Nashville Wins Big At Billboard Touring Awards

Country music took home big honors during Billboard’s 9^th Annual Touring Awards last night (11/8), hosted by actress/comedienne Sandra Bernhard at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York.

Billboard’s Breakthrough Award went to Lady Antebellum. The Brothers of the Sun tour brought home Top Package honors for Kenny Chesney, Tim McGraw, Grace Potter & the Nocturnals and Jake Owen, marking Chesney’s seventh win in the category. Independently, McGraw took home the Concert Marketing & Promotion Award with Pennzoil while Chesney additionally received The Road Warrior Award.

With the exception of a handful of reader-voted honors including Road Warrior Award and the Concert Marketing & Promotion Award, the Touring Awards are based on calculations reported to Billboard Boxscore between Oct. 1, 2011 and Sept. 30, 2012.

The Top Package Award recognizes the top-grossing tour with 3+ artists on the bill, which also included Taylor Swift’s Speak Now Tour with Needtobreathe, Danny Gokey, Frankie Ballard, Hunter Hayes, Randy Montana, Josh Kelly and more; and Jason Aldean’s My Kinda Party with Luke Bryan, Lauren Alaina/Rachel Farley and DeeJay Silver.

The Breakthrough Award, which honors artists still in their first decade of headlining, additionally nominated Miranda Lambert and The Black Keys.

Billboard honored its own Ray Waddell with the Legend of Scribe Award to mark his 25 years of tour industry reporting.

Additional awards were bestowed upon the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival; The Colosseum at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas; Live Nation; William Morris Endeavor Entertainment; Roger Waters; Bruce Springsteen, and Lady Gaga. A full list of winners can be found here.

The Awards cap off the Billboard Touring Conference, which took place Nov. 7-8 and included panels with Holly Williams and Irving Azoff.