Billboard Boxscore

17 Dec 2024

Top 10 Highest-Grossing Latin Tours of the Year

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 Latin.

Latin music reached unprecedented heights in 2022, when Bad Bunny staged the year’s highest-grossing tour. While no genre act has since matched his year-end earnings of $373.5 million, the bench has deepened. Five Latin acts grossed more than $100 million in 2024, up from one in 2023 and two in 2022. Latin artists are responsible for 16% of the year’s top 100 touring grosses, more than ever before.

That quintet of nine-figure earners includes artists from Colombia, Mexico, Puerto Rico and even New York City, highlighting the wide diaspora of Latin artists impacting the charts, stretching beyond the typical definition of genre itself.

Building upon a breakthrough from last year, Mexican acts are a bigger piece of the Latin music puzzle. Four of the top 10 are from Mexico and/or make regional Mexican music, including the artist at No. 1. Among Latin’s many sub-genres, Regional Mexican is responsible for its youngest acts, as Peso Pluma and the members of Fuerza Regida are all in their mid-20s. Looking ahead, it’ll be an increasingly important piece of the puzzle as Latin’s roster replenishes itself.

Keep reading to check out the 10 highest-grossing tours by Latin acts, with such acts qualifying due to recent performance on Billboard’s Top Latin Albums and/or Hot Latin Songs charts. Rankings are determined according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore. All reported shows worldwide between Oct. 1, 2023 – Sept. 30, 2024, are eligible.

16 Dec 2024

Rock Stays Strong on Tour, But Latin & Rap Make Gains

Coldplay crowns Billboard’s year-end Top Tours chart. Not far removed, Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, The Rolling Stones, U2 and Metallica follow in the top 10. Half of the ranking’s upper tier is made up of rock acts, allowing the long-dominant genre to have the biggest piece of the Boxscore pie. Among all dollars earned by 2024’s top 100 touring acts, rock is responsible for 36%, more than any other genre.

Rock’s rule is easily explained by its five acts in the top 10. But among artists between Nos. 11-20 on Top Tours, there is just one more name to add: Eagles at No. 19. Dominated by classic rock acts with chart-topping albums from the 1960s and ‘70s, the genre’s towering lead on stage has shrunk considerably over the course of the 21st century.

For every year but one between 2000-2010, rock acts represented more than 50% of Top Tours revenue, peaking at 68% in 2003. It’s only managed that once in the years since, when U2, Guns N’ Roses and Coldplay lined up at Nos. 1, 2, and 3, respectively, in 2017. Throughout the 2010s and into the 2020s, rock’s share bumped up and down year-to-year, but generally shifted from the majority to the mid-40% range, and now to the mid-30% range.

Watch the clip below to see how the genre makeup of Billboard’s top 100 tours has evolved over the course of the 21st century.

Rock’s share of the top 100 tours is actually up from last year, bumping from 32.4% to 36%. Still, it’s been below 40% for four of the last five years (excluding 2020 and 2021 because of venue closures due to COVID-19), off from an average of 57% throughout the 2000s decade. The genre’s reliance on legendary bands has left a gap as younger acts from other styles elevate to stadium status.

Pop is next in line, with 16.4% of 2024’s top 100 grosses. P!nk, Madonna and Olivia Rodrigo lead the charge, ticking up from last year’s 15.8%. One major caveat is the absence of Taylor Swift and the gargantuan grosses of The Eras Tour. While overall tour figures were published by The New York Times, data was not submitted to Billboard Boxscore for chart eligibility, which means that its earnings are excluded from this equation. It’s estimated that if this year’s grosses were reported, pop would reign supreme with 27-28%, sending rock into the 20%s in both 2023 and 2024.

Pop and rock have been the top two touring genres for every year this century, with the lone exception of 2003, when country music narrowly out-paced pop, 13% to 12.2%. But while they remain on top, the spread has become significantly more even in the post-pandemic years.

Latin music and rap both posted record highs this year, up to 15.8% and 5.7%, respectively. The former hit a new peak in 2022, when Bad Bunny had the year’s biggest tour, becoming the first artist who doesn’t primarily perform in English to earn top year-end honors. While no Latin act has reached those heights since, his stadium success is no longer an anomaly. Luis Miguel grossed $290.4 million this year, and four other Spanish-speaking artists crossed the $100 million threshold. At 5.3% in 2019, Latin artists returned from the pandemic at 12.1% in 2022, then 11.5% in 2023, and now approaching 16% in 2024.

Rap artists have yet to scale their touring business to the extent of their streaming prowess, but this year made quite a dent. The genre’s top-100 share shot from 2.7% to 5.7%, more than doubling its representation and eclipsing its prior peak from 2019. Four women helped push hip-hop’s boundaries, with Doja Cat, Missy Elliott, Megan Thee Stallion and Nicki Minaj outnumbering male rappers on the Top Tours chart for the first time. Plus, Travis Scott scores the genre’s biggest year-end gross ever, at $168 million.

