Chart Scene: Lionel Richie Ranked Highest Among Top-20 Debuts On LIVE75

With the 10 top-ranked artists on LIVE75 holding the same position they had on last week’s chart, the highest debut falls outside the top 10 with Lionel Richie scoring the “Hot Shot” entry at No. 13. The singer is the first of five headliners, ranked back-to-back, making their debut in the top 20. He is joined by 50 Cent (No. 14), Jonas Brothers (No. 15), Sam Smith (No. 16) and Disturbed (No. 17).

Richie lands on the chart based on box-office totals from his “Sing a Song All Night Long” tour with Earth, Wind & Fire. Canadian fans at Bell Centre in Montreal and Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena, along with American audiences at Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia and Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C., bought a total of 52,061 tickets. That’s an average of 13,015 per night – enough to score the highest ranking for a tour making its first chart appearance this week.

50 Cent’s stand on LIVE75 comes from a five-show ticket average of 12,235 at concerts in three North American arenas on the rapper’s “The Final Lap” tour that kicked off in July. A single performance at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena along with two-night stints at Bell Centre and Barclays Center in Brooklyn produced a ticket total of 61,175. Montreal fans bought 27,813 of them, while the ticket count in New York was 26,182.

For Jonas Brothers, a ticket average of 11,624 comes from the first three arena concerts on the pop trio’s massive “Five Albums. One Night. The World Tour,” designed to present all the songs from their first five albums in a 60-plus-song performance each night on the road. After kicking off the trek at Yankee Stadium in New York on Aug. 12-13, the tour’s arena run began with two shows at Boston’s TD Garden and a concert at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut. The ticket count for all three shows reached 34,873.

Sam Smith hits the top 20 on LIVE75 with a ticket average of 11,509 from eight North American concerts on the world tour in support of Gloria, their fourth studio album that arrived in January on Capitol Records. Following the first leg of the tour set in European arenas in April and May, along with festival dates in July, the trek through the U.S., Canada and Mexico kicked off in late July. Among the dates included in this week’s chart tallies is a two-show engagement, Aug. 8-9, at New York’s Madison Square Garden that drew 26,174 fans. Among the other shows in the mix are sellouts at arenas in Chicago, Montreal and Toronto.

With 10 shows from the “Take Back Your Life” tour, Disturbed earns a chart debut at the 17th position with a ticket average of 11,377 from outdoor amphitheater dates in U.S. markets. The best-attended performance was the Aug. 12 show at St. Joseph’s Health Amphitheater at Lakewood in Syracuse, New York which moved 13,177 sold tickets. It heads up the band’s top five ticket totals in this week’s chart tallies. In the Houston area, Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion was the second highest with 13,168 tickets sold, followed by MidFlorida Credit Union Amphitheatre in Tampa (13,013), Dos Equis Pavilion in Dallas (12,201) and PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel, New Jersey (12,170).

On the Artist Power Index, P!NK returns to the top 10, taking the ninth ranking due largely to concert performances at 10 stadiums on her “Summer Carnival” tour that fall in the 30-day timeframe for chart eligibility. With box-office counts reported for five of the stadiums as of press time, the top gross was recorded at Boston’s Fenway Park with $13.5 million in sales from 78,081 sold seats at two shows, July 31 and Aug. 1. The highest gross for one performance was $8.3 million at Citi Field in New York from 42,733 tickets on Aug. 3, followed by $7.6 million at Target Field in Minneapolis, $7.1 million at Nationals Park in Washington, D.C. and $6.7 million at Pittsburgh’s PNC Park at North Shore.

P!NK had the fourth-highest score for the Live metric — one of four, along with Airplay, Streaming and Social, that determines APX rankings. Beyoncé had the top Live score followed by Taylor Swift and Metallica.