In an announcement that should interest all music lovers, Pollstar have said that the biggest selling concert tour of 2011 is not U2 or Lady Gaga, but rather a Christian music tour.
Pollstar is a worldwide publication that covers the concert industry, and their announcement will have surprised many since their analysis included tours by some of the world’s most popular musicians including Justin Bieber, Bon Jovi, U2, X Factor Live, and Lady Gaga.
The Christian music tour, otherwise known as Winter Jam 2011 Tour Spectacular drew record audiences of over 500,000. The 46-city tour was the brainchild of the Grammy nominated band NewSong and features some of the most popular Christian musicians in the industry, including Newsboys, David Crowder Band, Kutless, Francesca Battistelli, RED, KJ-52.
The tour was accompanied by guest speaker Tony Nolan, and also included a Pre-Jam party presented by the American Bible Society with Sidewalk Prophets, Chris August, Chris Sligh and Jason Castro.
The Winter Jam has been running for the last 16 years, and has been close to the top position before when in 2010 it reached second spot with sales of over 400,000 tickets, surpassing artists such as Taylor Swift, John Mayer, Coldplay and Bon Jovi.
The tour founder, NewSong’s Eddie Carswell, was humbled by the success of the tour, and especially pleased with how many people it reached.
“We are grateful and humbled by the response to this year’s Winter Jam that only God Himself could have orchestrated.
“It is amazing to think that nearly 100,000 people made meaningful, life-changing decisions to follow Christ and that over 13,000 made a commitment to assist orphans through our partnership with Holt. To truly impact lives is the reason that Winter Jam was created 16 years ago.”