Billboard Boxscore
On May 9, Beyoncé wrapped a historic run of five shows at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, 10 miles from downtown Los Angeles. According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, the Cowboy Carter Tour kick-off grossed $55.7 million and sold 217,000 tickets.
Beyoncé’s $50 million-plus run in Los Angeles is the biggest reported single-venue engagement of 2025 so far, eclipsing multiple stops on Coldplay’s tour through Asia and Shakira’s seven-night stay in Mexico City. Further, it’s the fifth-highest grossing tour stop in Boxscore history, only behind two legs of U2’s Sphere residency in Las Vegas (2023-24), Harry Styles’ 15 shows at Madison Square Garden in New York (2022), and eight nights of Take That at Wembley Stadium in London (2011). Notably, it’s the highest-grossing reported single-venue engagement ever by a woman.
Cowboy Carter Tour launched on Monday, April 28, with successive performances on May 1, 4, 7, and 9. On average, Beyoncé grossed $11.1 million per night, playing to more than 43,000 fans at each show. In completing this week-long run, she has now played more shows at SoFi Stadium than any other artist in the venue’s history – eight, including three in 2023 – since its opening at the beginning of the decade.
The L.A.-area shows may not even remain the tour’s peak, as an upcoming five-night stay at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J. (13 miles from New York) could challenge that $55 million take. Beyoncé will have her longest run at one venue in London with six nights at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, though ticket prices overseas often fall below the surging rates in the United States.
Using Cowboy Carter Tour figures in the Los Angeles area as a guide, with city-by-city comparisons to previous tours, it appears that Beyoncé’s 2025 run is barreling toward Billboard’s initial projections of $300 million. It will out-gross all of her previous tours with the lone exception of 2023’s Renaissance World Tour, which ran for 56 shows compared to Cowboy Carter Tour’s current routing of 32. According to Live Nation, total ticket sales will eclipse one million.
The initial reports for Cowboy Carter Tour push Beyoncé’s reported career Boxscore earnings past $1.4 billion, with 11.9 million tickets sold. Those totals will continue to rise until the trek closes on July 26 at Las Vegas’ Allegiant Stadium.
Shakira is No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Tours chart for March, back on top after ruling the February edition. She led last month’s list with $32.9 million but doubles her earnings on the newest update. According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran World Tour earned $70.6 million from 11 reported shows. That’s more than any act has grossed in any March since the charts launched in 2019.
Monthly grosses typically balloon during the summer, when summer weather allows for stadium shows in the U.S. and Europe. With most acts confined to indoor arenas in the fall, winter, and spring, Shakira’s Latin roots fueled a massive stadium run in Central and South America and Mexico. She surpasses Bad Bunny’s March 2024, Coldplay in 2023, Bad Bunny again in 2022, the Backstreet Boys in 2020, and P!nk in 2019. (There was no ranking in March 2021 due to COVID-19).
Mexico was the setting of Shakira’s March shows, hitting Monterrey and Guadalajara before climaxing in Mexico City. There, the Colombian superstar played seven shows at Estadio GNP Seguros from March 19-30, bringing in $46.6 million from 396,000 tickets sold. Those shows are No. 1 on Top Boxscore, more than tripling the gross of No. 2.
Shakira’s seven Mexico City shows set a venue record, eclipsing RBD’s six nights (2023), Daddy Yankee’s five (2022), and Taylor Swift’s four (2023). But demand was so outrageous that she announced four more dates at the same stadium in August, extending to 11 shows.
The Estadio GNP Seguros shows alone would have secured Shakira the No. 1 spot on Top Tours, but her schedule also included two shows apiece in Monterrey ($12.5 million; 88.2K tickets) and Guadalajara ($11.5 million; 70.3K).
Including the tour’s first shows in February and further dates in April, Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran World Tour has earned a reported $111 million and sold 910,000 tickets in Latin America. Shakira re-ups in Charlotte, N.C. on May 13 to begin a 23-show run in the U.S. and Canada. Then, she’ll be back in Mexico, Dominican Republic, and Peru for 18 more dates through November.