The oscillations of each genre’s performance from one year to the next often comes down to scheduling. Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour was impactful enough to shift R&B artists from 5.3% in 2022 to 15.2% in 2023 and back to 5.9% in 2024. But the progression from pop and rock owning a combined 78.5% in 2000 to 52% in 2024 is indicative of gradual growth from a wide variety of diverse artists harnessing the power of their global audiences.

16 Dec 2024

Nicki Minaj, Missy Elliott & More Lead Banner Touring Year for Women in Hip-Hop

For the first time in Boxscore history, four female rappers land among the year’s top 100 touring artists. Further, women rappers outnumber male rappers for the first time on the all-genre list. Nicki Minaj (No. 30), Doja Cat (No. 61), Missy Elliott (No. 70), and Megan Thee Stallion (No. 76) finish on the year-end Top Tours chart, while closing at Nos. 2, 5, 6, and 7, respectively, on Top Rap Tours.

This year marks the first year with more than one female rapper among the top 100, let alone four. In fact, there had only been four instances of women in hip-hop ever making the all-genre list, dating back to the first year-end roundup in 1991.

Salt-N-Pepa did it first, at No. 53 in 1994 with a gross of $3.9 million, according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore.

Five years later, fresh off five Grammy wins for her R&B-rap-hybrid The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, the titular rapper was No. 43 with $7.1 million.

Then, two of this year’s group made their debuts: Missy Elliott in 2004, as a co-headliner alongside Beyoncé and Alicia Keys on the Verizon Ladies First Tour ($21.8 million), and Nicki Minaj in 2015 on The Pinkprint Tour ($15.5 million).

That means that representation for female rappers across 34 year-end editions has doubled with just this year’s tally. This count excludes year-end appearances by pop and R&B acts who occasionally rap, such as Beyoncé, Lizzo or SZA.

2024 goes down as a banner year for the touring industry overall, with record grosses surpassing $9 billion among the top 100 artists. And amid that enormous success, rap makes up a bigger piece of the pie than ever before, responsible for 5.7% of those dollars, up from 2.7% last year. The genre’s seven tours in the top 100 matches 2019’s high and improves upon last year’s count of three. Nicki, Doja, Missy and Megan made that possible, not only disrupting hip-hop’s gender monopoly — it’s been nine years since a woman was among rap’s top-100 finalists — but taking over and pushing hip-hop over the edge, outnumbering male rappers for the first time on the all-genre list. Travis Scott (No. 15), $uicideboy$ (No. 48) and 50 Cent (No. 49) round out rap’s representation on the chart.

Minaj is No. 30 on Top Tours with $99.8 million and 712,000 tickets, marking all-time highs for year-end rank, gross and attendance among female rappers, barely outdoing the No. 31 finish for Elliott’s Verizon co-headline 20 years ago. Notably, the Pink Friday 2 World Tour continued beyond the confines of the 2024 tracking period (Oct. 1, 2023 – Sept. 30, 2024), finishing in mid-October with a final gross of $108.9 million from 788,000 tickets, making it the first tour by a female rapper to cross the nine-figure milestone.

Doja Cat and Megan Thee Stallion each made their mark on their debut arena tours. Both acts experienced major breakthroughs in 2020 while concert venues were closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. They scored their first No. 1s on the Billboard Hot 100 just two weeks apart, as “Say So,” hot off a remix with fellow arena titan Nicki Minaj, topped the chart dated May 16, 2020, and “Savage,” boosted by a re-up with rare rap verses by Beyoncé, hit the summit on May 30.

Doja and Megan’s tours reported earnings of $46 million and $40.2 million, respectively, both primarily in the U.S. and Canada, with a sprinkle of European headline shows.

This year also marked the first solo headline tour for Missy Elliott, though it comes nearly 30 years after her debut studio album. Though she wasn’t a road warrior, she amassed major chart success, with six top 20 albums on the Billboard 200 and 10 top 10s on the Hot 100 from 1997-2005.

Beyond hip-hop’s year-end elite, a small handful of female rappers provide promise for the years to come. Ice Spice sold thousands of tickets in Boston, Oakland, and Washington, D.C., while Sexyy Red graduated from clubs last fall (972 tickets in Boston; 1,580 in Richmond, Va.) to arenas, approaching 10,000 tickets in Fort Worth, Texas (9,703 at Dickies Arena on Aug. 30), and Brooklyn (9,631 at Barclays Center on Sept. 17). GloRilla, with eight Hot 100 hits this year, spent hot girl summer as direct support on Megan Thee Stallion’s sold-out trek.

