These concert films conquered the cinemas in 2023

From "Renaissance" to "The Eras" - These concert films conquered the cinemas in 2023

Even though Taylor Swift (33) and Beyoncé (42) filled huge halls on their mega tours in 2023, only a fraction of their millions of fans were lucky enough to get tickets for the spectacular live shows. For all those who were unable to attend, they made their concert events available to experience up close in the form of elaborately produced films.

While she was still on tour, Taylor Swift, who has since been crowned "Person of the Year 2023", released the concert film "Taylor Swift: Eras Tour" in cinemas. The almost three-hour work presents recordings of her shows between August 3 and 5 at the SoFi Stadium in Inglewood near Los Angeles. As usual for the singer, she broke another sales record with this concert film. Following its theatrical release in over 100 countries on October 13, it grossed around 92.8 million US dollars on its opening weekend in the USA alone - by far the best start for a concert film of all time.

"Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour" causes ticketing systems to crash

Similar to the sale of her highly coveted concert tickets, the huge demand for tickets for the concert film also caused the ticketing apps to crash in the meantime. Cinema giant AMC dryly stated in the "Hollywood Reporter": "AMC is aware that no ticketing system in history seems to have been able to meet the enormous demand from Taylor Swift fans when tickets are first released."

Rebirth in the movie theater: "Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé"

On December 1, Swift's colleague and biggest rival Beyoncé followed her example and released her own concert film, which documents the shows of her six-month "Renaissance World Tour", offers glimpses behind the scenes of the show and also recounts the four-year preparations for the tour in documentary form.

Although "Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé" did not develop into a mega blockbuster like Swift's concert film, according to the "Hollywood Reporter " it still grossed 21.8 million US dollars in its first three days in North America. Away from the continent, however, total takings in the same period amounted to just 6.4 million US dollars. Beyoncé celebrated the release of the film with two premiere parties in Los Angeles and London. Her colleague Taylor Swift also attended the event in the UK, returning the favor for Beyoncé's visit to the premiere of her own concert film the previous October.

Concert film boom as a post-Covid phenomenon

The huge success of "Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour" in particular is likely to further reinforce the trend observed in recent years of turning concert experiences into cinema events. This trend was fueled during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 and 2021. As no live events could take place in front of an audience due to the protective measures, many acts such as Miley Cyrus (31), James Blunt (49), Coldplay and Nick Cave (66) simply performed in front of cameras instead of people and then streamed the concerts to their fans.

Cult concert film "Stop making Sense" celebrates its cinema anniversary

In 2023, Taylor Swift and Beyoncé were joined by other superstars from the music scene who brought their concerts to the big screen. For example, Billie Eilish (22) with her concert film "Live At The O2 (Extended Cut)", which was shown once in over 2,000 cinemas on 27 January. The metal band Metallica also shared their live shows with fans around the world with the cinema event "Metallica: M72 World Tour Live From Arlington, TX" on August 19 and 21. In addition, the legendary concert film "Stop Making Sense" by the avant-garde band Talking Heads from 1983 returned to cinemas with a 4K remaster to mark its 40th anniversary.