When you see a headline like "Taylor Swift breaks single-night attendance record" or "Ed Sheeran’s tour grosses $800 million", that number didn’t come from a fan’s Instagram post. It came from Pollstar. For over 40 years, Pollstar has been the go-to source for live music box office data - ticket sales, venue capacities, tour rankings, and artist earnings. But who actually owns it? The answer isn’t obvious, and it’s changed hands more than once.
Who owns Pollstar today?
As of 2025, Pollstar is owned by Live Nation Entertainment. The acquisition happened in 2021, when Live Nation bought Pollstar from its previous owner, the private equity firm MidOcean Partners. Before that, Pollstar had been independently operated since its founding in 1974 by Gary Binkow. The purchase wasn’t just about data - it was about control. Live Nation, already the world’s largest live entertainment company, wanted to own the metrics that define the industry’s success.
Before Live Nation, Pollstar was owned by Frontier Ventures, a media holding company, from 2016 to 2021. That period saw Pollstar expand its digital offerings - launching Pollstar Pro, a subscription analytics platform for promoters and venues. But even then, the company was quietly being eyed by bigger players. Live Nation didn’t just want access to the data. They wanted to shape how it’s collected, reported, and used.
Why does ownership matter?
Think of Pollstar like the Nielsen ratings for concerts. If you’re a promoter booking a stadium tour, you need to know what similar acts pulled in last year. If you’re an investor looking at a music label’s portfolio, you need reliable numbers to judge tour profitability. Pollstar’s data is the benchmark. But when the same company that books the tours also owns the scoreboard, questions arise.
Some independent promoters worry that Pollstar now favors Live Nation artists in its reporting. Others point out that venues owned by Live Nation (like the Forum in Los Angeles or the O2 Arena in London) dominate the top-grossing charts - and Pollstar’s rankings reflect that. Is that because Live Nation is simply the best at what it does? Or because the data system is tilted?
There’s no proof of manipulation. Pollstar still publishes data from non-Live Nation promoters. But the conflict of interest is real. When Live Nation controls both the stage and the scoreboard, the line between reporting and promoting gets blurry.
What does Pollstar actually do?
Pollstar doesn’t just count tickets. It tracks every major concert globally - from arena shows to amphitheaters, festivals to club gigs. Its team verifies box office reports from venues, promoters, and ticketing platforms. It cross-checks data from Ticketmaster, AXS, Live Nation’s own system, and even smaller regional sellers. The result? Weekly charts, annual rankings, and detailed reports on tour economics.
For example, Pollstar’s 2024 Year-End Report showed that Olivia Rodrigo’s GUTS World Tour grossed $265 million across 92 shows. That number wasn’t estimated. It was verified. Pollstar also tracks average ticket prices, attendance rates, and geographic trends - like how Latin American tours now consistently outperform European ones in per-show revenue.
Its data powers everything from artist contracts to insurance policies. Record labels use it to decide who gets a world tour. Venues use it to negotiate with promoters. Even governments use Pollstar data to assess the economic impact of music tourism.
How did Pollstar become so important?
Founded in 1974 by Gary Binkow, Pollstar started as a printed newsletter. Binkow, a former concert promoter, noticed how hard it was to track which acts were selling out. He began compiling box office results by hand - calling venues, collecting flyers, and typing reports on a typewriter. By 1980, it was a weekly publication with 10,000 subscribers.
In the 1990s, Pollstar shifted from paper to digital. It launched its website and began offering real-time tour charts. In 2005, it introduced the Pollstar Awards, a major industry event that still runs today. By 2010, it was the only source that could reliably compare tour earnings across different ticketing platforms - a huge advantage as the industry moved away from cash sales and toward online systems.
Its reputation for accuracy made it indispensable. Even when Ticketmaster and StubHub started publishing their own stats, industry insiders still trusted Pollstar more. Why? Because Pollstar didn’t sell tickets - it just measured them. That independence was its brand. Until Live Nation bought it.
What alternatives exist to Pollstar?
There are no true replacements - but there are competitors. Chartmetric and Spotlight offer analytics for streaming and social media, but they don’t track live ticket sales. Entertainment Intelligence (a division of Nielsen) tracks concerts in North America, but only for venues with over 10,000 seats. Front Gate Tickets and AXS release limited data for their own platforms.
Some indie promoters now use custom spreadsheets and local box office reports to build their own data sets. But without Pollstar’s global network, those numbers are incomplete. For now, if you need verified, comprehensive, real-time concert revenue data, there’s still only one source: Pollstar.
What’s next for Pollstar under Live Nation?
Since the acquisition, Pollstar’s interface has been updated. Its mobile app now syncs with Live Nation’s artist management tools. Its data feeds are integrated into Live Nation’s internal forecasting models. Promoters using Pollstar Pro now see predictions based on Live Nation’s historical booking patterns.
Some features have been removed. The old "Independent Promoter Spotlight" section, which highlighted small-scale tours outside the major circuits, disappeared in 2022. Pollstar’s annual conference, once a neutral ground for all players, now feels more like a Live Nation sales event.
But the data still matters. Artists still rely on it. Fans still check the rankings. And until someone builds a better, truly independent system, Pollstar will remain the voice of the live music industry - even if the owner now has a vested interest in what it says.