Nicki Minaj, Doja Cat, Missy Elliott and Megan Thee Stallion grossed a combined $227.8 million from 1.7 million tickets across 148 shows in the 2024 tracking window.

16 Dec 2024

Sphere Dominates Year-End Venues Ranking With Record-Setting $400M Gross

Sphere rules Billboard’s Top Venues (15,001+ capacity) chart for 2024, with a monstrous gross of $420.5 million from 1.3 million tickets sold. Not only does that secure the top spot among venues in its capacity range, but it’s also the highest gross for any venue of any size this year. Beyond the scope of the year-end charts, it’s the biggest annual gross for any venue in Boxscore history.

Sphere is the first venue to register a year-end gross of more than $300 million and $400 million. Only four artists ever grossed more than Sphere’s total in one year-end period: The Rolling Stones in 2006, Ed Sheeran in 2018, Beyonce in 2023, and, based on overall finals for The Eras Tour, Taylor Swift in 2023 and 2024.

The Las Vegas room attracts residency acts just like The Colosseum at Caesars Palace or Dolby Live, pushing high ticket prices for stadium artists in a more intimate setting. But unlike those theaters’ four-digit capacity, which ultimately keeps total grosses within the stratosphere, Sphere is a full-sized arena, selling 15,000-17,000 tickets per show. With a floor-to-ceiling wrapround LED screen, 4D physical effects and immersive audio, it’s a high-ticket attraction for once-in-a-career productions.

U2 launched Sphere’s calendar in September 2023, kicking off with a 17-show run that brought in $109.8 million from 281,000 tickets sold. Two more legs followed on U2: UV Achtung Baby Live at Sphere, ultimately closing in March with $244.5 million and 663,000 tickets. That makes it the fourth highest-grossing residency in Boxscore history, despite running for just six months with 40 shows. Billy Joel’s Madison Square Garden tenure, above it at No. 3 on the all-time tally, played for 10 years with 104 shows.

Phish followed with a long weekend of shows from April 18-21, bringing in $13.4 million and selling 66,700 tickets.

Dead & Company was next, with a seasonal residency, playing 30 shows between May 16 and Aug. 10. Ultimately, it earned a spot in the top 10 of the all-time residency list, with $131.8 million and 477,000 tickets. That’s a bigger gross than any of Dead & Co.’s annual tours, dating back to its 2015 inception.

Sphere’s current residents are the Eagles, in the middle of an ongoing stint that is scheduled well into 2025. The band’s first eight shows scored $42.2 million and sold 131,000 tickets.

The Top Venues chart is not the only place where Sphere shines on Billboard’s year-end report. U2 lands at No. 7 on the Top Tours list, exclusively from its Vegas shows. Bono’s boys are joined by Dead & Company on Top Rock Tours, with both acts in the top 10 — U2 at No. 4 and Dead & Company at No. 8. On Top Boxscores, which measures individual shows, or a run of shows at the same venue, U2 blocks out the top three with its Sphere legs.

In all, including shows by U2 and the Eagles that fit into the 2023 and 2025 Boxscore tracking periods, and an additional non-music event, Sphere’s 83 reported shows have brought in $452.3 million and played to 1.4 million fans.

16 Dec 2024

Coldplay’s Music of the Spheres World Tour Has Sold 10.3 Million Tickets — So Far

Coldplay has broken world records on the Music of the Spheres World Tour, even with almost 50 more shows still scheduled for next year. According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, the global trek has sold more tickets than any tour in history since its launch in March 2022, at 10.3 million — so far.

The Music of the Spheres World Tour has been a global event, selling out stadiums on five continents. Half of the tour’s 175 concerts have been in Europe, where it sold 5.2 million tickets over 87 shows. It has added 1.8 million in South America, 1.6 million in North America, 884,000 in Asia and 848,000 in Australia.

Not only has Coldplay performed around the world, but demand has also been neatly spread. Among the tour’s top 10 marks, all five continents are represented, from São Paulo, Brazil, to Gothenburg, Sweden, to Singapore.

The tour’s biggest report so far was a run of 10 shows from Oct. 25 – Nov. 8, 2022, at Buenos Aires’ Estadio Unico Ciudad de la Plata. Those dates sold 627,000 tickets, marking the best-selling engagement in Boxscore history.

In more than half of the stops on the Music of the Spheres World Tour — 39 of 64 — Coldplay has sold over 100,000 tickets. In 51 of those cities, the band played multiple shows. Notably, 10 of the 13 cities where it played just one night are in the United States, while just eight of its top 10 markets are primarily non-English-speaking locations.

Watch the clip below to see Coldplay traverse the globe on its way to record-setting ticket sales.

