The night Shawn James sold out an 1,100-cap room in São Paulo, he realized what many artists who venture south of the U.S. eventually learn: Latin America doesn’t just welcome you, it takes you in completely.
“It was the biggest show of my career,” James says. “We sold out and it was just mind-blowing to me.”
James, the self-described 38-year-old “underdog” troubadour from Chicago’s South Side, has made a name for himself crisscrossing the United States with his own brand of gothic Americana. He had been trying to carve out a path in the U.S. the hard way: self-­released records, DIY tours, and a following that first found him in dive bars and basements.
Then came a break: In 2016, his song “Through the Valley” was featured in the trailer for The Last of Us Part II video game, and resurfaced in HBO’s hit adaptation ­earlier this year. That exposure brought James an unlikely audience. Fans across Latin America latched onto his music, excavated his catalog, and flooded his comment sections for years with messages like “Come to Brazil!” Ultimately, that momentum led James to stepping onto the stage in São Paulo’s Carioca Club last October as the headliner, facing down his largest crowd ever.
James’ breakthrough in Brazil is part of a broader shift. For decades, the United States has been the center of the touring universe: the biggest market, the most lucrative venues. Yet the center of gravity is shifting. For international artists, the U.S. has become one of the most expensive and unpredictable places to tour. Bloated visa fees, endless delays, and snap border denials can sink a run before it starts. A growing number of artists and promoters are looking past the U.S. as they chase the next wave of touring growth, and live-music growth is now being outpaced by markets outside of the U.S. — nowhere more dramatically than in Latin America.
Latin America’s role in the touring economy is hardly new. The region has hosted some of the most iconic concerts in history: The Rolling Stones’ 1995 “Voodoo Lounge” tour drew more than 100,000 people in Rio de Janeiro; Madonna’s “Sticky & Sweet” tour shattered records in Buenos Aires in 2008. And for generations, stadiums in Mexico City, Buenos Aires, and São Paulo have been permanent fixtures on the routing maps of the biggest artists alive.
Editor’s picks
The clearest example of this is Live Nation, the largest concert promoter on the planet, which is betting biggest on Latin America. On July 29, the company announced it would drop $646 million to boost its stake in OCESA — Mexico’s live events behemoth — giving Live Nation a controlling 75 percent share of the third-largest concert promoter in the world, according to Billboard. The deal doesn’t just expand Live Nation’s global footprint; it locks Mexico into place as the centerpiece of its Latin American strategy, turning the region into a proving ground for the company’s next era of dominance.
According to their 2024 annual report, foreign exchange swings shaved $235 million off the company’s revenue, with “the majority” of that impact coming from Latin American currencies — particularly the Mexican peso and Brazilian real. In plain terms, that means that Live Nation’s business in Mexico, Brazil, and the broader region, even in its early stages, is already so large that its balance sheet moves with the peso and real.
Live Nation’s expansion in Latin America has been fast and deliberate. In 2021, it paid over $400 million for a controlling stake in OCESA, Mexico’s live-events giant, then boosted its share to 75 percent with another $646 million four years later. By 2023, it had moved into Colombia, buying Bogotá’s Páramo Presenta — the force behind Estéreo Picnic, Baum, and Knotfest — and backing new venues like a 40,000-seat stadium in Bogotá, a refurbished Estadio GNP Seguros in Mexico City, and Cali’s 15,000-cap Arena Cañaveralejo. Next up: Brazil, a market twice Mexico’s size and still largely untapped.
Related Content
But what is happening in Latin America isn’t about one company’s strategy; it’s about a region signaling its arrival on the global stage.
A Prototype for a Post-American Touring Economy
“To be quite honest, this is a new model,” says Omar Garcia, an agent with CAA whose roster includes global heavyweights like Enrique Iglesias and Ricky Martin. “Latin America looks like the next frontier for us. If you can break Mexico, then break the U.S., that’s really all you need.”
Garcia points to Fuerza Regida as a proof of concept: The Southern California group, who could not be reached for comment, broke out stateside, but big wins have come in Latin America, including a 2023 tour that grossed $35 million, capped by a sold-out night at L.A.’s BMO Stadium, and this year, a massive 65,000-strong crowd in Mexico City, bigger than the last Super Bowl.
This fall, Kendrick Lamar will take his “Grand National Tour” through Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, and Chile, pulling in Argentine duo CA7RIEL & Paco Amoroso as openers. Indie-rock’s St. Vincent has folded Mexico City, Santiago, and Buenos Aires into her world tour routing, while The Hives are joining My Chemical Romance’s 2026 Latin America run. Even younger crossover acts like the Marías are leaning into the circuit, plugging into festivals and city stops once seen as add-ons but now treated as essential anchors of their global strategy.
“I mean, take a look at the lineups for Lollapalooza Brazil, Lollapalooza Argentina, Lollapalooza Chile,” says Garcia. “Look three or four lines down and you’ll see mid-tier artists making moves early.”
This spring, artists like Tate McRae, Teddy Swims, and Benson Boone all took the plunge, playing every stop on the Lollapalooza circuit across South America. They weren’t the headliners drawing the massive fonts, but they didn’t need to be. The crowds were already there.
“The demand is certainly there and very real,” says Russell Brantley, an agent with Los Angeles talent agency 33 & West who represents Shawn James. “And one big reason for that is a rise in streaming in all these countries, along with greater access to technology.”
The region has turned into one of the fastest-growing music markets on the planet, racking up 15 straight years of revenue gains and clocking a 22.5 percent jump in 2024 alone, according to a report by IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry). Mexico just muscled its way into the world’s top-ten music markets for the first time, with concert attendance more than tripling since 2019, according to Reuters. Meanwhile, Brazil posted 21.7 percent growth — the strongest among the world’s top ten. Only the Middle East and North Africa region is outgrowing Latin America when it comes to recorded music revenue growth, meaning this region is fast becoming the industry’s primary growth engine.
What Shawn James experienced didn’t come from corporate machinery or a carefully engineered global tour. It came from something simpler: a direct connection between his songs and the people of Latin America. Latin America isn’t just a playground for the giants, but a proving ground where independent musicians can find explosive audiences, sell out venues, and build careers in ways the increasingly costly and saturated U.S. circuit can no longer guarantee.
“If I’m playing a giant market that I think should get what I do and it never grows, then I’m at the point in my life, I’m like, ‘Well if you don’t want me, I’m not coming,’” James says.
The moment he knew Latin America wanted him happened in 2022, when a local restaurateur with a music venue in São Paulo invited James to come perform at his club that held around 200 people.
“They put up tickets and they sold out within five minutes,” James says. “So we added two more dates, and they both sold out too.”
Hours before doors opened, fans were already lined up around the block. Some cried when they spotted him, telling him his songs had carried them through their darkest moments. Teenagers showed up with their parents after driving six hours from another state. Others who couldn’t get tickets stood on the sidewalk to hear what they could from outside.
James has now done three tours in Latin America, and seen on the ground what the industry measures in numbers: the region’s surge isn’t just about revenue; it’s about hunger. More streaming data than ever before has illuminated growing demand that was already there. Now, the industry is building infrastructure around it.
The same passion that packed James’ shows is fueling opportunities for newcomers willing to make the leap, and the industry is now steering clients south with the understanding that the demand will meet them there.
Trending Stories
“Get down there early,” Garcia says. “Even if you don’t have a following yet, it will grow.”