Just as Shakira was No. 1 in February and one-upped herself in March, Tyler, the Creator scores a second consecutive month at No. 2 with increased totals. This month, Tyler earned $36.2 million and sold 221,000 tickets, up 25% and 17%, respectively, from last month. It’s the first time that two acts repeated on top in consecutive months in three years, when Bad Bunny and Elton John went 1-2, respectively, in February and March 2022.
Three years after crowning Boxscore charts with his six band mates, BTS’ J-Hope is No. 3 on Top Tours with his first solo shows. Across 10 dates in March, he brought in $26.6 million and sold 149,000 tickets. After three home-town shows in Seoul, he toured North America. Like Shakira, his March peak was in Mexico City, with a $6.1 million double-header at Palacio de los Deportes on March 22-23.
TOMORROW X TOGETHER and NCT 127 represent K-pop elsewhere, with $10.6 million and $7 million, respectively.
Dead & Company follows at No. 4, with the Eagles trailing at No. 7. Both classic rock acts played shows at Las Vegas’ Sphere. As has become common in the last year and a half, the Sin City arena is No. 1 on the Top Venues (15,001+ capacity) chart, combining both bands’ dates – plus two from Anyma – for $45.4 million and 195,000 tickets.
Country music is rooted in the U.S. and has historically struggled to export internationally. So it’s a welcome surprise that this month’s roster of charting country tours include Jelly Roll in Canada, Chris Stapleton in Australia and New Zealand, and C2C Country To Country across the United Kingdom.
Shakira and J-Hope provided Mexican promoter OCESA with some of its biggest wins during March. But they crowd the top 10 of Top Boxscores further with two festivals. Mexico City’s Vive Latino Festival grossed $14.2 million and sold 146,000 tickets in the middle of the month, and Bogota’s Festival Estereo Picnic earned $10.1 million in March’s final days. Altogether, OCESA grossed $140 million and sold 1.3 million tickets.
On Saturday (April 19), Kendrick Lamar and SZA will kick off their co-headlining Grand National Tour at Minneapolis’ U.S. Bank Stadium, playing the first of 39 scheduled shows in North America and Europe. It’s not just the only all-stadium hip-hop world tour to launch in 2025 – it’s the first such trek this decade.
In the post-pandemic era, the definition of “stadium artist” has expanded to include younger and more diverse artists, across genre. Not only have contemporary pop and rock acts graduated beyond arenas, but artists from country (Zach Bryan, Luke Combs, Morgan Wallen), Latin (Bad Bunny, Karol G, Shakira) and K-pop (BLACKPINK, SEVENTEEN, TWICE) have staged sold-out stadium runs in several continents.
But while R&B/hip-Hop’s reign as America’s most popular genre continued into the 2020s, rappers have yet to scale their tours in the same way. Lamar’s upcoming run will mark the first all-stadium tour for a rap act since JAY-Z joined Beyoncé on 2018’s On the Run II Tour.
Notably, rap acts have historically leveled up to stadiums alongside a pop or R&B co-headliner: Lamar with SZA, JAY-Z with Beyoncé and Justin Timberlake (separately), and Eminem with Rihanna.
Rappers have played stadiums on their own (or together, as in the case of Eminem & JAY-Z’s four-show The Home & Home Tour in 2010), but only in brief runs or isolated dates. Eminem reported 16 such shows across three separate outings during the 2010s and 50 Cent played one in 2004. Drake and Kanye West co-headlined the Free Larry Hoover benefit show in 2021, but it was a free gig.
The pairing of Lamar and SZA echoes the makeup of past successful stadium runs, but it’s also uncommon for R&B acts to tackle the biggest venues. Beyoncé has mastered the art, having broken records with 2023’s Renaissance World Tour, and is weeks away from kicking off Cowboy Carter Tour. But it’s worth noting that both treks are in support of albums that detour into other genres, having won Grammys for best dance/electronic album and best country album, respectively.
Similarly, Bruno Mars continues to sprinkle stadium shows amid his theater residency in Vegas, but his two latest top 10 Billboard Hot 100 hits – “Die With A Smile,” with Lady Gaga, and “APT,” with Rosé – eschew contemporary R&B for different strains of pop.