The Music of the Spheres World Tour has sold more than 3 million tickets and grossed more than $300 million in each of the three years since it kicked off. In the 2024 chart year, marked by shows from Oct. 1, 2023, to Sept. 30, 2024, Coldplay brought in $400.9 million and sold 3.02 million tickets, earning the top spot on Billboard’s year-end Top Tours (ranked by gross) and Top Ticket Sales (ranked by attendance) charts. It’s the band’s second straight year at No. 1 on the latter tally.

Dating back almost 40 years, all Boxscore charts are based on figures reported to Billboard. Data is reported from a variety of official industry sources, from artist managers and agents to promoters and venue executives. Reporting is voluntary, and some artists, venues, and promoters opt to withhold data from representation on the charts. Though overall two-year totals for Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour were published by The New York Times — $2.08 billion, making it the highest-grossing tour in history, and nearly 10.2 million tickets — they were not submitted to Billboard Boxscore for chart eligibility, excluding the tour from 2024 year-end charts.

Since its launch, the Music of the Spheres World Tour has grossed $1.14 billion. That separates it by more than $900 million from The Eras Tour, despite Coldplay outselling Swift’s run by more than 150,000 tickets. Both treks have played a similar number of shows (149 for Swift; 175 for Coldplay, so far) and charted familiar routes around five continents.

Evenly distributed across its three-year run, The Music of the Spheres World Tour has averaged a $110.46 ticket price. The tipping point was in Asia, where 16 shows averaged $146.43, while the other end of the spectrum is the tour’s first leg of 11 shows in central America ($77.74).

Coldplay’s 2025 calendar has 48 scheduled concerts, ranging from Toronto to Hong Kong, and Navi Mumbai to London, where the tour will presumably wrap with 10 shows at Wembley Stadium. Already the best-selling tour in history, The Music of the Spheres World Tour will undoubtably extend its lead next year, approaching a total count of 13 million tickets.

Dating back to Coldplay’s first Boxscore report at Commodore Ballroom in Vancouver on Feb. 8, 2001 ($11,000; 900 tickets), the band has earned more than $2 billion and sold 21.1 million tickets.

16 Dec 2024

How Soaring Concert Costs Drove the Live Music Business to New Heights in 2024

The Rolling Stones haven’t had a hit on the Billboard Hot 100 for two decades, but they continue to perform well on Billboard’s Top Tours chart. This year, the band, led by 80-year-old Mick Jagger, came in at No. 6 on the list of tours reported to Billboard Boxscore from Oct. 1, 2023, to Sept. 30, 2024, with $235 million in ticket sales. Perhaps more impressive, the group brought in that much money for playing just 18 concerts, less than any other act in the top 10. Its secret? Charging a lot for tickets.

By comparison, Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, which edged out the Stones to come in at No. 5, grossed $235.5 million from 39 shows with an average ticket price of $147.25. Coldplay, which came in at No. 1 with $400.9 million, played 51 shows. Luis Miguel played 128 shows — the most of anyone in the top 10 — and grossed $290.4 million to come in at No. 4. With an average ticket price of $277.16, the Stones made an average of $13.1 million a show. Miguel played to more people — 2 million instead of 848,000 — but his tickets sold for an average of just over $143.37 and he made $2.3 million a show.

Since top acts typically sell out most dates, three major factors influence tour grosses: number of performances, size of venues and ticket prices. And 2024 was the year that price mattered more than ever. This year’s top 100 tours took in $9.1 billion, a 21.6% increase in revenue over the previous year. But those shows were seen by an audience of 69.8 million, an increase of 10.7% — only half as much. At a time when many promoters use dynamic pricing to maximize revenue without leaving seats empty, more pricing power meant more money.

Some of these increases come from changes in the way the chart is calculated. Last year, Billboard shortened its Boxscore reporting period from 12 months to 11 in order to make some one-time changes to eligibility for the Billboard Music Awards. This 2024 chart is once again based on a 12-month reporting period, so apples-to-apples comparisons are difficult. But the change is still easy to see. If one annualizes last year’s 11-month reporting period, attendance for the top 100 tours would be up about 4% and revenue would be up nearly 14%.

One more caveat: For the second year in a row, the Top Tours chart does not include figures for Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour. Final figures were published by The New York Times on Dec. 9, but a show-by-show breakdown has yet to be submitted to Billboard Boxscore for chart eligibility. Given the tour’s two-year $2 billion gross, its 2024 sum would have pushed ticket sales totals for the year’s top 100 tours over $10 billion for the first time.

ROAD WARRIORS

A look at the top 10 tours shows the power of pricing. Overall the average ticket price for the top 100 tours was $132.30, up from $119.64 last year. The top touring act of the year, Coldplay, brought in $400 million from stadium shows in the United States, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. (Coldplay, promoted by Live Nation, was No. 2 last year with $342 million from 37 shows.) And it did so with an average ticket price of $132.79, the second-lowest among the top 10 acts.

