State Champ Radio Billboard Boxscore
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Harry Styles kicked off Love On Tour in September 2021, emerging as one of the first arena headliners of the immediate post-pandemic era. Two years and five continents later, the trek played the last of its 169 shows on July 22 in Reggio Emilia, Italy, closing as one of the highest grossing and best-selling tours of all time.
According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, Love On Tour grossed $617.3 million and sold more than 5 million tickets. Among all tours in Boxscore’s 30-plus-year history, the world tour is the fourth-highest grossing and eighth-most attended trek ever. Only Elton John’s Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour ($939.1 million), Ed Sheeran’s The Divide Tour ($776.4 million) and U2’s 360 Tour ($736.4 million) have earned more.
The tour began on Sept. 4, 2021, with 42 shows in the U.S. Those dates had already been postponed twice due to COVID-19, supporting Styles’ second solo studio set Fine Line, already two years old by opening night. It was one of the biggest tours of the season, at No. 3 on the abridged 2021 year-end Top Tours ranking, with repeat appearances at No. 2 on the monthly chart.
Still, by the time Styles returned in support of 2022’s Harry’s House, the chart-topping album and its enduring lead single “As It Was” helped him further ascend into a new domain of superstardom. Styles held steady in North American arenas, but went from one or two shows per market to extended mini residencies in five cities. Venue capacity and attendance were essentially unchanged, but the destination-event factor made demand soar.
Average ticket prices leapt from $131.69 in 2021 to $204.78 in 2022, culminating in a $157.3 million gross over 44 shows. The 15-date run at New York’s Madison Square Garden grossed $63.1 million alone, making it the highest grossing report ever. The 15 dates at the Kia Forum in Inglewood, Calif., earned $47.8 million, coming in fifth place on the all-time leaderboard.
Harry’s House caused a similar bump in Europe, leveling from arenas in 2022 to stadiums in 2023. The first European leg earned $56 million and sold 639,000 tickets. Already among the top-earning acts in Europe over that summer, Styles’ grosses tripled just a year later, with $199.3 million over 31 shows from May 13-July 22.
Love On Tour also included 14 shows in Latin America, seven in Oceania and six in Asia. Styles had last hit these international markets in 2018 as part of Harry Styles: Live in Concert, essentially skipping the Fine Line portion of the tour due to delayed openings after the pandemic. The difference was most dramatic in Australia, where his per-show attendance quintupled from 10,407 to 53,295 and his average gross multiplied by seven, from $971,000 to $6.8 million.
Over the five years that separated Styles’ two solo outings, he amassed a trio of No. 1s on the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart, won multiple Grammy Awards (including album of the year for Harry’s House), and graduated from a reliable arena headliner to an artist who sells out blockbuster stadium shows. His first tour earned $63.7 million, almost one tenth of Love On Tour’s final figures. Not only is Love On Tour easily Styles’ highest grossing solo tour yet, it eclipses the entire career gross One Direction, the pop group in which he shot to stardom, which earned $583.4 million over four tours from 2012 to 2015.
Altogether, Styles has grossed $681 million and sold 5.8 million tickets.
Harry Styles is No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Tours chart for June. It’s the first time that Styles has claimed a monthly victory, and it comes just in the nick of time, as Love On Tour came to a close on Sunday (July 22) after launching as one of the first major post-pandemic tours in September 2021.
According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, its last full month of shows earned $105.4 million and sold 967,000 tickets.
That makes Styles only the second act to earn a nine-figure monthly gross, after Bad Bunny raked in $123.7 million in September 2022 on World’s Hottest Tour. Further, the pop star nabs the highest monthly attendance total since the charts launched in February 2019, soaring above Ed Sheeran’s 750,000 in June 2022 and Coldplay’s 736,000 in March of this year.
These shows are part of a late-in-the-game advance to stadiums in Europe, after primarily playing arenas for most of the two-year tour. Typically, stadium acts play fewer shows due to complex production logistics and high nightly attendance.
Styles packed 15 stadium concerts into June, pushing him to the top in a competitive month. Other acts in the top 30 with high show counts — The Cure (20), Matchbox Twenty (16), Shania Twain (16) and Dead & Company (15) — mixed arenas and amphitheaters, while Styles’ stadium peers such as Beyoncé and Coldplay, at Nos. 2-3, played 12 and 11 shows, respectively.