Still, the Grand National Tour’s double-billing is simply a no-brainer, not a hedged bet. SZA’s SOS was released in December 2022, landed nine Grammy nominations in 2023, won three of them in 2024, and added a 12th week atop the Billboard 200 to kick off 2025 following its SOS Deluxe: LANA expanded reissue. Lamar himself has had a whirlwind last 12 months, amassing four No. 1s on the Hot 100 – two inspired by his infamous beef with Drake and two from GNX. He won five Grammys in February for “Not Like Us” and headlined the Super Bowl halftime show a week later. As a cherry on top, the pair’s “Luther” will be enjoying its eighth consecutive week atop the Hot 100 when the tour kicks off this weekend.
Hip-hop has not taken up much space on stadium calendars, but Lamar and SZA are part of a rising tide of momentum for rap and R&B. An established arena headliner, Chris Brown will mount his first stadium tour this summer. Breezy Bowl XX kicks off on June 8 with a packed lineup, featuring Jhene Aiko, Bryson Tiller, and Summer Walker as special guests. And after touring arenas on 2018’s Astroworld: Wish You Were Here Tour and for the first leg of the Utopia Circus Maximus Tour, Travis Scott began to mix stadium dates in 2024. This fall, he will continue the multi-year trek with a handful-plus of grand scale shows in Asia and South Africa.
Scroll below for a recap of the rap acts who have played — or are scheduled to play — stadium shows, according to reports to Billboard Boxscore.
Kendrick Lamar
Image Credit: Cindy Ord/Getty Images
Last week (March 26), Lady Gaga announced dates and venues for The MAYHEM Ball, marking her first tour in three years and the sixth such “ball” of her career, dating back to 2009’s The Fame Ball. With ticket sales rolling out this week (beginning March 31), Billboard estimates that the tour could land as her fourth trek to gross $100 million.
An ever-expanding slate of shows have pushed Gaga’s 2025 projections from the brink of $100 million to surging toward $125 million. But firm estimates for The MAYHEM Ball are tricky, because much in the spirit of Lady Gaga, the 2025 routing zigs where she has previously zagged. To use figures from her most recent outing – $5.6 million and 41,700 tickets per show on 2022’s The Chromatica Ball – would be to ignore the nuances of this year’s schedule.
The MAYHEM Ball winds Gaga through arenas in Europe and North America, following warm-up dates at Mexico City’s Estadio GNP Seguros and Singapore’s National Stadium (plus a free show in Rio de Janeiro) – at least as much as stadium shows can serve as a warm-up. It’s a swerve from the all-stadium routing on The Chromatica Ball, not to mention her theater residency in Las Vegas from 2018-24.
Upon the tour’s announcement, Gaga took to social media to celebrate her upcoming calendar. “We chose arenas this time to give me the opportunity to control the details of the show in a way you simply can’t in stadiums – and honestly, I can’t wait.”
Not only has Gaga oscillated from intimate theaters to football stadiums, but The MAYHEM Ball re-introduces some markets that she hasn’t played in decade, while foregoing some of the sold-out cities from her recent treks. Her shows in Seattle and Manchester will be her first proper concerts in those cities in 11 years. More dramatically, those stand-alone stops in Mexico City and Singapore will be her first since The Born This Way Ball in 2012.
Time is also a factor. Since Gaga’s last mostly-arena tour in 2017-18 (The Joanne World Tour), she has starred in three major-studio films, one of which won her an Academy Award for songwriting, plus a nomination for acting. She also released Chromatica and MAYHEM, both of which topped the Billboard 200 and spawned Billboard Hot 100 No. 1s, in addition to two jazz albums and the chart-topping soundtrack to A Star is Born.
Just as key, the concert business has undergone major transformation, first shutting down entirely for more than a year due to COVID-19 and then returning bigger than ever with skyrocketing ticket prices.
While recent projections for Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter Tour were simple enough, carrying over many of the same venues from her previous tour just two years ago, the shape of The MAYHEM Ball is all its own.
Using the average ticket price from the markets that do carry over from The Chromatica Ball, and average-to-high capacity from each venue’s recent history, this year’s initial routing would be headed toward $80-85 million from about 700,000 tickets sold. A 15% rise in ticket prices would push the projected gross beyond $90 million and a 25% increase would clear the $100 million mark.
