How Kelsea Ballerini Has Grown Into an Arena-Level Touring Artist

With her latest string of albums, including her intensely vulnerable and current CMA album of the year-nominated Rolling Up the Welcome Mat EP, singer-songwriter and five-time Billboard Country Airplay chart-topper Kelsea Ballerini has steadily been leveling up, both creatively and professionally.

This week, Ballerini not only made her debut performance on the VMAs, but also appeared on the cover of TIME, and stepped up in the touring space, selling out her very first headlining arena show, set for Nov. 2 in her hometown of Knoxville, Tenn. at the Thompson-Boling Arena. The show will crown a year that has seen Ballerini headline a slate of theaters on her HEARTFIRST Tour, perform songs from Rolling Up the Welcome Mat on Saturday Night Live, offer a powerful, statement-making performance on the CMT Music Awards, release a short film around her EP, and play the inaugural People’s Choice Country Awards, which she is set to perform later this month.

And Ballerini’s latest standout touring moment earns Sandbox Entertainment Group’s head of global touring Leslie Cohea the title of Billboard‘s Executive of the Week.

Here, Cohea discusses Ballerini’s upcoming hometown arena show, how touring has shifted since the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and country music’s ascendance in international touring.

This week, Kelsea Ballerini sold out the first headlining arena tour date of her career in Knoxville. What key decisions did you make to help make that happen?

Last year, I put a plan together for Kelsea’s then-upcoming 2023 headlining tour. She had not done a headline tour since before the pandemic and I knew that it had to be thoughtful and impactful for her fans. We decided to play all the right rooms, not skipping any steps, only announcing around 15 shows for the HEARTFIRST tour. Once those sold out, she announced the next 15 shows. With her EP coming out and having the huge success it did, the next shows sold out immediately. Her momentum kept building and building and any show we put on sale sold out. That’s when Kelsea and I talked about having one last massive play to cap off such a successful year. She is absolutely going to play arenas in the future, but I wanted to have one big moment to really show the growth of Kelsea as a touring artist.

The obvious choice was Knoxville since it is her hometown, and she has always wanted to play Thompson-Boling Arena. I had the idea for the show to be over the University of Tennessee homecoming weekend and call it Kelsea’s “homecoming” as well. It’s only right that her first sellout show is in Knoxville. When we announced the show last week, I knew we had a short window to sell tickets being that the show is on Nov. 2. I really wanted this show to stand out as a special event and get people excited. I think everything we did to market the announce really helped drive that. AEG are incredible partners to us, and they helped us build this Knoxville campaign from scratch and continue to bring opportunities that are going to make this show massive for Kelsea and her fans. Amy Buck is a brilliant marketer. It was really special to see it sell out minutes after going on sale. This is by far Kelsea’s biggest show to date, doubling — almost tripling — the capacities she has played this year.

How will this show be different in terms of production, lighting, etc., since this will be scaling up in venue size?

Kelsea has empowered her entire team to up the ante on production for this show. We had a great HEARTFIRST tour production, but it was simply not scaled for arenas. Building out the production for this Homecoming show is where Kelsea, her touring team and I get to have a little fun. We are adding more lights, sound and video while creating a few special surprises along the way. Every fan will leave this show fully understanding why Kelsea Ballerini is a superstar.

Looking ahead to 2024, how do you foresee her touring growing and evolving?

Kelsea continues to grow and evolve in all areas, including writing, recording and touring. The connection she has built with her fans is truly mesmerizing and it’s something that has become so powerful at her live shows. They feel connected to her more than they ever have, especially after the release of Rolling Up The Welcome Mat. And based on what we just witnessed with the sell out at Thompson-Boling Arena, there is absolutely an arena tour in Kelsea’s future.

Earlier this year, Kelsea also made headlines after she was hit by a bracelet while on stage, part of a strange trend of fans throwing things at artists on stage. Is there anything that the team has changed to help keep things safe on tour?

Every artist and their team want to create the safest environment possible. Since the bracelet incident, tour security works directly with the venue to make sure we have all eyes watching the people closest to the stage. I also think the fans attending are holding other fans accountable. An artist is vulnerable enough on stage, disrupting a show by launching something at the artist ruins the moment for every person on, in front of, and behind the stage.

How has touring changed overall since the pandemic?

The thing I have noticed lately is the volume of shows in every size room in every market. Right now, there are so many tours going back out and making up for the lost time and revenue. This is how we at Sandbox really came up with the “less is more” idea to only announce 15 shows for Kelsea. We want fans to feel the urgency to buy the tickets as soon as they go on sale. We are seeing people waiting to buy closer to the show. They don’t want to make the commitment too soon.

Kelsea just made her debut VMAs performance and was on the cover of TIME. How has the Sandbox team overall worked toward her increased recognition in the mainstream, while still staying very connected within the country music genre?

Two words: Jason Owen. Jason is our fearless leader at Sandbox, but he empowers all of us to lead, to innovate and to push boundaries. Our digital team at Sandbox always has their fingers on the pulse of what’s connecting in the marketplace. Their knowledge and insight into how we communicate with fans is unmatched. And CAA has played a very integral role in helping us elevate Kelsea’s stature across touring and film and television. Rick Roskin and his team are incredibly powerful partners.

Country music is having a moment not only in terms of success on the all-genre Hot 100 chart, but in terms of international touring. To what factors do you attribute this moment?

There are a lot of factors that contribute to this, from streaming to labels pushing more for international exposure and touring becoming a more common experience for country artists all over Europe and the U.K. It was hard to convince an arena-level artist years ago to go play clubs across the U.K. in order to help grow their international fan base. It had to feel like going backwards almost. In the last 10 years, the next generation of country artists really started investing in growing their touring careers abroad. They could do it alongside their touring career in the states as well. C2C and other newer country festivals have also really helped shine a light on country music and have allowed the ability to get exposure in places like London and Dublin.

Last Week’s Top Executive: Sony Latin Iberia COO María Fernández