In a genre that’s clearly leading the way in developing arena-level ticket sellers, Blake Shelton is a 15-year overnight success. The traditional model in country — and one that works very well — has acts move up the ladder from third act to middle act on arena/amphitheater tours, selectively headlining and playing fairs and festivals, while building demand and a repertoire of hits. Shelton’s story is a little different.
On Monday morning, Shelton will fly to Los Angeles from his home in Oklahoma, do tapings of “The Voice” Monday through Wednesday morning, fly back home Wednesday afternoon, get up and fly to his next sold-out concert, hop on his bus and do shows through the weekend, fly back home Sunday night, then get up and do it again. That’s Shelton’s schedule for 13 consecutive weeks this summer as the country singer’s Ten Times Crazier tour rolls on.
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Shelton made his debut with the hit single “Austin” in 2001, having already been in Nashville working on building a career since the early ’90s. Sporadic hits followed, with Shelton opening for a wide range of acts, including Rascal Flatts, Brad Paisley and George Strait. His career seemed to be in a rut until two things happened: He began churning out hit after hit, and, in 2011, was tapped as a judge on NBC’s “The Voice.” The latter provided a showcase for Shelton’s big personality, and the former gave fans solid music to latch on to in an ongoing manner. As a result, Shelton has exploded, and is on pace to sell some 600,000 tickets this year and finish among the top touring artists for any genre.
Rob Beckham, Shelton’s agent and co-head of William Morris Endeavor’s Nashville office, says of his recent crowning as the Country Music Assn.’s entertainer of the year: “You can’t just be a television star by itself without entertaining your fans. That’s just not going to happen. We had to design a tour around the fact that he’s going to work 13 consecutive weeks that hard, and doing all the stuff he’s going to do proves the work ethic. He takes country music very seriously.”
The audiences at Shelton’s shows are passionate and somewhat atypical for country, Beckham says. “The television show has opened it up to a whole different crowd base. It’s still a very hardcore country fan base, but it’s a little more diverse than a typical country crowd.”
The touring fire didn’t ignite immediately after Shelton joined “The Voice,” but the hits added fuel. He supported Paisley in 2011 and headlined only about 30 shows last year, primarily 5,000- to 6,000-seaters, though the tour gained momentum, attracting some crowds in the 12,000-13,000 range. So Beckham says they saw something coming — but this? “He’s never headlined amphitheaters ever — always the baby act or the middle act,” he says. “Going out this year, we didn’t know what to expect, so we kept the ticket prices down and went for volume.”
They got it, with every show headed for a sellout, “and when I mean sellout I mean sold out, every ticket,” Beckham says. “There’s sellouts and there’s sellouts, but this is a case where there are no tickets to buy. I was with him in Chicago and there were 27,000 paid at First Midwest Amphitheatre, up against Lollapalooza.”
Shelton, who’s managed by Brandon Blackstock at Starstruck Entertainment, has 33 concerts booked, averaging more than 23,000 tickets per show. That number will decrease slightly as the tour moves into arenas (which are selling out in minutes) and a 270-degree configuration, but will still finish at around 18,000 per show on average. And with developing acts Easton Corbin and Jana Kramer as support, Shelton is the one selling tickets here.