The combination of a packed schedule and larger-than-ever crowd counts fueled Styles’ record-breaking month. His four concerts at London’s Wembley Stadium grossed $36.4 million and sold 335,000 tickets on June 13-14 and 16-17. Those figures secure him the No. 1 spot on Top Boxscores as well, once again fending off Coldplay and Beyoncé at Nos. 2-3.
Multi-night engagements in Amsterdam and Paris earned $16.5 million and $14.2 million, respectively, with two dates at Principality Stadium in Cardiff, Wales, grossing $12.2 million. Those reports follow on Top Boxscores at Nos. 8, 12 and 15, respectively.
Though it’s Styles’ first month at No. 1, he’s been a consistent player on Top Tours over the last two years. June is his 12th month in the top five, including three appearances at No. 2 and another five at No. 3. Previously, he had peaked in attendance with 419,000 tickets this month last year, and in gross with $54.4 million in September 2022.
These June concerts push Love On Tour’s total gross to $566.2 million, plus a few July shows nudging it to $590.3 million. With four shows left to report, Styles has the fourth highest grossing tour in Boxscore history, likely to become the fourth $600 million tour.
Styles was No. 3 on May’s Top Tours tally. His rise to the top pushes that month’s top two acts — Beyoncé and Coldplay — down a peg to Nos. 2 and 3, despite both artists’ significant gains in June. Beyoncé earned $86.9 million (up 29% from last month) while Coldplay grossed $71.5 million (up 30%).
Styles, Beyoncé and Coldplay register three of the seven biggest monthly grosses in the chart’s history, all above $70 million. Another three of those $70 million grosses – Bad Bunny, Def Leppard & Motley Crue and The Weeknd – occurred in August 2022, with Bad Bunny’s September ’22 gross at the top of the heap.
The June Top Tours ranking is record-breaking beyond Styles’ attendance and the top three’s gargantuan grosses. There are 27 tours with a gross of $10 million or more, surpassing the previous record of 24 from just last month. There are almost more $20 million tours than ever before, with 14. Further, June either sets a new record or ties an old one for tours above thresholds of $30-, $40-, $50-, $60-, $70- and $80 million.
Some of those $10 million earners represent genres outside of Boxscore’s typical pop, rock and Latin headliners. Hans Zimmer is No. 32 with $12.3 million and 116,000 tickets sold, acting as one of three non-vocalists on the chart. He tours with a large symphony orchestra, re-creating some of his most iconic scores, from The Lion King to Inception to The Dark Knight.
At No. 26, Illenium is the only dance/electronic artist on the list, bringing in $10.1 million and 132,000 tickets sold from 15 shows. His June routing began in San Francisco on June 1and traveled through the West Coast, Midwest and down to Texas for a show at Austin’s Moody Center on June 30.
And rounding out the tally at No. 30, violinist and composer Andre Rieu grossed $8.7 million and sold 90,000 tickets. Quietly one of the most consistent headliners, this marks Rieu’s 21st month on the chart, having reached as high as No. 5 in January 2020.
Since forming in 2015, Dead & Company has been one of the most consistent touring entities, mounting 10 separate tours in less than eight years. The last of those, its 2023 summer outing, wrapped on Sunday (July 16) and set an entirely new standard for the band, just as it is hanging up the mantle. According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, the Dead & Company Summer Tour 2023 grossed a new high of $114.7 million and sold 845,000 tickets across 28 shows.
The supergroup’s previous best was $53.7 million, earned during its Fall Tour 2021.
Dead & Company established a relatively unfussy format to its tours, much like its approach to setlists and song structure. The band sticks to the U.S. and Canada and plays in brief sprints of anywhere from 10 to 30 shows at a time. Even the name of each tour is plainly stated – Dead & Company 2015 Tour, Dead & Company Summer Tour 2017, Dead & Company Summer Tour 2018 and so on.
Dead & Company is comprised of former Grateful Dead members Bob Weir, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann, plus John Mayer, Oteil Burbridge and Jeff Chimenti.
Carrying on the legacy of the Grateful Dead, revenue and attendance have been steady as well. Average grosses have mostly stuck between $1 million to $2 million per show, and nightly attendance between 10,000 and 20,000. Routings have seamlessly woven arenas and amphitheaters, with a sprinkling of stadiums in select markets.
