Celebrity Scoop – 12/18/2018

ED SHEERAN’S ‘DIVIDE’ TOUR BREAKS 30-YEAR POLLSTAR RECORD – (12/18/2018)

Ed Sheeran’s Divide tour grossed just over $432.4 million dollars in a calendar year, with sales of 4,860,482 tickets across 53 cities and 94 shows. That’s the highest tour gross and most tickets sold in any year in Pollstar’s 30 year history.

Ed’s tour isn’t the highest grossing tour in history – that would be U2’s 360 tour, which took in $736 million and 7.36 million tickets. But U2’s tour took over two years to reach that amount, 2009 through its 2011 end.

Not only is Ed’s tour impressive for the money it earned, but it’s even more impressive that his top ticket price was about $89. The average ticket price for 2018 for a top 10 tour was over $126. Not only that, but Ed also didn’t sell any VIP tickets for the tour, which other artists make big bucks on.

Stuart Camp, Ed’s manager, tells Pollstar, “Our adage has always been to be as democratic and fair as possible. We do meet and greets, but they’re for disadvantaged kids or contest winners; we don’t sell them, and similarly with VIP ticketing… Some kid who’s there and hasn’t got a job should have the same chances and the same access as anyone else.”

The Divide tour resumes in February and wraps up in August. By the end of 2019, Ed may have broken U2’s record.

According to Pollstar, 2018 saw the Top 10 of the Worldwide Tours chart surpass $2 billion in grosses for the first time, up from 2017’s $1.8 million, as the whole concert industry saw a record-setting amount of $10.4 billion.

CLEAN BANDIT AND DEMI LOVATO’S ‘SOLO’ MOST-SHAZAMED SONG OF 2018 – (12/18/2018)

Clean Bandit and Demi Lovato’s collaboration “Solo” tops the list of the most-Shazamed songs of 2018, according to the song recognition app.

No. 2 on the list was “X,” by Nicky Jam and J Balvin, followed by “One Kiss” by Calvin Harris and Dua Lipa, which was also the most added track to a playlist worldwide after being Shazamed.

Last year’s most-Shazamed artist, Ed Sheeran, made a splash this year as well. His song “Perfect” was the fifth most-Shazamed song of the year, as well as the No. 1 Shazamed pop track of the year.

“Perfect” was also the longest-running No. 1 song in Shazam’s global charts this year, reigning for nine weeks, and was the most shared song worldwide after being Shazamed.

As for the most-Shazamed artist of the year, that honor goes to Drake, with J Balvin coming in at No. 2.

ARIANA GRANDE & HALSEY FIRST TWO WOMEN TO SCORE THE TOP TWO CHART SPOTS IN MORE THAN A YEAR / MARIAH CAREY SCORES HIGHEST-CHARTING HOLIDAY HIT IN 60 YEARS – (12/18/2018)

Ariana Grande and Halsey are currently holding down the No. 1 and No. 2 spots on the Billboard Hot 100 – Ariana with “thank u, next,” which spends a fifth week at No. 1, and Halsey with “Without Me,” which has risen to No. 2.

The last time two women held the top two spots on the chart was in September of 2017, when Taylor Swift’s “Look What You Made Me Do” and Cardi B’s “Bodak Yellow” were No. 1 and No. 2, respectively.

The last time it happened before that was all the way back in 2014, when songs by Taylor and Meghan Trainor swapped positions for 14 weeks.

Meanwhile, Mariah Carey’s 1994 holiday classic “All I Want for Christmas Is You” has just become the highest-charting Christmas song on the Hot 100 in 60 years.

When it was first released in 1994, it wasn’t eligible to appear on the Billboard Hot 100 because it wasn’t commercially available as a single, and Billboard’s rules back then prohibited any such song from charting on the Hot 100.

The last time a Christmas song ranked higher on the Hot 100 was in 1958, when “The Chipmunk Song” by David Seville hit No. 1. “All I Want for Christmas Is You” is now also Mariah’s highest-charting hit since 2008, when “Touch My Body” hit No. 1.

MAN GOES ON RAMPAGE HOPING TO GET TAYLOR SWIFT’S ATTENTION: An Ohio man was arrested following a destructive rampage that he hoped would draw Taylor Swift’s attention. Cody Hann, 29, is accused of driving his car onto a local airport runway, and then into the playground equipment at a park on Saturday night. After his car got stuck in the mud, he started hitting it with a metal pipe – which is how police found him. They also found an inert hand grenade in his car. Hann was charged with reckless operation, criminal damage and inducing panic. He told police that he’s in love with Taylor and wanted her to notice him. A day earlier, police responded to a report that Hann had been pacing back and forth and screaming on the street. Hann told police then he was yelling “I love you” because he was in love with Taylor. According to family members, Hann has been struggling with drug and alcohol addiction and was trying to get sober.

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