P!nk, whose shows were promoted by Live Nation and the independent Marshall Arts, is No. 2, taking in $387 million from 73 concerts with an average ticket price of $139.47; she played more shows but to fewer people in total. (Last year, P!nk was No. 6 with $226 million from 37 shows.) Zach Bryan is No. 3 with $321.3 million from a 64-show tour promoted by AEG Presents. Bryan charged an average of $196.38.

The top ticket price in the top 10 was $367.13, for U2’s 38 shows at Sphere in Las Vegas, which took in $231.1 million, good for No. 7. Madonna came in at No. 8 with $225.4 million. Bad Bunny is No. 9 with $211.4 million and the second-highest average ticket price: $280.67. Metallica rounds out the top 10 with $175.2 million and a fan-friendly average price of $116.80.

One question the touring business has to deal with is, how high is too high? The $132.30 average ticket price for the top 100 tours is up 9.1% from 2023, when it had risen 10.5% from 2022. That’s an increase of 20.6% in two years. For most of the decade before the pandemic, ticket prices rose about 2% or 3% a year, close to the pace of inflation.

What happened? Over the past five years, the concert business has completely changed its view on pricing. Until around 2000, most promoters seemed to price tickets by calculating the cost of a show, adding a reasonable profit margin and then charging enough to reach that number. That changed over the following decade with the rise of resale sites like StubHub — and the accompanying realization that fans were willing to pay far more for tickets than promoters thought, especially for the best seats. To raise revenue, promoters and ticketing companies started using the same kinds of variable pricing and dynamic pricing strategies as hotels and airlines — in some cases opaquely. The idea, as in those businesses, is to maximize overall revenue without leaving empty seats. Over the past few years, companies like Live Nation’s Ticketmaster and AEG’s AXS have invested millions in software to price seats dynamically, in real time, according to demand.

A common reaction is that this puts concert tickets out of reach for many consumers. But a substantial part of the increase in average prices comes from the skyrocketing price of the best tickets. Also, dynamic pricing should adjust downward the price of unsold tickets to ensure that they, too, get sold.

It’s also worth noting that concertgoers have had sticker shock for decades. In 1969, according to an article in Rolling Stone, Jagger was asked at a press conference at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel if the Stones were gouging their fans by charging up to $8.50 a ticket at the Los Angeles Forum. “Is that a lot?” Jagger replied. “You’ll have to tell me.”

Adjusted for inflation, that $8.50 would have buying power of $67.34 today, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics — and the price of Stones tickets is up more than four times that. Then again, the average Stones fan has much more money, as well as a sense that the band can’t keep touring forever.

FESTIVAL FUNK

As ticket prices increase, business is becoming harder for festival organizers, who have to pay more for compelling headliners. Festivals that used to make competitive offers for top-tier talent have seen their buying power diminished as more artists realize they have the pricing power to earn more revenue from traditional shows.

Only a few festivals report ticket sales revenue to Billboard Boxscore. But most promoters or festival ticketing experts agree that festival ticket sales declined in 2023 and 2024 for both flagships like Coachella and Bonnaroo, as well as smaller and independent events.

Artists that play festivals generally agree to increasingly rigid radius clauses that restrict how close to the event they can perform and when they can promote their nearby shows. They agreed to those deals because festivals could pay headliners $3 million to $5 million for a 90-minute set — more than the $1.5 million to $2.5 million most could make for an arena show. That was before average ticket prices rose so much.

This does not bode well for the long-term future of festivals, at least the way they currently operate. But festivals only represent a fraction of the business of Live Nation and AEG, the global concert promotion giants. Live Nation promotes Coldplay, Miguel and Madonna, among others. AEG handles Swift, Bryan and George Strait, the No. 24 touring act. On June 15, Strait performed the stadium concert with the highest attendance in Billboard Boxscore history at Texas A&M University’s Kyle Field in College Station, Texas, in front of 110,000 fans.

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Music Business Year In Review

09 Dec 2024

Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour Wraps as First Tour to Pass $2 Billion in Sales

On Sunday night (Dec. 8), Taylor Swift played the last of 149 shows on The Eras Tour. As reported earlier Monday, the record-setting trek grossed more than $2 billion and sold over 10 million tickets: $2,077,618,725 and 10,168,008, respectively, to be exact.

The news was first reported by The New York Times.

Without qualification, The Eras Tour is the highest-grossing tour of all time, by artists of any genre, and from any era in music history. If compared to data officially reported to Billboard Boxscore, it is the biggest tour ever by an unthinkable distance of more than $900 million, blasting past Coldplay’s Music of the Spheres World Tour (2022-ongoing) – the only other tour to gross more than $1 billion – by a margin of almost two-to-one.

Trending on Billboard

Even before The Eras Tour was announced, Swift was one of the most successful touring acts of her generation. Dating back to her first reported solo headline show at Sovereign Performing Arts Center in Reading, Pa. (April 6, 2007), she has grossed $3 billion across her career, when adding The Eras Tour’s sum to officially reported data for her prior tours to Billboard Boxscore.

