The Forbes Celebrity 100 list, ranking the highest earning stars in the world on a yearly basis, was published this week and one musician came in ahead of all entertainers (who weren't boxers): Katy Perry was the third highest-paid celebrity of the last 12 months, coming in behind only Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao, respectively, with a net income of $135 million.
Many may have expected Taylor Swift to come in tops among musicians, thanks to the runaway sales success of 1989, her ongoing tour, and Lord-knows-how-many other promotional activities. But perhaps Perry's success proves just how little album sales mean in the new music industry: The Prism performer beat rival Swift, Miley Cyrus and Rihanna...combined.
How?
Her hard-bargain business sense was on sale during late 2014 when she borrowed a line from the latter pop star and told the NFL that "b*tch better have my money." The league tried to sleaze a plan to have Perry pay for the "benefit" of performing on the world's biggest stage at the Super Bowl...which she laughed off.
More realistically however, Perry's massive success comes from touring, in a variety of ways. The first thing's first: Where you tour makes a big difference in how much you take away from it, according to Forbes' Zach O'Malley Greenburg. She played 124 shows in the last year, with 75 of them taking place outside of the United States. Fans overseas know that performances from American artists are going to be more rare than they would be in the star's homeland, and show up in force when given the chance. Interestingly, more than 60 percent of Perry's income comes from foreign markets.
Another element Perry has killed while on the road: merchandise. According to Forbes, the average fan at a concert spends $20 on merchandise...more than four-times that of similar level pop stars. Consider if she plays a sold-out show at the Barclays Center, for example. More than 18,000 fans multiplied by $20...that's the potential for $360k in merchandise alone.
It'll be a year before we see just how well Swift does on her "1989" tour...but she'll be hard-up to meet these numbers.
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