by Luminate identifies Australia as the world’s third leading market for the genre, behind the United States and Canada.

Morgan Wallen

Coming in at No. 2 on the annual Tixel list is Coldplay’s west coast run, which saw the British pop-rock band play two dates at Perth’s Optus Stadium (produced by Live Nation), a warm-up for an east coast leg of their Music of the Spheres tour later this year.

Dance music shuffled into the top tier, as homegrown EDM star Dom Dolla and British producer and DJ Fred again.. dropped in No. 4 and No. 5, respectively.

Other mainstream pop and rock artists cracking the list include Harry Style, The 1975, BLACKPINK, Ed Sheeran, Foo Fighters, Arctic Monkeys, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Robbie Williams.

Tixel’s Hottest 100 list also captures analysis of the brand’s “waitlist” feature, which allows punters to sign up for notifications as hot tickets are listed for sold out.

Researchers from Tixel and Bolster, the culture marketing agency, last year published Big Ticket Items: The Future of Live Music in a Tight Economy, a wide-angle study into the live entertainment, based on catchups with 4,000 event goers and a panel of music industry professionals.

Tixel’s Hottest 100 Events of 2023: