How Milwaukee Brewers' American Family Field became one of country's top concert stadiums

In 2023, American Family Field had its biggest year ever for concerts — and it was one of the top-grossing stadiums for concerts in the world.

It may be the new normal.

After hosting four concerts last year — including the first two-night stadium run ever in Milwaukee, with Morgan Wallen, and shows with George Strait and Pink that both broke attendance records — American Family Field is ready to host four more in 2024.

The first two are April 12 and 13, the stadium tour kickoff for country superstar Luke Combs. Kenny Chesney returns in June, this time with Zac Brown Band; and Green Day is coming in August with the Smashing Pumpkins.

Going forward, depending on routing and the teams' schedule, the Brewers could book four to six major tours a year, predicted Jason Hartlund, who oversees concerts at the stadium as executive vice president — chief commercial officer for the Brewers.

“We’ve really bent over backwards for artists and production teams to be as hospitable and as easy a process (to stage a concert) as possible,” Hartlund said. “That reputation is starting to get out into the marketplace. It’s helped us.”

Last year, it helped 43,000-seat American Family Field become the 19th top-grossing stadium for concerts in the United States, and 35th in the world, according to concert trade magazine Pollstar, ranking prominently among football stadiums with larger seating capacities. The stadium sold 178,107 concert tickets, collectively grossing $35.4 million.

It's a remarkable development for a 23-year-old stadium in a market Milwaukee's size, especially since there are two stadiums in must-play Chicago — the Cubs' Wrigley Field and the Bears' home field (for now), Soldier Field — that routinely draw Milwaukee fans for shows.

But between the growth of the stadium tour sector of the concert industry — and the $500 million stadium funding bill signed into law by Gov. Tony Evers last December — American Family Field's future as a live music destination is promising.

"Philosophically, when we enter into an agreement with a sports team or stadium, we want to know that they want to be good partners," said Charlie Goldstone, co-president of Live Nation-backed Madison promoter FPC Live, which handled the Pink and Wallen concerts last year and is promoting Green Day's this year.

"It's more than just financial. Will they help promote the shows? Will the team be amenable to uses of the field and the locker rooms? When an artist gets there will they feel welcome? … With the Brewers, the answer is always yes."

More: These are all of the arena, amphitheater and stadium concerts in Milwaukee in 2024

More: Luke Combs at American Family Field: Everything to know for Milwaukee stadium tour kickoff

Years with few concerts at the Milwaukee Brewers' ballpark

For much of the stadium's existence, a big concert each year wasn't a guarantee. After it opened in 2001, Miller Park (renamed American Family Field in 2021) nabbed a few tours its first few years, including Strait, *NSYNC and Bruce Springsteen.

But after 2003, the stadium went a decade without hosting tours, although there were some special events, including Farm Aid in 2010, and birthday bashes for Harley-Davidson and Miller Brewing.

Then in 2013, Kenny Chesney headlined a stadium tour stop at Miller Park for the first time, the beginning of what's become a fruitful relationship with one of the stadium's most reliable promoters, the Messina Touring Group.

In addition to Chesney's headlining shows at the Brewers ballpark in 2016, 2018, 2022 and now this year, Messina brought Ed Sheeran to the stadium in 2018. The promoter also was responsible for Eric Church's second stadium-headlining show ever in 2022, and for the Strait show last year — one of only eight dates the country legend did in 2023 with Chris Stapleton.

In an interview with the Journal Sentinel last year, Louis Messina, head of AEG-backed Messina Touring Group, said doing shows at the stadium was "comfortable" and that the venue itself was "fan-friendly."

"Some stadiums, it's like pulling teeth to do a show there. In Milwaukee, it's not like that," Messina said. "From the top with management all the way down to the groundskeepers, they work with us and make it easy for us to produce shows."

"We're not just another tenant in the building. … That's really important, not only to me and the artists but to my team, box office people, production people — everybody."

After Chesney broke the tour drought, Live Nation, the world's largest concert promoter, put Paul McCartney and One Direction shows in the stadium, in 2013 and 2015.

A gamechanger for Wisconsin concerts in 2018

Then in 2018, Live Nation became a majority stakeholder of long-running Madison promoter Frank Productions, parent to FPC Live — and the Brewers took notice.

"The ballpark said they wanted to be in business, and it opened up a new level of shows that were not coming to the state," FPC Live co-president Scott Leslie said. By that time, touring was a rapidly growing business at other ballparks, Leslie noted, including Wrigley Field and Fenway Park in Boston.

"The Brewers saw that this was being done successfully among their peers, so why not them?" Leslie said.

