8/20/2019 by Eric Frankenberg
Billboard
New Kids On The Block perform at the Scotiabank Arena in Toronto on June 19, 2019.
New Kids on the Block impact the Hot Tours tally dated Aug. 24, 2019, with final reports from The Mixtape Tour, featuring
Debbie Gibson,
Tiffany,
Naughty by Nature and
Salt-N-Pepa. It is the boy band’s sixth North American tour since reuniting in 2008 and its biggest yet. All told, The Mixtape Tour grossed $53.2 million and sold 662,911 tickets according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore.
NKOTB performed an impressive 55 concerts in the span of just 73 days (May 2-July 14). That makes it the most saturated North American tour of 2019 so far (
Donny and Marie Osmond have played 85 shows, but as part of their ongoing Las Vegas residency). The trek averages out to $967,000 per show, which is the highest that the New Kids have ever paced on a single tour.
The tour’s highlight, a two-night stint at TD Garden, in New Kids' hometown of Boston, grossed $2.6 million and sold 27,089 tickets. It is the third-highest grossing engagement of the group’s career, behind a July 8, 2017, performance at Boston’s Fenway Park ($2.9 million) and nine-show run at London’s Wembley Arena back in May 1991. That string of UK shows grossed $2.618 million, barely outperforming their 2019 Boston earnings of $2.613 million.
Several tours that mined nostalgia of the '90s and '80s
have performed well this year, from the
Spice Girls to
B2K to
Hootie & The Blowfish. But New Kids on the Block set themselves apart, not grossing career-high numbers for a much-anticipated reunion tour but going stronger than ever after consistent touring 11 years after their 2008 trek.
Since the New Kids on the Block Live Tour (2008-10), the band has amassed $204.3 million in reported Boxscore earnings and sold 3,369,613 tickets. Over the last decade, the act has increased its average ticket from $53.35 to $80.27 and average crowd size from 7,351 to 12,053.
Elsewhere,
P!nk tops the Hot Tours tally with the biggest one-week report of 2019. The Beautiful Trauma World Tour played 26 European stadiums this summer and wrapped on Aug. 19 (the tour’s final three shows will impact next week’s ranking) with a final gross of $397.3 million.