That all changed with Dead & Co.’s most recent dates. The announcement of the band’s final tour gave some extra momentum, as farewells are known to do. More than half of this year’s shows were played in stadiums, leveling up in Philadelphia, San Francisco and more.
Dead & Company’s final three shows at San Francisco’s Oracle Park (July 14-16) grossed $24.4 million, becoming the highest grossing engagement of the band’s tenure. A three-show stint at Boulder’s Folsom Field (July 1-3) sold 131,000 tickets, marking its best-selling report ever. Eight-figure grosses continue with double-header stadium stops in Chicago ($11.7 million), Boston ($11.6 million) and New York ($11.1 million).
Across all 28 shows, Dead & Company averaged $4.1 million and 30,200 tickets. Those figures are up by 69% and 46%, respectively, from last summer’s tour, easily setting new peaks for the band. Billboard has reported on many post-pandemic tours that have set new personal highs for a variety of artists. But even amidst the excitement of a farewell, there’s an extra level of skill in doing so after touring every single year (with the obvious exception of 2020) since 2015.
This may feel familiar for Grateful Dead members Weir, Hart and Kreutzmann. The band was one of the biggest touring acts of all time, also a group of habit in terms of routing and revenues. While its touring career launched in 1965 — decades before the advent of Billboard Boxscore — its early ‘90s tours delivered remarkably consistent results, routinely selling between 20,000-25,000 tickets per show. For every year between 1991 and 1995, the Grateful Dead was among the top 10 on Boxscore’s year-end Top Tours ranking, coming in at No. 1 on the inaugural ‘91 list and again in ‘93.
But upon its return in June 2015 (four months before Dead & Company’s first tour), Fare Thee Well: Celebrating 50 Years of the Grateful Dead sold more than 360,000 tickets in just five shows, experiencing the full glory of a comeback and a goodbye, all at once.
Now, the Grateful Dead’s latest era ends, as its John Mayer-fronted lineup played its final shows to similarly spectacular results. After 10 tours, plus three editions of the destination event Playing in the Sand, Dead & Company has earned $455.9 million and sold 4.1 million tickets from 212 concerts.
Blink-182 is back together and bigger than ever. The band’s iconic lineup of Travis Barker, Tom DeLonge and Mark Hoppus reunited for their first shows in nine years, yielding the biggest results of their three-decade career. According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, the North American leg of the group’s World Tour 2023/2024 grossed $85.3 million and sold 564,000 tickets.
This isn’t Blink’s first reunion tour. The trio went on hiatus in 2005, returning in 2009 with the similarly simply titled blink-182 in Concert tour. At the time, that tour became the band’s biggest on every measurable metric. It was the highest-grossing ($22.5 million) and best-selling (660,000 tickets) tour of its career and set new highs on a per-show level, with $522,000 and 15,345 tickets on average.
Fourteen years later, Blink is pacing $2.4 million each night, multiplying its one-time-peak comeback numbers by four and a half.
These North American shows also set a new high for Blink in terms of attendance, but just barely. The tour averaged 15,664 per show, up 2% from the 2009-10 mark. The band found space to maximize its earnings by playing with pricing. Between 2009 and now, Blink’s ticket prices have exploded, from $34.03 to $151.33.
That quadrupled-and-then-some price is due to several factors. For one, touring simply costs more in 2023 than it did in 2009. The price of concert tickets has also exploded due to resale, dynamic pricing and increasingly creative platinum and VIP models.
Aside from environmental causes, Blink is in a unique position. The band’s 2009 comeback was highly anticipated, but it was still catering to a relatively young audience who had limits to their disposable income. And while that four-year break created heightened demand, 2009 was past the peak of the mid-’00s emo/pop-punk boom that Blink helped inspire. As bands like Fall Out Boy, Paramore and My Chemical Romance geared up for their own extended hiatuses, the new era of Blink’s career flirted with passé, even as the initial comeback was an unqualified success.
Blink’s touring in the 2010s was frequent but littered with asterisks. The 10th Annual Honda Civic Tour paired the band with pop-punk successors My Chemical Romance. Blink’s 20th Anniversary Tour stretched from 2012 to 2014 but stuck to small clubs and theaters in North America. Shows continued in 2016 and 2017, but without DeLonge, the band’s defining guitarist. In 2019, there was another co-headline tour, this time with Lil Wayne. Ticket prices pushed closer to $60 on that run, but attendance dipped below the 15,000-plus high, closer to 10,000 tickets per show on average.