Those bumps consider the way that ticket prices have risen beyond the rate of inflation since her 2022 tour. And while The Chromatica Ball did take place after the post-COVID return as prices were already on the rise, tickets for six of its 20 shows were sold primarily in the (barely) pre-pandemic era, as the then-limited tour was first announced on March 5, 2020, just a week before venues were forced to close.
Notably, as Gaga undergoes a relative downsizing from stadiums to arenas, supply-and-demand could drive higher prices than on The Chromatica Ball, with far fewer seats available each night. Including multiple shows in certain locations, her 2025 schedule includes just six cities in the U.S. and Canada. That’s slightly less than eight for Chromatica, and much tighter than 35 on The Joanne World Tour and 33 on ArtRave: The Artpop Ball (2014). She makes up for it with multiple shows everywhere, including six at Madison Square Garden. Much like Beyoncé’s upcoming trek, sales could be even more competitive as fans from surrounding cities flock to Chicago, Miami, and New York, among few others.
Momentum behind The MAYHEM Ball and its international spin-offs has already gathered, with early demand forcing extra shows in those three markets plus a handful of others. Originally 38 shows, Gaga’s current slate of 50 ticketed dates is likely to surpass of The Chromatica Ball’s stadium-sized $112 million, potentially making it Gaga’s biggest year on the road since 2012.
Isolating the proper tour’s arena run, The MAYHEM Ball should approach the $100 million mark, possibly becoming Gaga’s forth tour to crack the nine-figure mark. It’d follow The Monster Ball (2009-11), The Born This Way Ball (2012-13) and The Chromatica Ball. The Joanne World Tour earned $94.9 million before cancelling its last 10 shows due to Gaga’s struggle with fibromyalgia. Plus, the Lady Gaga Enigma + Piano & Jazz residency brought in $110 million from 2018-24.
Dating back to her first reported headline show at San Diego’s House of Blues on March 12, 2009 ($18,500; 1,000 tickets), Gaga’s tours have grossed $723.1 million and sold 6.4 million tickets from a reported 462 shows.
Shakira tops Billboard’s monthly Top Tours chart for the first time, earning $32.9 million from 282,000 tickets sold in February, according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore.
The Top Tours ranking in recent times has been repeatedly led by acts who have crowned the list previously. P!nk returned for her fourth victory in October, followed by Coldplay’s fifth in November. Trans-Siberian Orchestra popped up for a fifth time in December, and then Coldplay returned to the summit in January.
Shakira follows Bad Bunny, Los Bukis, and RBD among Latin artists who have topped the monthly ranking, making her the first solo Latin woman to hit No. 1.
Not only is this Shakira’s first month at No. 1, but it’s also her very first appearance on the 30-position chart. The tally’s first edition covered the biggest tours of February 2019, which was three months after the wrap of her previous outing, 2018’s El Dorado World Tour.
Shakira kicked off Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran World Tour on Feb. 11 at Rio de Janeiro’s Estadio Nilton Santos with a $2.9 million gross with 35,200 fans. Her pace accelerated throughout the month, to $6.4 million in Sao Paulo on the 13th, to $11.3 million in Atlantico, Colombia, on the 20th and 21st, and finally to $12.3 million during a double header at Bogota’s El Nemesio Camacho (Feb. 26-27). The two Colombia stops finish at Nos. 3 (Bogota) and 6 (Atlantico) on Top Boxscores.
For almost 30 years, Shakira has been a reliable sellout act in arenas, while flirting with stadiums. Her 2025 outing thrusts her into major-market stadiums, almost exclusively, for the first time. So while her Latin American dates across the 21st century have averaged $1 million to $1.5 million per show, her February shows paced $5.5 million and 47,000 tickets each night.
Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran World Tour continues in Mexico, Chile and back to Columbia through April, before taking Shakira to the U.S. and Canada through the end of June. Including two rescheduled dates in Lima, Peru, in November, the tour will likely soar passed $200 million in total grosses, potentially tripling her career earnings by the end of 2025.