Can Pollstar still be trusted?
Yes - but with caution. Pollstar’s data is still accurate. Its methodology is transparent. Its team is professional. The numbers you see are real. But the context? That’s where things get complicated.
If you’re using Pollstar to compare an indie band’s tour to a stadium headliner, you’re fine. But if you’re trying to understand why certain artists get more exposure, or why some venues dominate the charts, you need to ask: Who benefits from this story?
Live Nation owns the stages, the tickets, and now the scoreboard. That doesn’t mean Pollstar is lying. It just means the game has changed.
Rubina Jadhav
This is wild. I never thought about who tracks concert numbers.
Aryan Jain
Live Nation owns the stages, the tickets, AND the scoreboard? Of course they do. It’s all connected. They don’t want you to know how rigged the game is. Pollstar isn’t reporting data anymore-it’s spinning it. They’re making sure only their artists look like giants. The numbers? Real. The story? Manufactured.
Nalini Venugopal
Minor grammar note: ‘Pollstar’s data is the benchmark’ should be ‘Pollstar’s data are the benchmarks’ since it refers to multiple metrics. But otherwise, this is an incredibly well-researched piece. Thank you for shedding light on this.
Shivani Vaidya
While the conflict of interest is undeniable, I believe Pollstar’s data remains the most accurate in the industry. The methodology is transparent, and the team has decades of experience. It’s not about who owns it-it’s about whether the data still serves its purpose. If it does, then we must use it wisely, not discard it out of suspicion. Transparency from Live Nation would help, but the numbers themselves haven’t changed.
Tarun nahata
Imagine if every sports league owned the stats, the teams, AND the TV network. That’s what’s happening here. Pollstar used to be the referee. Now it’s the coach, the ref, AND the guy holding the scoreboard. We need independent verification. Someone needs to build a decentralized, open-source concert data tracker. Imagine if fans could submit verified ticket receipts and crowd estimates-crowdsourced truth. We could make something better.
Pramod Usdadiya
i never knew pollstar was so old… 1974? wow. i remember my first concert ticket was in 2008 and i had no idea how they got all the numbers. but now that i think about it… if live nation owns it… then yeah… its like your boss also grading your work. kinda sus. also i think i saw a typo in the article… ‘frontier ventures’ not ‘frontier venturs’? just sayin’
sumraa hussain
Wait wait wait-so Pollstar was started by a guy typing on a typewriter and now it’s owned by a corporate giant that books Taylor Swift’s entire tour? That’s like if your local baker started a flour database and now Big Flour Inc owns it and says ‘only our bread is real bread.’ I’m not mad, I’m just… fascinated. And also a little scared. The music industry is becoming a monopoly with a spreadsheet. And we’re all just scrolling through the rankings like it’s TikTok.
Rohit Sen
Everyone’s overreacting. Pollstar’s data is still the gold standard. If you’re upset that Live Nation owns it, you’re upset that the best company won. They didn’t rig the system-they built it. The numbers are still real. Stop being paranoid and just enjoy the shows.
Agni Saucedo Medel
So… Pollstar is basically the IMDb of concerts? 🤯 I love that it started as a newsletter. But now? It’s like the whole music world is run by one spreadsheet. 😅 I just hope they still highlight the small indie bands somehow. They deserve to be seen too 💖
Indi s
It’s sad, really. I used to read Pollstar like a newspaper. Now it feels like a press release. I still check it, but I don’t trust it the same way. The data’s right, but the heart’s gone.
Priti Yadav
They removed the Independent Promoter Spotlight in 2022? That’s not a coincidence. That’s erasure. Pollstar used to be the voice of the underground. Now it’s a corporate PR tool. And the fact that no one’s talking about this? Everyone’s just happy to see Taylor Swift’s numbers. We’re being manipulated and we don’t even notice. Wake up.
Vimal Kumar
Look, I get the concerns. But let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Pollstar still gives us the only reliable numbers we’ve got. Maybe Live Nation’s ownership is shady, but if the data’s clean, we can still use it. What we need is more transparency-not silence. Maybe fans should demand a public audit. Or better yet, push for a nonprofit alternative. We can fix this if we work together.
Amit Umarani
"Pollstar’s data is the benchmark." No. It’s a benchmark. Singular. Also, "grew to 10,000 subscribers" should be "grew to 10,000 subscribers." And why is "Frontier Ventures" capitalized inconsistently? This article reads like a press release written by someone who skipped proofreading.
Noel Dhiraj
Honestly I think we need to stop acting like Pollstar is some sacred oracle. It’s a business. It always was. The real story is how the live music industry became a monopoly disguised as entertainment. Pollstar didn’t change-the system did. We should be mad at the consolidation, not the data source. Let’s build something better, not just complain about who owns the old one.
Aditya Singh Bisht
Let’s not forget-Pollstar made it possible for indie artists to prove they could sell out venues. That’s huge. Even if Live Nation owns it now, the legacy of empowering small promoters is still in the data. We can’t erase that. Maybe we need to create our own tracker, but let’s not trash the tool that helped us rise in the first place. Keep the numbers, demand the ethics. That’s the way forward.