Emanuel said:
Hello!
I'm a portuguese reporter in an economics newspaper, "Diário Económico".
I'm preparing a double-page article about U2 and I need data regarding the financial income from the tours and albums.
I need:
- total copies sold by each album (and the total value it represents)
- total number of persons who attended each tour (and the ticketing revenue)
- total expenditures in promoting a tour (by the band or the entity that represents them)
- total profit for the band from each tour
Can you help me in getting data like this, or give me the contact of someone (website or other) that collects this data.
Also an average number for the financial investment in charity by bono and the band would be nice!
Please help me out, i'm a big fan and struglled to get my superiors to give me this newspaper space.
U2 will be playing in Portugal soon, and I will see them for the first time in my live!
Best regards
Emanuel Costa
Some of the information you are seeking is known and has been officially made public in some way, while the rest of the information is unknown and can only be estimated.
For the albums:
The exact number of copies sold by each album around the world is unknown, but there are very good estimates available. It is easier to get precise album sales data from individual countries or regions. The problem is that not all countries or regions have this data available which usually comes from a company that tracks and certifies album sales. The Record Company may have the information, but may choose not to disclose it or may inflate the numbers. The most accurate information comes from companies that do official audits of record company's album sales and certify how much an album has officially sold.
In the United States RIAA
www.riaa.com certifies album sales and has a database that shows the album sales total for every album that has sold enough to be certified with a Gold, Platinum or Multi-Platinum award in the United States
For Canada, the CRIA does the same for sales in Canada. You can view their database at
www.cria.ca
For the United Kingdom, the BPI certifies album sales. You can look at their database at
www.bpi.co.uk.
The IFPI has been certfying album sales for albums that sell 1 million copies or more in Europe since 1996. Only albums released AFTER January 1994 are eligible for certification. For their database that covers the years 1994 to 2005, go to
www.ifpi.org
NOTE: album sales from the United Kingdom are included in IFPI figures.
The IFPI(Europe), RIAA(United States), and CRIA(Canada) cover 70% of the entire music market worldwide. Because IFPI(Europe) covers several dozen countries, sales from IFPI can usually aid in helping estimate what sales are in the remaining 30% of the world not covered. But that is one way of estimating and not everyone would accept that as being the most accurate estimate.
The total value of each album sold would definitely be an estimate, and a far less accurate one. What price the album sells for can vary from region to region. Also, albums sold in 1980-1985-1990-2000 and up to 2005 will be sold at different prices as well, even if its the same album.
Since the early 1990s, the band has had a royalty rate of 25% per album. The bands royalty rate prior to that time is unknown.
"total number of persons who attended each tour (and the ticketing revenue"
It is much easier get these numbers for both attendance and the GROSS from the attendance, but once again, not all this information is known. For example, I can give you the exact attendance and GROSS for the entire 1997-1998 POPMART tour, but I can only give you a very rough estimate of the attendance and GROSS for the 1981-1982 October tour.
I've recorded a number of statistics on the tours as published by Amusement Business. Amusement Business publishes the top concert Grosses and Attendances for each week in Billboard Magazine. The Billboard website at
www.billboard.com will post the top 10 Grossing concerts in the section of the website called "Top Concerts". 7 shows for U2's current Vertigo tour appear on the new list for this week which was just published today. Multiple shows in a single city have their Gross and Attendance numbers combined. That is why there are 4 listings for U2 this week instead of 7. Amsterdam had 3 shows and Milan had 2 shows, but their figures were combined into one total.
www.amusementbusiness.com use to have a database of concert statistics that went back to 1985, but you had to become a subscriber and pay to see the statistics. I do not know if they still do this or not.
www.billboard.com has an area on its website called billboardbiz.com. You may be able to get past boxscores for years or decades past for concerts there, but once again, you must pay to become a subscriber and I do not know how far their records will go back. The information they have origionally came from Amusement Business.
Its important to note that Amusement Business did not start to record all foreign(outside of the USA) figures until 1995. So concerts prior to 1995 outside of the United States will have to have their attendances and Gross's estimated.
"- total expenditures in promoting a tour (by the band or the entity that represents them)
- total profit for the band from each tour"
This information is very difficult to get and I only have touring cost figures for ZOO TV and POPMART. The Profit for the band is obviously GROSS minus touring cost. The ZOO TV figure I have for cost only covers the outdoor part of that tour. The GROSS I have for ZOO TV is an estimate, since shows outside the United States were not covered by Amusement Businness back then.
For POPMART though, I have the cost figure per day and the official GROSS of the entire tour.
Expenditures and profits for other tours would have to be very rough estimates unless someone else has official figures from a relevant source.
So I and others here can give you some precise exact figures from reliable sources for some of the information you seek. But much of the other information can only be estimated.
We could put something together on all the things you requested but you must realize that much of the information would be estimates or guesses instead of official numbers from reliable sources.
1.The tour statistics would be the easiest to do, and the estimates would be more reliable as well than the other information you need.
2. Official Album sales data can be found for some countries and regions, but the rest would have to be estimated some way unless the record company has posted and official figure.
3. expenditures for promoting a tour are largely unknown, with the exception of POPMART and part of ZOO TV. It would be very hard to estimate or guess cost of other tours.
4. The total Profit for the band from each tour is also unknown with the exception of POPMART. For other tours, it likely be more of an educated guess rather than a reliable estimate.
Let us know Emanual if you would like us to put some of the information you requested, together for you, but understand that some of it would simply be estimated information since official figures and statistics for some of the information is currently not available.
If anyone has official information from reliable sources that can plug in some of these area's that can only be estimated currently, please post it.