Tyler, the Creator follows on Top Tours at No. 2 with the first shows from Chromakopia: The World Tour. It’s his highest ranking ever, having previously hit No. 10 in March 2022, plus two other top 20 appearances in autumn 2019. He’s only the third rapper to rank as high since the chart’s launch, following Post Malone (No. 1 in October 2019 and February 2020) and Travis Scott (No. 2 in October 2024).
Across 14 shows in February, he grossed $29 million and sold 188,000 tickets. The Chromakopia outing isn’t Tyler’s first rodeo in arenas, though it does continue an alarming rise among the ranks of headliners. Averaging $2.1 million per night, the tour doubles 2022’s Call Me If You Get Lost Tour ($993,000). That tour did the same to 2019’s Igor Tour ($414,000), which itself had two-timed the pace of 2017-18’s Flower Boy Tour ($177,000). For kickers, that run quadrupled 2016’s Okaga, CA Tour ($41,700).
That’s a consistent rise that has grown Tyler’s per-show earnings potential almost 50 times over, over the course of less than a decade. His March schedule is busier than February’s (17 shows vs. 14), before the tour travels to Europe, back to North America and then to Australia and Asia before the end of September.
February’s 10 highest grossing acts are evenly spread across country, Latin, pop, rap and rock. Even among pop and rock, each with multiple acts in the upper tier, there is diversity: that of language and geography between ATEEZ (No. 7) and Ed Sheeran (No. 8), and a generational gap to separate the Eagles (No. 5) from Linkin Park (No. 9).
Mexico City and Australia split the prize atop the monthly venue rankings. The former’s Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez crowns Top Stadiums, powered entirely by Electric Daisy Carnival’s $20.9 million over Feb. 21-23. Auditorio Nacional rules Top Venues (5,001-10k capacity) with a broader stroke of 22 shows during the 28-day window.
Sydney’s Qudos Bank Arena is No. 1 among venues with a capacity of 15,001 or more, thanks in large part to multi-night runs by Drake and Billie Eilish. And Brisbane Entertainment Center wins the 10,001-15k category with $17.2 million from 13 shows.
Thanks to substantial tours from Tyler, the Creator, Kylie Minogue, Kelsea Ballerini and more, AEG Presents presides over Top Promoters. The global touring giant earned $201.8 million and sold just under two million tickets from a reported 687 shows in February.
Coldplay has long established itself as a global touring force. By the end of 2024, The Music of the Spheres World Tour had become the most attended tour in history, via 11 legs of international concerts in five continents. Now, the band rules January’s Boxscore recap by breaking new ground with its first shows in India.
Over nine shows between Jan. 9-26, Coldplay grossed $56.6 million and sold 590,000 tickets in January, according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore. It’s the sixth time that the British quartet has ruled the monthly Top Tours ranking, continuing a cat-and-mouse chase to the record books.
In November, Coldplay scored its fifth win, pulling out of a three-way tie with Beyoncé and Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Then, TSO caught up in December with its own fifth victory. Now, Coldplay inches to six. With a packed schedule between April and September, the band is in a better position to match Elton John and Bad Bunny’s record seven before TSO begins its annual holiday run in November.
Coldplay’s January run began with four shows at Abu Dhabi’s Zayed Sports City Stadium between Jan. 9-14. Those dates earned $28 million and sold 203,000 tickets, securing No. 1 on Top Boxscores. The band’s last trip to the United Arab Emirates was a one-night engagement on New Year’s Eve of 2016, raking in $4.3 million from 31,300 tickets during the A Head Full of Dreams Tour. The 2025 shows averaged $7 million and 50,800 tickets, marking improvements of 63% and 62%. But considering the expansion to four nights, Coldplay was able to sextuple its prior stop.
Then, the band went to India for the first time in its career, playing three shows in Mumbai on Jan. 18 and 20-21, grossing $12.8 million from 164,000 tickets. Finally, there were two shows at Ahmedabad’s Narrenda Modi Stadium. Those grossed $15.7 million and sold 224,000 tickets.
At more than 110,000 for each night, Coldplay broke the record for the largest stadium shows of the 21st century. The Ahmedabad shows sold 111,581 tickets on Jan. 25 and 111,989 on Jan. 26, narrowly bypassing George Strait’s 110,905 at Kyle Field at Texas A&M last June. Strait’s date remains the bestselling U.S. stadium show ever.