That makes Blink’s recent North American leg the first proper-proper tour for the main lineup since that original 2009 reunion. Not only is its target demo older (and hopefully wiser and richer), but the band is returning in a more welcoming environment. The group’s 2022 single, “Edging,” was its biggest hit on the Billboard Hot 100 since 2004’s “I Miss You.” Further, on the Alternative Airplay chart, the track spent 13 weeks at No. 1, becoming Blink’s longest-running chart-topper ever on the tally, surpassing the eight-week reign of 1999’s “All The Small Things.”
On the live front, My Chemical Romance and Paramore have staged the biggest tours of their own careers by far — 10-plus years removed from their self-imposed breaks around Blink’s first return shows. With its biggest radio success ever on the Alternative Airplay chart, the strength of the current pop-punk nostalgia boom and the added infrastructure of the industry’s bulked-up pricing, Blink was perfectly situated to double, triple and quadruple its previous bests on the road.
After 36 shows in the United States and Canada, Blink-182’s World Tour is halfway done. The band will play 24 dates in Europe this fall before heading to Australia for 17 dates, plus a sea of shows in Latin America (a mix of festival engagements and five headline shows). Those concerts mark the band’s first hard-ticket headlines in Oceania since 2004, and its first major Latin American run ever. While there is no direct precedent for Blink’s international success, its North American total suggests a big nine months ahead. With another 36 shows before wrapping in April, earnings will quickly hit nine figures, ultimately heading toward $150 million.
07/14/2023
Now that the Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour has ended, a slew of competitors is racing up the road to $940 million.
07/14/2023
The time has come: Elton John’s Farewell Yellow Brick Road played its final show on Saturday, July 8. Almost five years after launching, the tour grossed $939.1 million and sold 6 million tickets according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore.
John announced his impending retirement from touring with the Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour back in January 2018, ultimately kicking off the jaunt in September of that year. He presented it as a three-year goodbye, and other than extending the timeline by two years due to COVID-19’s global shutdown, he stuck to his promise. John maintains that he does not want to tour again, but noted he might play sporadic shows in the future.
After claiming the title of the highest-grossing tour in Boxscore history earlier this year, John extended his lead with 49 arena dates in Europe, following an arena run in the Spring of 2019 and a sweep of stadiums last year. There were four North American stints, also volleying between arenas and stadiums, plus two blocks of shows in Oceania.
After all of those shows, all around the world, John made it to the top of the heap. Watch below as, from September 2018 to July 2023, the Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour surpassed the biggest tours ever on its way to No. 1.
John has been patient, ranking among the biggest acts on various Boxscore charts since 2018. Starting that year, he was No. 22 on the year-end Top Tours chart, then No. 4 in 2019, No. 1 in 2020, and returned in 2022 at No. 2. In between, he was No. 1 on midyear charts for 2019 and 2020, and then No. 2 in 2022 and 2023.
John has also been the king of Billboard’s monthly Top Tours chart. He crowned the inaugural list for February 2019 and returned to the top six more times, each time extending his lead for the most months on top. He was No. 2 another eight times, plus five months between Nos. 3-5.
In all, that’s 20 months in the top five of 27 total appearances. Charts for June and July haven’t yet been published, though John will likely score his 28th and 29th appearances when they do.
John’s world tour divides its 330 shows (one of those, his set at Glastonbury Festival, does not factor into his gross or attendance since it’s a multi-artist festival) into 183 in North America, 101 in Europe and 46 in Oceania. See below for how his grosses in each continent stacked on top of one another, combining to more than $930 million.
North America – specifically mainland U.S. and Canada – was the most fruitful region for John’s farewell tour, amounting to $567.7 million and 3.5 million tickets. That’s 61% of the world tour’s total gross. Europe comes next with $218 million and 1.5 million tickets, followed by Australia and New Zealand, combining for $134 million and 889,000 tickets.
When Ed Sheeran set his record and wrapped The Divide Tour in August 2019, John’s tour had only grossed $217.8 million from its first 108 shows. With less than a third of Sheeran’s gross, the Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour was too young to be among predictions for all-time challengers. Plus, the tour had stuck to arenas, limiting its potential ceiling. It wasn’t until May 2022 that John stretched to stadiums.
