Most tickets sold for a livestreamed concert by a solo male artist (current year)

Louis Tomlinson (UK) sold 160,000 tickets worldwide for his ‘Live from London’ charity concert, which was livestreamed on Veeps from an unknown venue in the UK’s capital city on 12 December 2020. The event raised more than $1 million (£755,000) for four charities – Crew Nation, FareShare, Stagehand and the Bluebell Wood Children’s Hospice (based in Sheffield, UK) – with Tomlinson’s own touring crew also receiving a portion of the proceeds after being out of work since March 2020 owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. Tomlinson’s 18-song set featured tracks from his debut solo album Walls (2020), three One Direction covers and the live debut of “Copy of a Copy of a Copy”.

‘Live from London’ was the third-biggest livestreamed concert of 2020 in terms of ticket sales, after BTS (756,000) and Dua Lipa (284,000), as the music industry moved away from traditional gigs with fans in attendance in light of restrictions brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. Veeps, co-founded by Good Charlotte’s Joel and Benji Madden in 2017, had been a leading player in the shift towards bringing music into fans’ homes in 2020, billing itself as “the livestream concert platform for the music industry”. In January 2021, events promoter Live Nation bought a majority stake in Veeps in a bid to offset a dramatic decline in revenue caused by the cessation of live concerts and touring. In 2020, Veeps reportedly made more than $10 million in sales for the decimated touring sector.

‘Live from London setlist: “Just Hold On”; “We Made It”; “Don’t Let It Break Your Heart”; “Drag Me Down”; “Two of Us”; “Habit”; “Too Young”; “Perfect Now”; “Through the Dark”; “Fearless”; “Copy of a Copy of a Copy”; “Defenceless”; “Beautiful War”; “Always You”; “Little Black Dress”; “Walls”; “Only the Brave”; “Kill My Mind”.