Previously, her biggest tour – according to Billboard Boxscore – came when Swift brought in $345.7 million and sold 2.9 million tickets on 2018’s Reputation Stadium Tour, marking a 38% leap from the earnings on 2015’s The 1989 World Tour. The Eras Tour multiplies her prior best more than six times over.

The Eras Tour kicked off in Glendale, Ariz. on March 17, 2023. If the tour hadn’t already made a seismic impact just via its announcement, the actual performances sent Swift from superstardom to the stratosphere. The friendship bracelets, the surprise songs and all of Swift’s eras took over, sparking major economic booms in every city she visited and hysteria among Swifties around the world.

By August 9, 2023, Swift had released her re-recording of Speak Now (July 7), announced the re-recording for 1989 and wrapped the tour’s first U.S. leg. Quickly after, she played her first shows ever in Mexico with four nights at the capital’s Estadio GNP Seguros (then known as Foro Sol), followed by nine shows in South America.

In February 2024, Swift took her talents to Asia and Australia, but not before she won her record-setting fourth Grammy for album of the year for Midnights and announced her next new studio album during an acceptance speech. That one – The Tortured Poets Department, released April 19 – arrived while on break from tour, and once again, set a new career-peak with a debut week of 2.61 million equivalent album units earned in the U.S., according to Luminate, and the entire top 14 on the Hot 100. On the current, Dec. 14-dated edition of the Billboard 200, the set returns for a 16th week at No. 1 on the back of a physical release of the album’s deluxe Anthology version, sold exclusively at Target.

In May, Swift took on Europe, with 48 shows across the continent. While Tortured Poets spent most of the summer atop the Billboard 200, The Eras Tour continued its blistering pace, including eight nights at London’s Wembley Stadium.

Finally, Swift returned to North America for three shows each in Miami, New Orleans, and Indianapolis, plus six in Toronto and one last weekend in Vancouver.

25 Nov 2024

Travis Scott’s Circus Maximus Sets New Record for Highest Selling Tour by a Solo Rapper

Travis Scott closed out the Circus Maximus Tour on Halloween after more than a year of cross-continental shows. According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, the trek grossed $209.3 million and sold 1.7 million tickets over 76 dates.

Those numbers are massive without qualification, but they are monumental in hip-hop. No solo rapper has ever sold that many tickets on one tour. Previously, Jay-Z cracked two million while co-headlining the On the Run II Tour with Beyoncé in 2018. The only other unaccompanied rapper to report more than a million tickets on a single tour is 50 Cent on last year’s The Final Lap Tour (1.1 million), celebrating the 20-year anniversary of Get Rich or Die Tryin.’

Though the Circus Maximus Tour began in arenas, Scott interspersed stadium dates as 2023 rolled into 2024. First, amid 43 arena shows in the U.S. and Canada, he sold out SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif. (12 miles from downtown Los Angeles). And while his European leg began indoors, he broke stadiums in London, Koln, and Milan, selling more than 71,000 tickets in the lattermost city.

Stadiums followed in Sao Paulo, Mexico City, New York and across Oceania. The last nine shows of the tour in September and October moved 415,000 tickets, or 24% of the tour’s total attendance, despite accounting for just 12% of the trek’s shows.

Melbourne, Australia, was the biggest stop of Scott’s tour. Two shows on Oct. 22-23 grossed $12.6 million and sold 115,000 tickets.

The scale of the Circus Maximus Tour – stadiums on four continents – is unprecedented in hip-hop. 50 Cent and Nicki Minaj, each of whom cracked $100 million on tours of their own over the last two years, played in North America and Europe. Drake, who has crossed the nine-figure mark multiple times, only played in the U.S. and Canada on It’s All a Blur. The language barrier for a particularly wordy genre could mean that extensive touring in Europe and Latin America is difficult, but Scott’s global hits and onstage spectacle helped translate his show to international audiences.

Even stateside, Scott’s 2023-24 stadium shows are groundbreaking for rappers. Eminem and Jay-Z have played similar venues, but the former toured alongside Rihanna and the latter has done it next to Beyonce and Justin Timberlake. Eminem and Jay-Z did play stadiums together in 2010 during a commercial boom for both, but just two in Detroit and two in New York on The Home & Home Tour.

As a soloist, Eminem played two shows at Detroit’s Ford Field in 2003, plus a show in Hawaii in 2019. He’s also a proven stadium sellout in Australia and New Zealand. 50 Cent has one reported solo stadium show in Sao Paulo.