The arena portion of John’s tour ended last spring, when it had already grossed $488.7 million from 219 shows. In the 61 stadium dates that followed, he added $341.5 million. All said, the stadium portion amounts to just 19% of all Farewell shows, but 36% of its earnings.
After breaking Sheeran’s record, the Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour became the first concert tour to gross $800 million and then $900 million.
Further, John’s final shows further extend his lead as the highest-grossing and best-selling soloist in Boxscore history. Over 1,623 reported shows, he’s grossed $1.98 billion and sold 20.6 million tickets. Farewell tours haven’t always actually been a final farewell, but if this is it, John is ending his historic touring career comfortably on top.
The Cure is more than 40 years deep into its career, but that doesn’t mean it’s too late for new peaks. The British band embarked on the Shows of a Lost World Tour and generated its biggest grosses and attendance ever. After playing its final show earlier this month, the tour grossed $37.5 million and sold 547,000 tickets over 35 shows in the U.S. and Canada, according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore.
While those figures are personal highs among the band’s global touring career (dating back to The Cure’s first Boxscore reports in 1985; the band has been touring since the late ‘70s), apples-to-apples comparisons against its North American treks spotlight the tour’s success even better. The $37.5 million revenue total is more than double the band’s previous North American high of $18 million in 2016. And the 547,000 tickets surpass 1992’s 402,000.
Routing for the Shows of a Lost World Tour mixed arenas and amphitheaters in the U.S., yielding its biggest returns in the expected markets. Three shows at Los Angeles’ Hollywood Bowl grossed $4.9 million and sold 50,800 tickets, while a three-peat at New York’s Madison Square Garden brought in $4.1 million from 44,300 tickets. Atlanta, Montreal and San Francisco follow.
Nightly attendance never dipped below 12,000, and averaged 15,629. That marks a 43% improvement over 2016’s 10,952, which itself was a 48% bump from The Cure’s 2008 tour. The band hadn’t averaged such a high attendance since 1989, when it paced 19,539 tickets in support of Disintegration. (That album was, at the time, the band’s highest charting album on the Billboard 200 [No. 12], containing its highest ranking hit on the Billboard Hot 100: “Love Song” [No. 2].)
This bar graph mirrors the peak-valley-peak trajectory that Billboard reported on Janet Jackson’s comeback spring tour. Both acts have sprawling discographies with close to a half century’s worth of beloved songs. That’s the kind of pitch that, after an extended break, can elevate an artist into their highly profitable legacy era, so-to-speak, soaking one’s deep roster of hits in a bath of nostalgia and extra disposable income.
Janet Jackson and The Cure may not make for the most obvious apples-to-apples comparison. But like Jackson, The Cure established a Boxscore peak around the turn of the ‘90s, before letting its legacy build to a new peak in the 2020s. Like Jackson, The Cure is touring without new material, many years away from its last album. (The band last released a new studio set in 2008.) Their 2023 shows marked the first North American tour for either act since the mid-2010s.
And while the effects of Jackson’s highly publicized mid-’00s controversy don’t quite apply here, the Shows of a Lost World Tour generated its own batch of headlines earlier this year. Frontman Robert Smith spoke out about various “scams” and fees, courtesy Ticketmaster and the larger secondary market, resisting dynamic pricing, platinum ticketing and scaled re-sale. The band went as far as to ensure that every show had a price option of $30 or less. Further, after fans made Smith aware of exorbitant fees, he negotiated with Ticketmaster to issue refunds.
As lines between primary and secondary ticket sellers blur and pricing strategies become more creative, concert revenues for arena acts have surged. And though it may seem like perfect timing to pair those ticketing practices with The Cure’s much-anticipated return to the stage, the band’s defiant public stand against gouging fans worked out in the end.
The Shows of a Lost World Tour averaged a $68.54 price, 37% less than the triple-digit average ticket among the top 50 tours on Billboard’s midyear 2023 recap. Only one artist in that top 50 – The 1975 – averaged less ($63.01), and that was with mostly European shows, where tickets haven’t exploded in the same way as the U.S., where The Cure played.
Still, the tour made enough money to have ranked among the top 20, had its shows been eligible (The midyear charts are based on shows between Nov. 1, 2022 – April 30, 2023. The Cure’s tour began on May 10.). The Cure’s bulked-up, career-high grosses are owed to consistently sold-out crowds, perhaps nudged along by the band’s steadfast dedication to affordable tickets.
