How Bad Bunny and Rauw Alejandro Built the Future of Live Music With One Touring Pro

Some concert productions feel like a movie, a video game, and a fever dream all rolled into one. That’s not an accident. Behind Bad Bunny’s stadium-sized storytelling and Rauw Alejandro’s cinematic tours is a creative director who turned a simple idea into a powerhouse: listen to the artist, then build a world around their vision.

That person is Adrián Martínez, co-founder of Los Angeles-based production house STURDY. Alongside his collaborators Kevin and Tyler Henry, Martínez has quietly become one of the most important names in modern live music. And according to the breakout report in Screenshot (550).png, the journey from freelance hustler to the top of the touring world was anything but smooth.

The Freelance Gamble That Almost Didn’t Pay Off

Professional independence sounds liberating. In practice, it was a trap. For 18 months during the mid-2010s, Martínez and the Henry brothers bounced from gig to gig, picking up work wherever they could find it. The freedom was nice. The ceiling was not.

There was another problem: too many middlemen. “There was a lot of middlemanning,” Martínez says of that era. “The middlemen in those situations were not understanding what it was that the artist wanted, and my goal is always just to understand what it is they want and help elevate that.”

So in 2018, they launched STURDY. The name would become synonymous with ambitious, artist-first live production. But before that, there was a difficult conversation. “I remember saying to the guys, ‘We’re never going to work with the top artists in the world if we’re just freelancing,’” Martínez recalls. “ ‘We need to create some momentum for this thing we’re creating.’ ”

Bad Bunny: The Partnership That Changed Everything

STURDY.’s first major breakthrough with Bad Bunny came in 2020, when they worked together on an Apple Music performance. It was a glimpse of what was possible. Then the pandemic shut down live music, and everything changed.

When the world reopened, Bad Bunny’s team came calling. STURDY. was brought in to assemble the P FKN R shows at San Juan’s Estadio Hiram Bithorn in late 2021. Those two nights, which cost over $10 million to stage, marked Bad Bunny’s thunderous return to the stage. For Martínez, it was proof that STURDY. could deliver on the biggest scale imaginable.

“They needed a tent team, so we reconnected and the rest is history,” says Martínez, 36.

A Residency That Redefined Live Music

STURDY. didn’t stop there. The production house went on to design and direct Bad Bunny’s 2022 treks El Último Tour del Mundo and World’s Hottest Tour, along with his 2023 Grammys and Coachella performances. Then came the history-making No Me Quiero Ir de Aquí residency at San Juan’s José Miguel Agrelot Coliseum in 2025.

That residency wasn’t just a string of concerts. It was a cultural event that turned Puerto Rico into the center of the live music universe. STURDY. helped create a world that felt both intimate and enormous, with every visual detail feeding into Bad Bunny’s singular narrative.

The Record-Breaking Run That Shocked the Industry

Bad Bunny’s latest tour, DeBí TiRAR MáS FOToS, was a 57-show run that ended July 22. It became the highest-grossing and best-selling tour ever to not play a single date in the United States. The numbers, as laid out in Screenshot (550).png, are staggering.

With that run in the books, Bad Bunny has now grossed more than $1 billion across his career. He is the first Latin artist to hit that mark, and the first artist who doesn’t perform in English to do so. For STURDY., it validated everything Martínez believed from day one: if you put the artist’s vision first, the world will show up.

Rauw Alejandro: The Instagram Message That Started a New Era

In 2022, another Puerto Rican superstar came knocking. Rauw Alejandro reached out directly to STURDY. on Instagram. No agents, no corporate dance. Just a direct message from one creative mind to another.

That message sparked a major partnership. STURDY. worked on Rauw Alejandro’s 2022 Billboard Awards performance in Las Vegas, his Saturno tour, and a string of festival performances. But the real breakthrough came with 2025’s high-concept Cosa Nuestra tour.

Cosa Nuestra: A Tour That Doubled Everything

Cosa Nuestra grossed $117.3 million and sold 869,000 tickets in 2025 — more than double Rauw Alejandro’s previous career best. It was a massive leap forward, and STURDY. was right there building every scene.

“It’s become a relationship,” Martínez says of working with Alejandro. “There’s a lot of creative respect there and I love his music. I’m very lucky to be able to work with artists that I actually listen to.”

What’s Next for STURDY.?

Martínez isn’t resting on his résumé. He describes STURDY.’s future as “a three-headed monster,” with one arm focused on creative direction and design in the live space, another on creative design for music and album campaigns, and a third dedicated to experiential work.

As ticket prices climb and fan expectations soar, the pressure on artists to deliver more has never been higher. Martínez sees that as an opportunity, not a burden. “What we’re seeing a lot more of,” he says, “is artists caring about executing and building their world on a much greater scale than we’ve ever seen before.”

For Bad Bunny, Rauw Alejandro, and the generation of artists watching them, STURDY. has become the bridge between a song and a universe. And with Martínez at the helm, the next act promises to be even bigger.

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