This is Coldplay’s second leg of shows in Asia during the Music of the Spheres World Tour. Between November 2023 and February 2024, it grossed $129.4 million and sold 884,000 tickets from dates in Japan, Malaysia, Taiwan and more. Altogether, the entire continent has generated $186 million in grosses for the record-breaking tour, with more shows scheduled in April in Hong Kong and South Korea.
After that, the Music of the Spheres World Tour will continue with 17 shows in the U.S. and Canada, plus 12 in the United Kingdom, scheduled to wrap the trek with 10 hometown shows at London’s Wembley Stadium. Since its 2022 launch, the tour has sold 10.9 million tickets and grossed just under $1.2 billion, making it the best-selling and second highest-grossing tour in Boxscore history.
Coldplay nearly doubles its closest competition, with Luke Combs and SEVENTEEN at Nos. 2-3 with $30.3 million and $28.8 million, respectively. Only three more acts grossed more than $10 million, as the Eagles, Justin Timberlake and ATEEZ follow.
January was a particularly strong month for K-pop groups, with ENHYPEN as the third Korean act in the top 10, at No. 8 with $7.7 million from just two shows. SEVENTEEN and ENHYPEN score with shows in Asia – the former in the Philippines and Singapore and the latter in Japan. ATEEZ had a string of European dates, peaking with more than 22,000 tickets over two nights at London’s O2 Arena.
As is becoming increasingly common since its 2023 opening, Sphere is No. 1 on Top Venues (15,001+ capacity). Both acts who played shows there in January are among the top 10 touring acts, headed by the Eagles at No. 4. Two weekends of dates combined to $18.7 million and 65,600 tickets, pushing the band’s residency to $98 million and 327,000 tickets since its Sept. 20 kickoff. With four February shows still to be reported and more scheduled in March and April, those totals will likely soar beyond $150 million and half a million tickets.
At No. 9, Anyma posts $7.5 million and 52,300 tickets from three shows at the Las Vegas arena. Combined with its five shows in December, the Italian American DJ drove $21 million and 137,000 tickets, marking a successful close to the venue’s first electronic residency.
January is historically a dry month, with Western stadium tours on pause for cold weather. It makes sense then that Asia and Oceania make up nine of the month’s top 10 stadiums, powered by Coldplay and the K-pop acts mentioned earlier, plus Luke Combs with shows in Brisbane and Sydney. They leave room for Mexico City’s Estadio GNP Seguros at No. 8, with $8.9 million from Kygo ($3.3 million on Jan. 25) and Linkin Park ($5.6 million on Jan. 31).
Even indoors, January calendars were light. In November and December, seven arenas eclipsed $10 million in each month, while Sphere is January’s only entry on Top Venues (15,001+ capacity) to gross eight figures.
Radio City Music Hall lores over the Top Venues (5,001-10k capacity) chart with $13.2 million – nearly five times the $2.7 million of Sydney’s Hordern Pavilion at No. 2. The New York theater benefits from the final shows of its Christmas Spectacular, with engagements later in the month from Dave Chappelle, The Giggly Squad, and Hugh Jackman.
On Monday morning (Feb. 3), Beyoncé announced details for her Cowboy Carter Tour. Following shortly after 2023’s record-breaking Renaissance World Tour, she could add another $300 million to her career Boxscore total.
Like most weeks, it’s a good week to be Beyoncé. Last night, she won her record-extending 33rd, 34th and 35th Grammys, including album of the year for Cowboy Carter. But one night earlier, she teased a 2025 tour for her genre-busting album, and the morning after, she confirmed it with dates and venues.
Cowboy Carter Tour will take Beyoncé across the U.S. and over to Europe, just like the routing for the Renaissance World Tour. But while her 2023 trek took a relatively traditional route through 14 European cities and then another 25 in North America, her upcoming schedule is consolidated into a series of multi-night stops in major markets.
First, the tour will begin with four shows at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif., less than a half-hour drive from downtown Los Angeles. Then, two nights in Chicago and four in New Jersey (New York market). Next, Beyoncé will fly to London for four shows and to Paris for two. Finally, she’ll return Stateside for double-headers in Houston, Washington, D.C., and Atlanta.