Though the Shows of a Lost World Tour has wrapped, The Cure will play a slew of festivals plus a few standalone shows in Latin America between September and December.
Stretching back to 1985, The Cure has grossed a reported $146.1 million and sold 3 million tickets.
Well that was quick. Just two weeks ago, Billboard was lamenting the lack of women at the top of the midyear Boxscore report but looking forward to the slew of female acts slated to storm the rankings throughout the rest of the year. And now, Beyoncé becomes the first woman at No. 1 on Top Tours in almost four years.
According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, the first nine shows of the Renaissance World Tour — between May 10-30 — earned $67.5 million and sold 461,000 tickets. That makes Beyoncé the highest grossing act of the month.
The last time a woman-identifying act crowned the list, P!nk ever so narrowly edged out The Rolling Stones in July 2019 with a similar run of European stadiums. P!nk had previously topped the list in March of that year, with the Spice Girls sneaking in between in June. The four-year break between them includes the blackout period of COVID-19, but still marks a breathless stretch of 28 monthly reports dominated by male acts.
Further, Beyoncé is the first Black artist, regardless of gender, to hit the monthly summit since the charts launched in February 2019. Extending beyond the launch of these rankings, the last to do so was Queen Bey herself, co-headlining with Jay-Z on 2018’s On the Run II Tour. They earned $53.1 million and sold 404,000 tickets in September of that year.
The Renaissance World Tour’s $60 million-plus haul makes it the 10th tour to break that barrier. It’s the sixth biggest monthly gross since the charts premiered, only behind Bad Bunny (twice), The Rolling Stones, Def Leppard and Motley Crue, and The Weeknd.
Beyoncé’s nine shows in May were spread across seven markets in Europe. All seven reports appear on Top Boxscores, led by two dates at London’s Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Those shows earned $16.9 million and sold 96,000 tickets, enough to rank No. 3.
But the engagement’s bronze medal is more a quirk of timing than a failure to lead the list. She played five shows there, but three of them fell in June, and those will qualify for next month’s recap. In total, the quintet of concerts earned $42.2 million and sold 240,000 tickets. That makes it the seventh highest grossing reported Boxscore of all time, and the highest among women artists, passing the Spice Girls’ 17-show haul at London’s own O2 Arena ($33.8 million; 257,000 tickets) in 2007-08.
Elsewhere, Beyoncé posted eight-digit earnings in Solna, Sweden, grossing $10.7 million on the tour’s first two shows (May 10-11) and at Paris’ Stade de France with $10.1 million. Those follow at Nos. 11-12 on Top Boxscores, ahead of one-night-only concerts in Edinburgh, Scotland (No. 14); Cardiff, Wales (No. 21); Brussels, Belgium (No. 22); and Sunderland, England (No. 24).
Beyoncé’s omnipresence on the May report extends to Top Promoters, pushing Live Nation above $400 million and four million tickets. And three venues from her routing appear on the 10-position Top Stadiums chart, including Tottenham Hotspur Stadium at No. 7, powered solely by its two Renaissance shows.
Only halfway through her voyage through Europe, Renaissance’s $67.5 million from May fast approaches the continental totals from On the Run II and Beyoncé’s solo The Formation World Tour, each of which grossed $87 million across the pond. With more figures reported for June, she’s already blown past both of those tours with more than $150 million in the bank.
Coldplay follows at No. 2 on Top Tours, earning $54.8 million. That gross features its own monthly split, with one show at Manchester’s Etihad Stadium on May 31, leaving three others to chart on next month’s recap. Elsewhere, the band played four-show runs at Barcelona’s Estadi Olimpic Lluis Companys and in Coimbra, Portugal, at Estadio Cidade de Coimbra. Those line up at Nos. 1-2 on Top Boxscores, with Barcelona topping out at $27.3 million.
Coldplay edged out Beyoncé in terms of monthly attendance, but just barely. Chris Martin & Co. sold 482,000 tickets, 4% ahead of Bey’s 461,000.
Harry Styles and Elton John mix in the top five, at Nos. 3 and 5, respectively. Both Brits are scheduled to wrap their respective yearslong tours in July, clearing space for some of the summer’s biggest acts. Some of those make their Top Tours debuts, including Blink-182 at No. 4. The first batch of the pop-punk’s reunion tour grossed $37.1 million in North American arenas.