FPC Live brought the only Billy Joel Midwestern concert of 2019 to American Family Field, and a Motley Crue, Def Leppard, Poison and Joan Jett package to the ballpark in 2022. Aside from when the pandemic derailed the touring industry for most of 2020 and much of 2021, the ballpark has hosted at least one stadium tour every year since 2018, and nearly all of them have been at capacity.

"Success breeds success," Hartlund said. "Where artists may have been hesitant to come to the Milwaukee market in the past, we have a catalog of success that tours can play Chicago and Milwaukee. … And because we have had success with shows in the past people are getting more comfortable moving off weekends."

Last year's Pink show at American Family Field, for instance, was on a Monday — and it stopped at Wrigley Field the prior Saturday. But the Milwaukee date was still a smash, with Pink breaking an attendance record at the stadium, performing for 46,644 people.

Leslie suggests that Pink's past success in the market — her Fiserv Forum show in 2019 was the top-grossing concert at the arena that year — likely gave her team more confidence to book a show in the city's biggest venue.

"With Fiserv Forum, there's a brand-new arena with a high volume of really amazing shows that let the market open up in a bigger way," FPC Live's Goldstone said.

The $524 million Milwaukee Bucks arena opened in 2018, bringing more shows nearly every year than the Bradley Center ever did during a single year. And the American Family Insurance Amphitheater at Maier Festival Park has seen a surge of shows, too, following a $51.3 million renovation, reaching its highest volume since 2004. And even though the amphitheater has nabbed some tour dates routed through other stadiums, Hartlund suggests their booking ability has benefited.

"The rising tide lifts all ships," Hartlund said. "Having a new arena is great for the city, having a revamped American Family Insurance Amphitheater at Summerfest is fantastic. The more shows we put in here, the better."

Stadium concert tours are surging around the world

Hartlund says the Brewers have been more aggressive about concert bookings coming out of the pandemic, driven not just by a desire to grow non-baseball revenue, but a growing comfort that field conditions won't be affected by more events.

And there are significantly more events at stadiums around the globe, which the Brewers are also benefiting from. Grosses from the world’s top 100 stadiums for concerts were up 35% in 2023 to $3.62 billion, according to Pollstar. The number of tickets sold for those tours also increased 22.2% to 29.1 million.

Since touring resumed after the pandemic, Dave Brooks, senior director of live and touring for Billboard, estimates that at least an artist or two in different genres, including country, pop and Latin music, have been able to rise up to the stadium level every year, while some artists have experimented with packages to help fill stadium seats, like Chesney is doing with Zac Brown Band and Green Day with the Pumpkins.

"The financial incentives are obvious," Brooks said. "You can get a much larger audience for the fraction of the price it costs you to do multiple arena shows. The costs are somewhat higher for a stadium concert than an arena show, but the increase in attendance is like double depending on how big the stadium is, and you can make almost double the money."

Promoters also like the "huge consumer marketing databases" that MLB and NFL teams have from selling tickets to their games to help them sell shows, Brooks continued, and fans have shown with their wallets that they don't mind the stadium concert experience.

"The use of video boards and technology makes the concert feel more intimate," Brooks said of more recent stadium tours.

New stadium developments could lead to more concerts

Hartlund is hopeful that the Brewers' new centerfield scoreboard — one of the largest in Major League Baseball — will appeal to some promoters. As of the Journal Sentinel interview, he was unsure if any tours would use the scoreboard this year, but Strait and Stapleton did last year.

And while the team's new QR code-based parking payment system was temporarily suspended due to technical issues for opening day — and will not be in operation for the Combs shows — Hartlund said that, when it's up and running, it will cut down on backups into the ballpark. Traffic into the park has triggered some backlash in the past, most notably for Sheeran's show in 2018, prompting the team to issue an apology.

And then there's the $500 million public-funding plan for the ballpark to support long-term renovations and improvements, which will include "winterizing" the venue so it could operate beyond its typical April-to-October timeframe.

The stadium's retractable roof has already been an asset — Hartlund suggests it was a key reason why Combs opted to kick off the tour there this year — but following renovations, American Family Field theoretically could host concerts in March or November.

And yes, some stadium tours have been routed through the Midwest in November; Stapleton and Strait played the indoor U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis in November 2021, and Joel played the NFL stadium with Stevie Nicks last November.

"Promoters are aware of the plan for that to take place," Hartlund said, although a definitive timeline has yet to be set. "It's all about the comfort levels for the artist and the fans. If the building is winterized and heated to appropriate levels, it's no different from an arena show in November or March."

Contact Piet at (414) 223-5162 or plevy@journalsentinel.com. Follow him on X at @pietlevy or Facebook at facebook.com/PietLevyMJS.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: How American Family Field became one of country's top concert stadiums