Scott’s world tour improved upon his previous outing in every conceivable way. Scott sold 53% more tickets per show on The Circus Maximus Tour than on Astroworld: Wish You Were Here in 2018-19 (22,494 vs. 14,692), he played more than 20 more shows (76 vs. 55) and commanded 65% more per ticket ($122.46 vs. $74.43).

In total, the Circus Maximus Tour sold more than twice the tickets of its predecessor (1.7 million vs. 808,000) and grossed more than three times as much ($209.3 million vs. $60.1 million).

The Circus Maximus Tour was in support of Utopia, Scott’s fourth studio album. The set debuted atop the Billboard 200 and stayed there for four weeks, and sent three songs – “Meltdown,” featuring Drake; “FEIN!,” featuring Playboi Carti; and “K-Pop” featuring Bad Bunny and The Weeknd – to the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100.

Dating back to a sold-out show at Los Angeles’ The Fonda Theatre ($42,000; 1,200 tickets), Scott has grossed $275.3 million and sold 2.6 million tickets.

25 Nov 2024

P!nk Wraps 2023-2024 Touring With Almost $700 Million Grossed

On Nov. 20, P!nk played the last of 128 shows over the last year and a half. The run was sprawling, from the Summer Carnival Tour, which took place in stadiums, to the Trustfall Tour and P!nk Live, both of which brought her to arenas. Altogether, she earned $693.8 million and sold more than 4.8 million tickets, according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore. One of her many box office achievements is recent: The nine shows she played in October make her the biggest touring act of the month.

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Across nine shows between Oct. 1-18, P!nk grossed $44.2 million and sold 254,000 tickets, putting her at No. 1 on Billboard’s monthly Top Tours chart. That haul includes four stadium dates, including an Oct. 3 show at MetLife Stadium ($9.1 million; 60,400 tickets), and three arena stops, including double-headers at Detroit’s Little Caesars Arena and St. Paul’s Xcel Energy Center.

Another nine shows in November make P!nk eligible for one last monthly chart in 2024, when the November report is published next month.

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When separated by tour, P!nk’s 2023-24 run breaks down to $584.7 million for the Summer Carnival Tour, $60.8 million for last year’s Trustfall Tour and $48.3 million for this fall’s Live 2024 run. Since launching last June, Luis Miguel is the only musician who has played more shows.

The Summer Carnival is the second-highest grossing tour in history among women, accounting for Billboard’s billion-dollar-plus estimate for Taylor Swift’s as-yet-unreported The Eras Tour. P!nk narrowly passes Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour, which grossed $579.8 million last year during a comparatively brief 56-show sweep. Madonna’s Sticky & Sweet Tour (2008-09) and P!nk’s own Beautiful Trauma World Tour (2018-19) follow next, hovering on opposite sides of the $400 million threshold.

Among all artists, and including estimates for Swift, The Summer Carnival Tour ranks eighth in revenue, and just outside the top 10 based on attendance.

The Summer Carnival Tour spanned five legs – each of which grossed at least $100 million – across three continents. The biggest was a 22-show run in North America, bringing in $150.7 million from July to October of 2023. Ultimately, the U.S. and Canada delivered $266 million, Europe accounted for about $214 million and 20 shows in Oceania added $104.3 million.

Travis Scott follows on October’s Top Tours chart, scoring the highest monthly rank for a rap artist since returning from the pandemic shutdown. He grossed $41.2 million and sold 352,000 tickets on the final dates of the Circus Maximus Tour.

Scott kicked off the month with an Oct. 9 show at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J. (13 miles from New York City), bringing in $8.7 million from 61,700 tickets sold. That’s $400,000 less, but 1,300 more tickets than stats for P!nk’s October show at the same venue.

He then brought his world tour to three cities in Australia, plus a closing-night performance in Auckland, New Zealand. The Oceania leg grossed $32.5 million and sold 291,000 tickets, which is slightly more than half of the European leg (June-August), but more than double the Latin American run from September.

Usher is next at No. 3, with $36.6 million for Usher: Past Present Future. Since kicking off on Aug. 20, the tour has earned $90.6 million. With North American shows scheduled through mid-December and a European leg in the spring, it’s likely to close in on $150 million.

Future tourmates Post Malone and Jelly Roll round out the top 5 at Nos. 4 and 5, respectively. Last week, Post announced The Big Ass Stadium Tour with Jelly Roll as direct support, which will bring both acts to – you guessed it, stadiums – for the first time in their careers. Combined, they’ve brought in over $130 million this year, but they’ll head closer to $200 million in 2025.

And just outside the top five, Sabrina Carpenter makes her Top Tours debut at No. 6. The first handful of dates from the Short n’ Sweet Tour left her just outside the top 30 in September, but a full slate of shows lifts her into the top 10 for October, with a full gross of $27.8 million from 221,000 tickets sold. The first leg wrapped up on Nov. 18 at the Kia Forum in Inglewood, Calif., and 14 shows are set for March throughout Europe.