With an initial routing of 22 shows, the Cowboy Carter Tour will be Beyoncé’s briefest solo headline tour yet, but that doesn’t mean it won’t register mammoth grosses. Using the same average ticket prices and per-show attendance from each city’s stop on the Renaissance World Tour, the 2025 trek would sprint to a finish of $294.3 million and almost 1.2 million tickets. Just two years removed from her last tour, a 4% inflation bump would bring her upcoming stint to $306 million.
But just as the initial announcement for the Renaissance World Tour grew from 41 shows to a final count of 56, additional dates for Cowboy Carter Tour could push its final gross further beyond the $300 million mark. And like its predecessor, its actual impact will go far beyond standard ticket sales.
By playing 22 shows in just eight markets over two and a half months, Cowboy Carter Tour reframes Beyoncé’s touring schedule and capitalizes on some of the frenzied energy that followed the Renaissance World Tour. During that trek, it was well–documented that fans were traversing across city, state and country lines, turning Renaissance shows into festival-style destinations. From travel and lodging to wardrobe and entertainment, the tour boosted local economies beyond the purchase of a concert ticket.
Channeling the scale of a world tour to eight major cities on either side of the pond, Cowboy Carter Tour teases each stop as a destination event. It makes sense, then, that Live Nation partner Vibee is providing curated experience packages that pair concert tickets with hotel stays and other VIP add-ons. While the company’s homepage shows similar packages for artist residencies like Bad Bunny’s upcoming 21 shows in Puerto Rico and various artists at Sphere in Las Vegas, Cowboy Carter Tour is the only proper tour featured. Further signaling a new era of concerts that double as immersive experiences, it’s another way to efficiently meet growing demand in the post-pandemic touring landscape.
Beyoncé’s Boxscore history has continued to bloom into the new decade. The Renaissance World Tour finished with $579.8 million and 2.8 million tickets in 56 shows. That’s more than double the take of 2016’s The Formation World Tour and 2018’s On the Run II Tour with Jay-Z ($256.1 million and $253.5 million, respectively), both of which had improved upon The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour ($211.9 million in 2013-14) and the original On the Run Tour ($109.6 million in 2014).
By design, simply due to the limited number of scheduled tour dates, it’s unlikely that Beyoncé will continue to one-up herself with Cowboy Carter Tour, but it will push her career totals to new heights. Dating back to the 2004 Verizon Ladies First Tour with Alicia Keys and Missy Elliott, and her first solo outing with 2007’s The Beyoncé Experience, the pop-dance-R&B-country superstar has grossed $1.3 billion and sold 11.6 million tickets over 431 reported concerts. By year’s end, those totals should climb past $1.6 billion and 12.8 million tickets.
Cowboy Carter Tour follows Beyoncé’s album of the same name. In addition to its Grammy win for album of the year, it made her the first Black artist to win best country album. Upon its release last Spring, the set debuted atop the Billboard 200 with 407,000 equivalent album units earned, according to Luminate, marking Queen Bey’s biggest week, by units, since Lemonade eight years prior. Cowboy Carter includes “Texas Hold ‘Em,” which topped the Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks and Hot Country Songs for 10 frames.
The December 2024 Boxscore report is haunted by the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and (likely) Future: Trans-Siberian Orchestra closes out 2024 at No. 1 on Top Tours, just as it did in December of 2023, 2022, 2021, and 2019 (there was no chart in 2020 due to venue closures during COVID-19).
According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, Trans-Siberian Orchestra earned $48.2 million and sold 581,000 tickets from 70 shows between Dec. 1-30. How does one touring act perform 70 shows in 30 days? As has been the case since its 1999 touring debut, TSO employs two ensembles, pushing one to the eastern half of the United States and another to the west. Further, as Christmas approaches, each ensemble ramps up the pace with a matinee and evening performance in each city; for 12 days out of the month, TSO played four shows.