After popping in at No. 25 in December 2019, Shania Twain makes her post-pandemic return at No. 6, barely under $30 million with $29.7 million and 249,000 tickets. The Queen of Me Tour continues in North America through the end of July before shipping off to Europe in September.
Also hitting the top 10 for the first time are SUGA at No. 7 (previously listed as Agust D on the April report) and Janet Jackson at No. 10. Both acts blow past the $20 million mark with shows in arenas and amphitheaters.
Deeper on Top Tours, 24 acts grossed $10 million or more, eclipsing the 23 of last September. At the onset of the summer season, with stadiums and amphitheaters opening, expect grosses to continue to surge.
She make it look easy, ‘cause she got it. Earlier on Thursday (June 29), Billboard reported that the first nine shows of Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour made her the top-grossing touring act of May. But there’s more! She wrapped the European leg of the tour Wednesday night in Warsaw, posting career-high blockbuster numbers. According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, Beyoncé grossed $154.4 million and sold 1 million tickets across 21 shows.
Not only is that a huge number that resists qualification, it’s the biggest gross and attendance of any of Beyoncé’s previous European legs. On 2016’s The Formation World Tour and 2018’s On the Run II Tour (co-headlined with Jay-Z), she earned $87 million, marking a 77% bump on her recent stint.
The so-far $154 million-plus total from 21 shows over two months is more than any artist made in the six-month window that defined Billboard’s midyear report. Of course, Harry Styles, Elton John and other acts atop those charts continue to add to their hauls, but it bodes well that the Renaissance World Tour isn’t even half done, putting it in immediate contention for year-end honors.
The tour’s attendance of 1.05 million improves upon 871,000 in 2018 and 867,000 in 2016. It’s the first time that any leg of any solo Beyoncé tour broke the seven-digit milestone.
Of the 14 markets Beyoncé hit, 12 of them yielded local records. That includes the biggest gross in the history of London’s Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and Warsaw’s PGE Narodowy, plus the attendance record at Tottenham. Elsewhere, she set highs for single-night engagements and broke ground among women and Black artists throughout Europe.
The obvious standout of the European shows was a five-night run in London, earning $42.2 million from 240,000 tickets. It instantly blasts in to the all-time top 10 Boxscores, ranked seventh behind two engagements apiece from Harry Styles, Take That and Coldplay. That makes it the single biggest report by a woman, a Black artist, or by any act from the United States.
Further, Beyoncé broke the $10 million barrier with double-headers in Solna, Sweden; Amsterdam; and Warsaw. She scored one more eight-figure show with one night at Paris’ Stade de France. The $10.1 million is slightly off from the $10.9 million from On the Run II, but consider that the 2018 gross came from two shows, matching 92% of that gross with just one show in 2023.
These 21 shows push Beyoncé’s reported career gross to $921.7 million and attendance to 9.9 million. But she’s not done for the near future.
The Renaissance World Tour continues with 36 shows in the U.S. and Canada, kicking off on July 8-9 in Toronto. If Beyoncé continues at this pace, the North American leg would gross $264 million and sell 1.8 million tickets. That leg alone would pass the global total of The Formation World Tour to become the biggest of Beyoncé’s career, though it’d make for a worldwide total of about $415 million and 2.8 million tickets.
On that 2016 run, Beyoncé paced $5.3 million in North America, compared to $5.1 million in Europe, indicating that those estimates could be slightly low. Her Renaissance grosses leapt by 44% in Europe from her previous solo tour, but post-pandemic results across the industry have exacerbated an existing ticket-price gap between the continents. Despite typically smaller capacities, North American stadium grosses have ballooned in a more extreme way than in Europe, which could push Beyoncé’s totals even higher.
Final results will depend on final pricing via the dynamics of a post-pandemic ticketing ecosystem. But it is more than safe to say that Beyoncé will soar beyond $1 billion and 10 million tickets in career figures due to her biggest tour ever.
It’s a gloriously sunny afternoon in June, and Elton John, sharply dressed in a salmon-pink pinstripe suit bedazzled with his name, is hobnobbing with his longtime band, his crew and his tour promoters in the garden of his elegant, expansive estate in Windsor, just 15 shows away from the end of his Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour that began five years ago.
But this isn’t just another pre-show soiree: it’s a special gathering organized by AEG’s chairman/CEO Jay Marciano to celebrate some historic chart milestones that Elton and his band have recently set.