Melbourne, Australia’s Marvel Stadium the month’s top-grossing concert venue, thanks to a trio of double-headers. On Oct. 5-6, The Weeknd sold 92,100 tickets and earned $12.5 million. A couple weeks later, Travis Scott played on Oct. 21-22, upping the ante to 115,000 tickets and $12.6 million. And on Oct. 30-31, Coldplay played the first two shows of a four-night run, bringing in $14.4 million from 115,000 tickets. All three are among the top five on Top Boxscores.

Madison Square Garden returns to the summit among indoor venues, grossing $23.4 million from 13 shows in October. That includes a Halloween show by Duran Duran, a farewell performance from Cyndi Lauper (Oct. 30), and a get-out-the-vote concert from Stevie Wonder (Sept. 10).

MSG’s banner month pushes its Las Vegas sister-venue Sphere back to No. 2, supported by just four shows of Eagles’ residency. Those dates grossed $18.9 million, adding to the $23.2 million in September.

A quartet of American venues top the smaller-capacity rankings. Austin’s Moody Center is tops among rooms with a cap of 10,001-15k, Red Rocks Amphitheater in Morrison, Colo., Is No. 1 on the 5,001-10k chart, Atlanta’s Fox Theatre rules the 2,501-5k tally, and Grand Rapids, Mich., wins gold on the 2,500-or-less survey via DeVos Performance Hall.

19 Nov 2024

Post Malone Conquered Amphitheaters With $63 Million F-1 Trillion Tour & Stadiums Are Next

When one door closes, another opens. Or rather, when one Post Malone tour finishes, another much bigger one announces.

Through closing night on Oct. 27, Post grossed $63 million and sold 470,000 tickets on the F-1 Trillion Tour, according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore. And on Tuesday morning (Nov. 19), he announced The Big Ass Stadium Tour, which kicks off on April 29.

The move from amphitheaters to stadiums is a big one. The average capacity of Post’s fall shows was 18,786 seats, and the football stadiums on his 2025 route generally exceed 50,000. But all the F-1 Trillion Tour shows sold out – including two sprinkled-in stadiums in Boston and Nashville – and it appears he’s left some meat on the bone.

Post played a swift 25-show run in September and October, which is significantly less than the 39 shows on last year’s If Y’all Weren’t Here, I’d Be Crying Tour ($81 million; 802,000 tickets), which immediately followed the 63-date Twelve Carat Tour ($138.6 million; 1.1 million tickets) that stretched from 2022 into 2023. Post is a proven road warrior, and his brief fall trek simply whetted his base’s appetite.

Plus, his fanbase is expanding, as Post further transitions from hip-hop to pop to country. His fall tour – and presumably his upcoming one – is in support of F-1 Trillion, a country album that hosted more than a dozen of the genre’s cross-generational superstars, from Dolly Parton to Tim McGraw to Lainey Wilson.

The pivot was successful, as F-1 Trillion topped the Billboard 200 with 250,000 equivalent album units earned in its first week, more than doubling each of his previous two studio LPs. And while 2023’s Austin didn’t land a top 10 single on the Billboard Hot 100, this year’s “I Had Some Help,” featuring Morgan Wallen, spent its first six weeks at No. 1 and remains in the top 10 half a year later (as of the Nov. 23-dated chart). If he was selling out arenas and amphitheaters off less successful albums and starved his audience of a robust 2024 tour on the back of a comeback, the stage is well set for next year’s stadium trek.

And if he needs some help, he has it in the form of special guest Jelly Roll. Featured on F-1 Trillion’s “Losers,” he’s on his own fall tour navigating arenas and amphitheaters across the United States. Through Nov. 17, the Beautifully Broken Tour has earned $71.9 million and sold 615,000 tickets. Five shows are left on the schedule, wrapping up on Nov. 26 at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena.

Quite notably, Jelly Roll’s 2024 tour has out-grossed and outsold Post’s own trek, positioning him as more than just an opening act as both artists prepare to play the biggest stages of their careers. But total volume does not tell the whole story: While Post has perhaps intentionally kept his routing sparse, Jelly hasn’t held back, as the latter’s show count is more than double the former’s. On a per-show level, Post is the stronger earner ($2.5 million vs. $1.4 million) and the bigger seller (18,786 vs. 12,291).

The initial announcement for The Big Ass Stadium Tour includes 25 dates, matching the length of Post’s fall tour. But while Post played to 470,000 fans in 2024, next year’s run will bring him to well over 1 million. It will all-but-certainly play as his highest-earning tour, flirting with a $200 million gross.

Dating back to Post Malone’s first show reported to Boxscore, a 2016 performance at Emo’s in Austin, Texas ($16,449; 660 tickets), he has grossed $415.6 million and sold 3.9 million tickets across 254 shows.