At 70 shows, TSO was four times busier than any of the other 29 artists on December’s Top Tours chart. Pentatonix is the only other act on the ranking that played more than 10 shows in December, with 16 dates on a holiday tour of its own. Even if TSO didn’t have the advantage of being in two places at once, it’d still tower over Pentatonix and everyone else on the survey.
TSO’s annual tour began on Nov. 13 in Council Bluffs, Iowa and Green Bay, Wisc. In all, it played 110 shows in 2024, marking its fullest routing since 2009 (112). It paid off, combining to $69 million, up 1% from last year’s $68.2 million to finish as its biggest year ever. Altogether, TSO has earned $871.4 million and sold 15.8 million tickets since 1999. The ensemble has reported 2,003 concerts, more than any other act in Boxscore history.
Out of 41 cities on the December calendar, TSO grossed more than $1 million in 21. Two shows at Philadelphia’s Wells Fargo Center on Dec. 22 earned $2.1 million. That’s just the third engagement in the group’s history to eclipse the $2 million threshold, joining stops in Tampa ($2.1 million) and Cleveland ($2 million) from 2023.
Both Cleveland and Tampa were among this year’s biggest markets, with $1.9 million and $1.8 million, respectively. St. Paul, Minn. and Pittsburgh, Penn. joined with $1.8 million each. Five markets sold more than 20,000 tickets, including Rosemont, Ill. and Dallas.
Zach Bryan and George Strait follow on Top Tours, crystalizing a banner year for country acts. Bryan grossed $28.5 million over nine shows in just four markets. Just 31 miles from his hometown of Oologah, Okla., three shows at Tulsa’s BOK Center did the heaviest lifting with $9.4 million on Dec. 12-14.
It’s impressive enough that Bryan is No. 2 from shows in just four cities. But George Strait is No. 3 from the power of just one show. His Dec. 7 concert at Las Vegas’ Allegiant Stadium grossed $23.3 million from 47,600 tickets sold, handily crowning Top Boxscores. The next highest one-night engagement on Top Boxscores is Luis Miguel at No. 18 with less than a quarter of Strait’s massive Vegas pull.
Las Vegas dominates Top Boxscores, clogging the top three positions with variety in terms of genre and size. Following Strait’s country stadium juggernaut, Bruno Mars is No. 2 with six shows from his MGM residency at Dolby Live. Those grossed $16 million and sold 31,900 tickets, pushing the residency’s total earnings to $154.8 million, dating back to its 2016 launch.
Rounding out the Vegas trio, Anyma is No. 3 with the first five of eight shows at Sphere. In between Strait’s stadium and Mars’ theater, Sphere’s arena configuration translated to 84,900 tickets sold from Dec. 27-31, combining to $13.6 million. The Italian American DJ is the first electronic act to headline the famed hall, following rock turns from Dead & Company, the Eagles, Phish, and U2.
Sphere takes two more spots in the top 10, with two weekends with the Eagles at Nos. 9-10. Altogether, those shows earned $18.5 million, making them the fifth-highest grossing act of the month. Sphere ends December at No. 2 on Top Venues (15,001+ capacity), just 2% off from its older sister venue, New York’s Madison Square Garden.
Trans-Siberian Orchestra is not the only holiday act impacting the December Boxscore recap. Perennial favorites Pentatonix and Mariah Carey both hit Top Tours, with $14.2 million and $8.3 million, respectively.
As far as individual events go, Denver’s Decadence New Year’s Eve and New York’s Z100 Jingle Ball both appear on Top Boxscores. In addition to NYE performances from Anyma and Bruno Mars, Phish closed out the year with four shows at Madison Square Garden ($9.6 million) and Billy Joel performed a one-night engagement in Long Island at the UBS Arena ($3.8 million).
And as reliable as TSO, the Rockettes returned to Radio City Music Hall for the annual Christmas Spectacular. No. 1 on Top Venues (5,001-10k capacity), the RCMH earned nearly $100 million from 736,000 tickets sold over 129 December shows.
Earlier this week, Billboard revealed its year-end Boxscore charts, ranking the top tours, venues, and promoters of 2024. We’re breaking it down further, looking at the biggest live acts, genre by genre. Today, we continue with K-pop. Less than 10 years since the first K-pop group landed on the all-genre Top Tours chart (BigBang in […]
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