Shakira onstage in October during her residency at Estadio Shakira (Shakira Stadium) in Madrid, part of her Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran world tour.
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Madrid has two major stadiums — but when Live Nation was trying to find one for Shakira to take over this past October, somehow neither was available. So instead of waiting for one to open up, the company built its own.
On Oct. 12 (Spain’s Hispanic Day), Estadio Shakira, or Shakira Stadium — a 50,000-capacity venue built specifically for the Colombian superstar — hosted the 13th and final show of Shakira’s historic Madrid residency. The final night, dubbed El Último Baile (The Last Dance), was added due to “overwhelming demand,” according to organizers after the once-in-a-lifetime run ballooned from three shows to a nearly monthlong stint, which, thanks to the bespoke stadium, they were able to accommodate.
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Inspired in part by Adele’s 2024 Munich residency — which welcomed a reported 730,000 fans to a custom-built venue across 10 nights — Shakira Stadium housed a residency that ended up grossing $81.1 million from 656,000 tickets sold, according to Billboard Boxscore. Along with Bad Bunny recently filling 31 nights at the Coliseo de Puerto Rico José Miguel Agrelot in San Juan, it showed that Latin artists can now draw hundreds of thousands of fans to distinct destinations for beyond-multiple-night runs — and touring professionals say this is just the beginning.
The residency model (especially when a bespoke venue is involved) may not be feasible for everyone — it “requires the right artist, the right market, strong demand, a clear creative vision and the operational capability to execute at a very high level,” says Live Nation global tour promoter Colin Lewis, who worked on Shakira’s Madrid residency. But “for global artists with the ability to draw fans from multiple countries, it can be a powerful alternative to a traditional touring route.”
In summer 2025, Bad Bunny held his No Me Quiero Ir de Aquí (I Don’t Want To Leave Here) residency in support of his Grammy-winning album DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS. Like the album itself, the astonishing 31-date residency was a love letter to his island — and became an economic boon to Puerto Rico, following the still-devasting effects of hurricanes in 2017. Move Concerts partner and Rimas Nation head of operations Alejandro Pabón worked in secret for two years alongside Bad Bunny’s manager, Noah Assad, to plan promotion of the residency, which required use of the roughly 18,500-capacity arena for three months and sold more than 400,000 tickets in its first four hours on sale. The run occurred during low tourism months, when hotels were free, and employed a staff of 90% Puerto Ricans, according to Pabón. The island’s tourism agency, Discover Puerto Rico, estimates that it brought between $200 million and $700 million into the island’s economy.
“The majority of the people that came to visit here were from the U.S. [Bad Bunny] could have done so much more money in the U.S. and he left that on the table to do this,” says Pabón, who estimates around 200,000 fans traveled to Puerto Rico for the shows. “Everything was done to give the potential to show people what the island can do.” (Bad Bunny’s historic DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS tour, which began following his Puerto Rico residency but was announced before it, did not play shows stateside.)
Bad Bunny’s particular residency model, Pabón says, isn’t necessarily one size fits all: While he points out that plenty of other artists could sell out several dates at the Coliseo, the confluence of Bad Bunny’s outspoken political stances, island-specific album and his exploding global profile created a “perfect storm … Benito is the face of Puerto Rico. Maybe nobody again can replicate that here. Maybe not even him.”
But that hasn’t stopped other promoters from reaching out to Pabón for advice on how to pull off Latin residencies. “I have got a lot of calls from colleagues from other countries picking my brain or need[ing] advice,” he says. “I’m sure a select group can do this and sell tickets.”
Cárdenas Marketing Network CEO Henry Cárdenas says there are already a handful of Latin residencies in the works for 2027 and beyond. “I’ve already been approached by a couple [of Latin artists’ teams]. They want to do Sphere. They want to do residencies in [Las] Vegas. So it’s going to happen more often for sure. The problem is going to become the venues,” Cárdenas says, adding that he recently inquired with Sphere for residency dates in 2027 and was told the venue is booked solidly beyond that year. (In September, Carín León became the first Latin artist to headline Sphere, where he played six sold-out dates, and he will return next September for another four dates.)
In Latin America, where longer runs of shows are already common, Cárdenas notes that the residency label requires far more than a handful of dates. “In order to do a residency [in Latin America], you have to do 20 to 30 [shows at] Foro Sol [the Mexico City stadium now called Estadio GNP Seguros]. When BTS, Bruno Mars, Luis Miguel [come to Mexico], five to seven Foro Sols are [common],” Cárdenas says, adding that he already has a Latin artist scheduled to announce a 25-show residency in Mexico for 2027.
These landmark Latin residencies in particular are proving to be win-win scenarios for both the artist and the places they’re held. “[Local] governments are sponsoring and helping the promoters bring these residencies to their cities,” Cárdenas says, pointing to Shakira’s Madrid run that Live Nation expects to generate over 200 million euros (roughly $225 million) in economic impact for the city. “More cities are going to try to do the same thing.”
Cárdenas says that with their operational efficiency, residencies can double what an artist makes on a multicity run, and Lewis notes that “from a promoter perspective, there are also advantages to concentrating performances in one market.” Fans, too, get an exclusive experience. Bad Bunny’s team built two unique stages, including the famed “la casita” set, in secret at the now-closed Río Piedras State Penitentiary for his residency, while Shakira and Madrid hosted a wide variety of activities around hers, including concerts, exhibitions, talks, workshops, films, food, literature and cultural experiences.
“Artists are always looking for new ways to connect with their audiences and bring their creative visions to life,” Lewis adds, “and longer engagements can open up possibilities that aren’t always feasible on a traditional tour.”
That could mean providing a springboard for a post-residency tour or capping one off in especially spectacular style. Bad Bunny’s residency preceded his 2025-26 record-breaking DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS world tour, which grossed $467.5 million to become the second-highest-grossing Latin tour of all time — behind only Shakira’s Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran world tour that grossed $565.5 million from 4.4 million tickets sold and concluded with the Madrid residency.
“If you take Shakira 20 years ago, we never thought she would do 13 stadiums in Madrid, but Latin music is global now. People listen to Latin music not only in Latin America or the United States, they listen to our music all the way to Africa, every corner of the world,” Cárdenas says. “This says something about not only the artists but the market. The market is growing, and people are willing to fly to another place to watch their idols.”
This story appears in the Nov. 7, 2026, issue of Billboard.
