The first time Leigh Digons saw the Backstreet Boys, she was 15, with her mom and best friend. At the Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, N.Y., tickets cost about $30. The second time, last August in Las Vegas, she was 42, and paid nearly $500 for a ticket, plus another $1,500 on travel. "It seemed like a way to experience my younger self again," says Digons, a New York law-firm accounting controller. "I was remembering my friends back then, how we used to watch them on TV."
There's money in man bands this summer. The Backstreet Boys are no longer boys -- the oldest, Kevin Richardson, is 54, and the youngest, Nick Carter, is 46 -- but they're commanding thousands of dollars from now-grown-up fans for tickets and travel. The group's residency last summer at the Sphere in Las Vegas grossed more than $55 million on ticket sales, according to Billboard Boxscore.
Also on the road is NKOTB, formerly New Kids on the Block, whose ages range from 53 to 57, which isn't stopping them from playing 16 dates at the Park MGM in Vegas, from June 19 to late October. The Jonas Brothers, all in their 30s, are at festivals, arenas and casinos from Latin America to, yes, Vegas. Take That, three singers in their 50s, are headlining 17 nearly sold-out U.K. stadiums. New Edition and Boyz II Men, also fiftysomethings, wrapped up their three-month arena tour in April, and Boyz II Men are touring on their own from July to October, including four Vegas dates in August.
Kelsi Sell, a 36-year-old stay-at-home mom of a 3-year-old son, is attending one of the early Backstreet Boys concerts this summer. She and her mother bought tickets for $750 apiece, as part of a package including a two-night stay at the Venetian Resort, and each is likely to spend another $500 for round-trip airfare. "I cannot wait to see AJ [McLean], he's my favorite," says Sell, who lives in Allentown, Pa. "If I'm on the treadmill [at the gym], I'll actually go to YouTube and pull up the show."
For years, boy bands were seen as having a shelf life of about seven or eight years -- from the time their young followers festooned their bedrooms with posters to when they went off to college and discovered hip-hop and indie rock. But many of the biggest acts from the '90s and 2000s are now finding new demand on the reunion and nostalgia-obsessed touring circuit, where people are willing to pay premium prices to revisit the music of their youth.
"Most boy bands, there's a tough time when you're no longer new, and you have to wait for the moment where it comes back around," says Matt Rafal, head of pop and rock for Universal Attractions Agency, which books the Pop 2000 Tour, co-starring O-Town, BBMak and 'NSync's Chris Kirkpatrick this summer. "If you can ride out that lull, I feel like you can do this forever."
Fans, managers and the singers themselves attribute this summer's man-band popularity to fondness for a perceived simpler time -- including the eras of Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers in the '50s, the Beatles in the '60s and the Jackson 5 in the '70s, up to contemporary stadium-filling megastars BTS, whose members are mostly in their early 30s. "People who grew up with our music are now the ones that run big companies, and they have disposable income to relive their childhoods," says Nathan Morris of Boyz II Men, describing a formula the Rolling Stones have employed for decades.
The income part is true for Melissa Hicks, a 46-year-old Baltimore elementary-school teacher who bought tickets to see NKOTB three times in Vegas over July 4 weekend, a cheap seat for $153, then VIP tickets for $1,910 and $1,491 -- plus she paid for travel. Although she was a fan as a 10-year-old, before growing into an "anti-boy band" phase, she was pulled back in by the group's 2008 comeback tour and is now a part of their Blockheads fan base. She has since attended 17 or 18 of their concerts, sometimes spending even more money on brief meet-and-greets with the singers. "You find this community," she says, "and the whole thing brings you joy."
A key factor in boy bands' ability to come back: timeless songs -- breezy, melodic tracks about love and heartbreak, from New Kids on the Block's "I'll Be Loving You (Forever)" to 'NSync's "Bye Bye Bye."
In the late '90s, Peter Katsis was skeptical when his company, The Firm, which managed rock bands Korn and Limp Bizkit, worked briefly with the Backstreet Boys. They're still winning him over. "There's a lot of competition out there. If you're not the latest, greatest Bruno Mars, it's hard to sell tickets right now," he says. "But one thing, for sure: Going to a Backstreet Boys show and everybody in the audience singing 'I Want It That Way.' "