The first is that the Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour has grossed more than $887 million and sold 5.7 million tickets, with over 300 shows in 20 countries, becoming the top-grossing tour of all time, according to Billboard Boxscore.
The second is that Elton John has become the highest-grossing solo artist and top ticket-selling solo artist ever, grossing nearly $2 billion and selling over 20 million tickets since Billboard Boxscore started tracking data 40 years ago.
“When I started out, I just wanted to play music…I didn’t set out to have the highest-grossing tour of all time,” John told the crowd as he accepted the two awards from Billboard’s editorial director, Hannah Karp, and Billboard’s evp of charts and data partnerships, Silvio Pietroluongo. “Ed Sheeran will be very upset,” the Rocketman added drily, tipping to the fact that his tour surpassed the previous Billboard Boxscore record set by his pal and mentee’s Divide Tour.
John’s generosity extends well beyond inviting everyone to a garden gathering at his home with husband and manager David Furnish. He lauds the many behind-the-scenes players who made the record-setting trek possible, from Marciano to tour director Keith Bradley to longtime agent Howard Rose. And he insists on a standing ovation for head chef Tony Liddell, declaring that the “food on this tour has been the best food ever” in his half century-plus of globetrotting. The audience, which includes tattooed guitar techs, chic designers and some neatly dressed business folk, seems to heartily agree, at least judging by the thunderous clapping.
And, of course, his band – Davey Johnstone, Nigel Olsson, Matt Bissonette, John Mahon, Kim Bullard and Ray Cooper – get their fair share of props, in addition to receiving their own sleek, individualized awards for being part of the top-grossing tour in Billboard Boxscore history. His longtime lyricist, Bernie Taupin, is also given an award for his contributions to John’s achievements.
“It’s quite a wonderful thing to see people rewarded and to see the band get the plaques as well. I couldn’t have done it without the band. They so deserve this,” John says. “I have the best crew and the best band in the world – and that means you, Bruce Springsteen,” he adds with a wink.
Silvio Pietroluongo, Elton John and Hannah Karp
Ben Gibson
The rock icon also had kind words for Billboard, of which he’s remained an avid reader for decades. “Billboard, you know you’re my bible,” he says to Karp and Pietroluongo, also hailing Billboard’s executive editor Melinda Newman – whom he’s been interviewed by numerous times over the years – as a “great person.”
When Sir Elton takes his seat, Marciano assumes the role of emcee with relish (earlier in the show, he quipped, “you never give the concert promoter the mic – now it’s too late”). Marciano surprises John with a lush commemorative tour book that everyone who worked on the trek will receive (“no eBay!” John jokes to his band and crew) before Marciano announces, “And there’s more.” Sir Elton cuts in: “Are you gonna tell them I’m gay now? Sh-t.”
After hailing Furnish as the man with the “master plan of the tour” who overdelivered on his commitments (“I wish there were more like you”), Marciano announces he’s holding a $1 million check for the Elton John AIDS Foundation from Phil Anschutz, Jay Marciano and AEG Presents.
Ben Gibson
Following that, prizes are doled out – because what is a garden party if there aren’t prizes? And these ones were worth their weight in gold, quite literally. In the vein of the famed yellow brick road, gold bricks — custom designed by Dominic Jones, whose jewelry has been worn by everyone from Amy Winehouse to Beyoncé — were handed out as trivia rewards (each one was made of sustainable gold and minted by the Royal Mint). Earlier in the afternoon, while noshing and mingling, crew members were invited to answer a variety of EJ-related questions on digital kiosks. “How many shows has Elton John played in London over the years?”; “How many notes does Elton play on the Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour?”; “What does the DC stand for in DC Parmet?” [Parmet is John’s longtime tour manager]. The answers: 177, 82,500 and… well, perhaps it stands for “Deeply Confidential.” While someone got a prize for the most creative answer, Parmet teased that maybe, just maybe, the truth of that mystery will be unveiled on July 8, when the Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour rolls into Sweden for its final show.
“Most remarkable of all to us at Billboard, even as [Elton John] moves such massive, record-setting audiences from the stage, is the support and mentorship and love that he’s given so many people in his life on the most personal of levels,” said Billboard’s Karp. “Billboard doesn’t have a chart to track such data, yet. But if we did, we’re pretty certain he’d be at the top of that one, too.”
