Touring artists have started to stay put

Winner really takes everything now. In the gig business, power has shifted to the most successful artists and fewer and fewer venues.

Las Vegas introduced the so-called residency model to the world, where the artist no longer travels around, but sets up his court in one city. The city provides the arena, hotels and marketing machinery.

“Cities will compete to host residencies,” says the chairman of the European Tourism Commission Miguel Sanz by mapping tourism megatrends on the Skift website. “They are emerging as a new model of international music tourism.”

In 2026, the phenomenon is predicted to revolutionize the entire global live music ecosystem.

As worn In , the world’s leading metropolises will battle head-to-head for the popularity of superstars, with American cities leading the pack.

Promoter Director Peace Kyrön according to which the decision-making power for global tours has been transferred to the United States. He reminds us that the US economy has almost doubled in ten years, while in Europe growth has remained at around 20 percent and in Finland it has practically stopped.

At the same time, concert ticket prices in the United States are at record highs, while in Europe artists have to settle for lower compensation.

“Business has shifted [siirtynyt] to Los Angeles,” Kyyrö says. “Decisions are made more and more on the artists’ terms. The tours are planned as compact and sensible entities in terms of the artist’s life management.”

Crouch knows what he’s talking about: he founded Fullsteam Records at the beginning of the 2000s, which has grown into not only a record company but also an event and festival company, a management agency and a publishing company.

In 2014, Fullsteam Agency joined FKP Scorpio, and Kyyrö is responsible for the company’s entire international bookkeeping operations. That means about 10,000 gigs a year, from club gigs to stadium tours.

Today The same word is increasingly on Kyrö’s lips as other industry players: mini residence. It means a model where the artist spends fifty consecutive gigs in the city instead of months or even years.

For an artist, Residency means an easier life: less travel, lower costs and higher returns.

“Five sold-out concerts in a few cities can produce the same as a year-long tour of a hundred cities,” Kyyrö elaborates.

While the artist stays put, the fan travels and pays a hefty price for the ticket.

Superstars in addition, the winners are the big cities that attract wealthy tourists to fill the hotels. Restaurants and Airbnb renters thank you, one tourist can spend thousands of euros on his trip, and Residence often brings hundreds of millions in income to the city.

Among European residence cities, London is strong: in 2026, several megastars will be seen there, such as Ariana Grande and The Weeknd in multi-night concert series. Radiohead, on the other hand, is experimenting with a five-city European residency.

When the artist stays put, the fan travels and pays a hefty price for the ticket. Kyyrö says that he has messed up The nobility for a residency gig in Las Vegas a couple of years ago, $755 at the time, because on the secondary market, the price of the ticket could have risen up to $5,000 at the same time.

Of course, the 4,000-seat Colosseum theater made the experience unique.

According to Kyyrö, Fullsteam will test the mini-residency model with the band Kuumaa in ten weeks in the spring in ten Finnish cities. Five shows in a row can be seen, for example, at Teatro in Turku, Lutako in Jyväskylä and Tavastia in Helsinki.

The benefit is clear: the same money with much less circulation.

“It would be terrible if the gig was concentrated in, say, Helsinki,” says the Ilosaari promoter.

When one wins, others often suffer.

At the same time that metropolitan areas refine their strategies, remote areas have to adapt. According to Kyrö, there are maybe ten festivals in Europe that can afford to compete financially with stadiums. He is worried about the fate of domestic “field festivals”.

Superstars accustomed to an easy life no longer choose a remote village for the sheer joy of travel.

Ilosaarirock promoter Panu Hattusen according to the situation is challenging for small operators. It’s getting harder and harder to get big names on the fringes, and Russia’s war of aggression has tightened the screw even more.

It is more expensive to move and accommodate artists.

“Touring is ridiculously expensive. If an artist can move hundreds of thousands of people, it’s financially easier to do gigs in one place.”

“In Germany, an artist can do three festival gigs in a weekend with short transfers, but coming to Finland is behind many bends. And getting them to Joensuu is really challenging.”

Ilosaari promoter has reservations about the suitability of mini-residences in Finland. According to him, they only succeed if the artist is exceptionally interesting, and there are few such cases.

He also sees a risk in the phenomenon: if Finnish bands started playing in only a few cities, the audience’s enthusiasm would quickly fade.

“It’s already difficult enough to get people moving in your own city,” he says. “And it would be kind of terrible if the gig was concentrated in, say, Helsinki.”

Festivals as salvation, he believes in a return to the roots: a multi-day event must be a different experience than a stadium gig and also offer more alternative music.

“You can’t just rely on the biggest artists if you’re going to make it,” he says.