Major Concerts Have Passed On Charlotte For Years. That’s Changing.

We’ve heard and seen it discussed for years—both in the wild and online in Reddit threads, social media and blog posts, and news articles: “Why do a lot of major artists skip over Charlotte?” one Reddit user posted in June, prompting hundreds of responses. 

“It’s Not Your Imagination Charlotte Really Is Left Off of Major Concert Tours More Often Than Other Cities,” reads the headline on a November 2023 WKQC article. The title of a 2019 Charlotte Observer article reads, “Why are Greensboro and Raleigh getting concerts that Charlotte isn’t?” In 2022, someone posted in a Facebook group called Carolina Headbangers: “I don’t get it. Bands tour but skip the Charlotte area. … What do I need to do to get the bands to come to the Queen City, book the shows myself?”

Is this still true? Or are we just salty that Taylor hasn’t stopped here yet—and self-deprecating beyond what’s fair? Here’s what we learned:

Bank of America Stadium, which began hosting regular concerts in 2022, is North Carolina’s first and only stadium that includes concerts as part of its annual programming.

Bank of America holds around 75,000 people. Before 2022, Charlotte’s largest concert venues were Spectrum Center and PNC Music Pavilion, each with a capacity of about 20,000. Raleigh and Greensboro’s venues top out there, too. Our biggest artists—like, say, Taylor Swift—won’t bother stopping in North Carolina for arena shows when they can sell out stadiums.

“The previous owners (of BofA) didn’t use the facility for anything other than football,” says Caroline Wright, senior vice president and chief venues officer for Tepper Sports & Entertainment, which now owns and operates the stadium. (The previous owner was Panthers founder Jerry Richardson, who insisted that the stadium was a venue for sports, not concerts.) “I think there was a Rolling Stones concert way back in the day. But otherwise, the building wasn’t open for business, if you will.” In 2018, David and Nicole Tepper purchased the Carolina Panthers and BofA from Richardson, added Charlotte FC soccer to its roster—then opened the stadium to concerts. It’s now, by far, the largest concert venue in North Carolina.

“Now that promotors know that we’re open for business, they can choose to stop here,” says Wright. And they do: Since 2022, BofA has hosted concerts from artists that include Beyoncé, Luke Combs, Elton John, and Garth Brooks. Last year, Morgan Wallen concluded his “One Night At A Time” tour, the highest-selling country music tour of all time, with two packed shows. George Strait and Chris Stapleton’s joint 2024 tour made nine stops; BofA was one of them.

“We’re only in the infancy stages of being open for business,” Wright says. “So I think some tours may be looking at Charlotte saying, ‘We want to see how you perform.’ And we’re performing well.” As of early December, the stadium’s 2025 concert lineup included Kendrick Lamar and SZA; Billy Joel and Sting;  Shakira; and Metallica.

Usher at Spectrum Center on October 22. (Photo by Jeff Hahne/Getty Images)

Charlotte is a top 20 U.S. concert market—which beats both Raleigh  and Greensboro.

In 2023, Charlotte ranked 21st of 100 U.S. markets based on size, ticket sales, gross dollars, and other factors, according to Pollstar, a trade publication that tracks the global concert industry. Raleigh-Durham ranked at No. 27, and Greensboro-Winston-Salem ranked at No. 40. Last year, Charlotte moved up to No. 19, Raleigh-Durham moved down to No. 30, and Greensboro-Winston Salem came in at No. 39.

“When you put all of us on a map, in terms of attendance and capacity, we now bring this fully encapsulated offering to the entertainment community,” Wright says. “We can now say, ‘We’ve got plenty of venues, and we can provide options for you.’”

Kirk Sommer believes in us.

That matters, because as a senior partner and the global co-head of music at WME, one of the “Big 2” talent agencies in the world, he’s responsible for booking tour stops for some of our favorite artists.

“In my mind, Charlotte is absolutely a top 25 touring market. … That’s strong. That puts your market ahead of places like San Diego, Portland, Pittsburgh, Oklahoma City, and Raleigh,” he tells me by phone from his New York City home in December. It’s also a growth market, he says, and, compared to other mid-sized cities, we’re batting above average with our bookings. “Charlotte’s also a hub for major corporations, and that does a lot, too. That tells me that there are people who have money, and they want to go out to a show.

“From my perspective as the head of WME, recently, we’ve put Usher at the Spectrum Center. I just played Benson Boone. We had Third Eye Blind. Earlier in the year, I had the Foo Fighters at PNC. Nicki Minaj was a big tour; she played Charlotte. The Flaming Lips, and Victoria Monét, who won a whole bunch of Grammys. On the country side of things, Chris Stapleton. Tool, a huge rock band—they were there about a year ago. And if you look at a band like them, they don’t play everywhere. They’re selective. …

“That’s another thing I’d say about the market: Generalizing, it’s a great market for pop, for rock, for hip-hop, and for country. And not all markets are good for all of those things. So that’s a pretty cool thing, and maybe that speaks to the diversity of the population there.”

Lovin’ Life launched in Charlotte last year.

“They didn’t launch in Raleigh,” Sommer reminds us. The festival, a three-day, three-stage music festival with more than 40 popular artists, is expected to return in May 2025 with even more artists, including Dave Matthews Band and Gwen Stefani.

Expect a busy 2025.

Sommer also predicts that this year will be the biggest open-air stadium concert season in U.S. history. BofA’s opening, it seems, was right on time. “Because 2026 is the (FIFA) World Cup,” Sommer says, “there will be fewer artists that will be able to tour outdoors in 2026, so we kind of have this bottleneck now.”

Luke Combs at the Concert For Carolina benefit show at Bank of America Stadium on October 26.(Photo by John Shearer/Getty Images for Concert For Carolina)

What do concert promoters consider when they’re choosing tour stops? 

Here are some of the main factors that can prevent Charlotte from landing a gig: 

Sports teams usually own venues, so they get first dibs on dates. 

The Panthers and Charlotte FC get to put their game dates on Bank of America’s calendar first. The Hornets get first pass at Spectrum Center’s calendar. If a tour wants to stop in Charlotte but the date conflicts with a game, tough luck.

Stadiums take a long time to convert from game to show. 

It takes time and work to set up and tear down concert stages, so the stadium can’t schedule concerts too close to sporting events. If a tour wants to play BofA on a fall Saturday, and the Panthers are scheduled to play there on Sunday, once more, the tour is out of luck. With its sports schedule, BofA can handle an average of just eight concerts per year.

BofA doesn’t have a roof. 

Some artists don’t want to play in the cold or rain.

Proximity to other stops can knock us off a tour. 

“If a band tries to play in Raleigh or Carrboro and in Charlotte, for example, they’re cannibalizing their audience,” says longtime North Carolina-based touring musician and freelance writer Michael Venutolo-Mantovani. “Then, for huge bands, you also get into radius clauses: If they play an arena show in Raleigh, they’re probably not going to be allowed to play an arena show in Charlotte because of proximity and radius clauses”—contract conditions that restrict acts from playing multiple venues in the same area.

North Carolina has three major metropolitan areas that compete for arena-sized tour stops. 

Many states have just one. So sometimes, artists stop in Raleigh on one tour and Charlotte the next—or split the difference and play Greensboro.