There are concerts that are heard and others that are experienced in community. Those of Latin music tend to be the latter: several generations singing the same songs, families who arrive together and thousands of people who, although they do not know each other, react to the same chorus as if they shared a story.
That collective experience helps explain why Latin concerts have gained so much traction in New York’s big arenas.
Barclays Center is one of the places where that change can be measured. More than 60% of the Latin concerts held at the venue in its 14-year history have occurred since 2022. Over the past three years, it has averaged more than 10 Latin concerts annually, which in total have generated more than $100 million in ticket sales and attracted more than 800,000 fans.
For Laurie Jacoby, Executive Vice President and Chief Entertainment Officer of Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment, the growth is not limited to superstars.
“We began to see artists who had been constantly performing in smaller venues make the leap to arenas, and each tour built on the momentum of the previous one,” he explained.
The change is also in who buys the tickets and who goes to the concert with. Jacoby has watched several generations come together on the same night, families celebrating together, and fans who know every lyric. That connection, he says, sets many of these shows apart.
“There is a strong sense of belonging and being part of something bigger than yourself,” he said.
This fall’s billboard offers another example of the breadth the genre has achieved. Omar Courtz, Don Omar, Arcángel, Rawayana and Young Miko represent different generations, styles and moments of Latin music. Omar Courtz, Rawayana and Young Miko will debut at Barclays Center, while Don Omar and Arcángel will return to the Brooklyn stage.
For Jacoby, that combination reflects an important transformation: artists no longer need to reach the arena after becoming global phenomena. A new generation is reaching that level much earlier in their careers.
And the phenomenon has an impact that goes beyond tickets sold. Latin music currently represents 8.8% of recorded music revenue in the United States and has 10 consecutive years of growth, a sign that the Latin public and the music they consume occupy an increasingly larger space within the American music economy.
In New York, that growth finds a particularly diverse audience. Artists can attract fans from the five boroughs and the entire region, while their concerts bring together people who share a language, roots, memories or simply a taste for a song.
Perhaps that is one of the keys to its strength: in a Latin concert, a song can become a meeting point. And when thousands of people sing it at the same time, it becomes clear that the growth of the genre does not only occur in the popularity charts or in the box office figures. It also happens among the public, generation after generation.
