My black Mercedes is weaving through Rome’s heavy traffic at dusk when a strange voice calls my cell with instructions straight from a John le Carré novel: Exit the vehicle immediately. Walk toward the Colosseum, about half a mile away. And then call back when you approach an arch.
Such are the cloak-and-dagger measures when you’re scheduled to meet Katy Perry, one of the most famous and highest-earning stars in the world. Three paparazzi had apparently been trailing my car–I hitched a ride from Perry’s driver–and so her head of security, from some seemingly omniscient location, dispatched me on foot. I pass the Forum and statues of various Caesars before coming upon the Arch of Titus, a 1,933-year-old structure that served as inspiration for the Arc de Triomphe. I call Perry’s guy, who instructs me to look to my left, where dozens of people are strolling past the 30-year-old singer, incognito in a white fedora and oversize Ray-Bans.
She is immersed in a conversation with her personal tour guide, an affable art historian who looks like an Italian version of Ron Weasley. He’s detailing the types of animals that gladiators battled on the floor of the Colosseum, which looms in the background, and she’s already finishing his sentences. “So they had no idea what they were fighting,” she says. He nods. A passing street merchant, apparently duped by Perry’s disguise, tries unsuccessfully to sell her a selfie stick.
“I’m over this,” says Perry, cheerfully. “Let’s go. What else are we going to see?”
You could forgive Perry for not wanting to linger. After all, she’s seen more than her share of stadiums lately thanks to her year-and-a-half-long Prismatic World Tour, which included a Super Bowl halftime performance (viewed on live TV by a record 118.5 million people) and will finally end this fall in Central America, punctuated by a headlining gig in front of 100,000 at Brazil’s Rock in Rio.
Touring explains Perry’s whopping pretax earnings of $135 million over the past 12 months, placing her at No. 3 on this year’s Celebrity 100 list, behind only the boxers Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao–who earned a one-night, once-in-a-generation payday for their snooze of a fight–and more thanTaylor Swift, Rihanna and Miley Cyrus combined. But unlike some of her fellow divas, she doesn’t shy away from her financial success. “I am proud of my position as a boss, as a person that runs my own company,” says Perry. “I’m an entrepreneur. … I don’t want to shy away from it. I actually want to kind of grab it by its balls.”
That means going global. Of the 124 shows she played during our June-to-June scoring period for earnings, 75 of them took place abroad, spanning 27 different countries and four continents. Her hits translate–they’re short on subtlety, long on universal appeal, with a focus on partying (“Last Friday Night”), love (“The One That Got Away”) and celebration (“Birthday”). And her bright, breezy videos match: “Dark Horse” and “ Roar” are the third- and fourth-most-watched YouTube videos of all time, with nearly 2 billion views between them worldwide.
So when Perry tours the world, her audience is already primed. She’s averaged a staggering $20 per head per night in merchandise sales on the tour, according to her managers, about four times the industry’s average. All in all, 60% of her total income now flows from outside of North America.
“ She has a talent for reaching a very wide audience, and her themes resonate across cultures, race and gender,” says Chuck Leavell, keyboardist for the Rolling Stones. “The music matches well with the lyrics, and the tunes are infectious. She is a true global artist.”
Her success is even more impressive when you consider that industrywide annual album sales have plummeted from 785 million to 257 million over the past 15 years. Instead of grumping about Spotify like many of her fellow artists, she’s simply adapted to the times. “Music has changed,” she shrugs. “The record is that launching pad for all kinds of other creative branches.”
Notably, hitting the road. According to a report by Ibisworld, live entertainment has been growing at an annualized rate of 4.7% over the past five years and is now a $25 billion business in the U.S. alone. International statistics are harder to come by, but 10 of the 38 musicians on the Celebrity 100 played shows in at least a dozen countries over the past 12 months.
The water is far safer now. Publicly traded Live Nation and billionaire-backed AEG have professionalized markets once dominated by local operators so sketchy that American acts often had to get their cash up front or risk not getting paid. There are more territories than ever in play: After the fall of the Berlin Wall opened up pop-loving eastern Europe in the early 1990s, modern NBA-style arenas rose across the Continent. More recently, fans in Asia and South America have grown prosperous enough to pay the Western-style ticket prices necessary to support big-budget arena shows. “Acts like Aerosmith are playing Paraguay,” says Gary Bongiovanni, chief of touring-data outfit Pollstar. “Those were things that were unheard of years ago.
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