How Live Nation’s Hans Schafer Redefined Latin Touring’s Global Potential – Billboard

Trending on Billboard In 2021, Hans Schafer took what may have been his biggest roll of the dice in a career full of them. That summer, as the live sector restarted following the pandemic, the legendary grupero band Los Bukis decided to reunite after 30 years. At the time, Schafer explains, Los Bukis “was not an Instagram phenomenon. There was no viral moment. There was no real, current streaming story that fully explained what was there.” But Schafer and his team understood the band’s intangible “cultural ­currency” — and how it could “open the gate for something that seemed unrealistic, that hadn’t been done before.” Under Schafer’s guidance, Live Nation put Los Bukis in the Los Angeles-area SoFi Stadium for two nights that August. The shows grossed $13.8 million, according to Billboard Boxscore, a figure that “exceeded what we thought we could do,” he says. Those shows forever altered touring for the biggest Latin artists. “The scale became bigger than what people expected and helped redefine the stadium ceiling for Spanish-language touring in the U.S.” Previously, stadium touring had been nearly unheard of for even the most popular Latin acts. “We marked a turning point in the concept of stadium shows
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