Billboard Boxscore
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Beyoncé claims the year’s top-grossing tour, according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore. Between May 10 and Oct. 1, the Renaissance World Tour grossed $579.8 million and sold 2.8 million tickets. With a tracking period of Nov. 1, 2022 – Sept. 30, all but one of those shows powers her record-breaking finish at No. 1 on Billboard’s year-end Top Tours chart.
Last year marked the first full year-end tracking period after the pandemic forced venues to close. In 2022, Bad Bunny ruled the annual recap with $373 million, on his way to a record-breaking $434 million during the ’22 calendar year. This year, that record washes away, as Queen Bey returns with her first solo headline tour in seven years.
The Renaissance World Tour earned $570.5 million and sold 2.7 million tickets during the 2023 tracking period, plus another $9.3 million and 53,200 tickets in Kansas City on Oct. 1. That makes it the biggest one-year sum for an artist in Boxscore history, dating back to the mid-1980s. Both Bad Bunny and Ed Sheeran grossed more than $434 million in 2022 and 2018, respectively.
Click here to see the full year-end 2023 Boxscore charts.
The tour’s $580 million is a towering total, but even more impressive when achieved in less than five months. Beyoncé topped four of Boxscore’s monthly recaps this year, including a record-setting three-peat where she grossed more than $100 million in July, August and September. Her August haul of $179 million is the largest reported monthly gross since the charts launched in February 2019.
The Renaissance World Tour is the seventh highest grossing tour in the Boxscore archives. Based on Billboard’s projections, official reports for The Eras Tour would give Beyoncé some company, with Swift joining her as the only two women and only American soloists in the top 10. Beyoncé is also the only Black artist on the all-time ranking.
The well-documented combined domination of Beyoncé and Swift breaks up the boy’s club that has ruled the last handful of year-end Boxscore recaps. Bad Bunny, The Rolling Stones, Elton John, Ed Sheeran (twice) and U2 have topped the last six annual Top Tours charts. The last times that women presided were in 2015 and 2016, topped by – who else – Taylor Swift and Beyoncé, respectively. Before that, women only led the year-end list three times: Tina Turner in 2000, and Madonna in 2004 and 2012.
The year-end Top Tours chart breaks ground even beyond Queen Bey’s contributions, and without the official help of Swift. There have never been as many tours above $300 million (three), $200 million (seven) or $100 million (17). Harry Styles, Morgan Wallen, BLACKPINK help lead one of the youngest and most genre-diverse annual recaps, while being the highest-grossing year ever for Billboard Boxscore. Despite the 11-month tracking period marking the shortest year-end window ever, 2023’s top 100 tours grossed a combined $7.5 billion, up 17% from last year, and up 53% from the pre-pandemic total in 2019.
Dating back almost 40 years, all Boxscore rankings 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 and has always been voluntary, and some artists, venues, and promoters opt to withhold data from representation on our charts. Notably, figures for Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour have not yet been reported to Boxscore. While that disqualifies her from appearing on year-end charts, the tour’s widely recognized ubiquity is acknowledged throughout Billboard’s year-in-touring coverage. Click here to read more.
All reported shows, worldwide, between Nov. 1, 2022 – Sept. 30, 2023 are eligible for year-end 2023 consideration.
The 2023 year-end Boxscore charts go live on Thursday (Nov. 30), but before reviewing the ranked lists of the biggest tours, venues and promoters in the world, Billboard is taking a zoomed-in look at the U.S., highlighting the highest-grossing concert engagements in each state.
The figures displayed here are based on figures officially reported to Billboard Boxscore, covering a tracking period of Nov. 1, 2022 – Sept. 30, 2023. That means that Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour is not included, as representatives for her tour did not report. Click to read more about Billboard’s Swiftian projections.
Beyoncé dominates the map, leading in 11 states. Major-market stadium shows on the Renaissance World Tour took top honors in California, Georgia, Illinois and New Jersey, while hometown shows in Houston add another ring for Texas.
Morgan Wallen follows, winning eight states. Also in stadiums, he takes the gold in country-minded Midwest and southern states like Mississippi, Missouri and Ohio. His March release One Thing at a Time finished at No. 1 on the year-end Billboard 200 albums chart, while its second track, “Last Night,” is No. 1 on the year-end Billboard Hot 100 songs ranking.
P!nk and Post Malone are two peas in a pod, both with three regions to their name. The former wins in the District of Columbia, Nebraska and North Dakota, while the latter is tops in Connecticut, New Mexico and Utah.
P!nk’s win in Washington D.C. comes from a Aug. 7 show at Nationals Stadium, with $7.2 million in the bank. Just five miles east, Beyoncé’s concert at FedEx Field in Landover, Md. cleared the path for P!nk to take D.C., though Beyoncé’s Maryland show generally served the same touring market.
Seven other artists doubled up, from Zach Bryan in Kansas and Oklahoma to Karol G in Florida and Puerto Rico. Another 12 acts appear on the map, ranging from comedians like Kevin Hart and Sebastian Maniscalco to rock veterans like Journey and Phish, and relative newcomers like Jelly Roll and Noah Kahan.
Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour is poised to become the highest-grossing global tour of all time, according to Billboard’s estimates.
While no official numbers have been reported yet, Swift’s tour should pass current record-holder Elton John’s Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour with more than $900 million in ticket sales so far.
On Sunday (Nov. 26), Swift played her last scheduled show of the year, wrapping an intense run of 66 concerts in the United States, Mexico and South America. Representatives for The Eras Tour have not yet reported official revenue or attendance figures to Billboard Boxscore or any other trade journal or news entity, but the enormity of The Eras Tour is impossible to ignore, with a total that amounts to a staggering average of nearly $14 million per show.
Dating back almost 40 years, all Boxscore rankings 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 has always been voluntary, and some artists, venues and promoters opt to withhold data from representation on our charts. It is not uncommon for artists to not report — or to wait until the end of a tour, which is still more than a year away in Swift’s case — though it’s rare that such a well-documented blockbuster tour, in contention for top year-end honors, is not submitted. Swift’s abstention disqualifies her from appearing on year-end Boxscore charts.
Swift kicked off The Eras Tour in Glendale, Ariz., on March 17, playing 53 domestic shows before wrapping at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif., outside Los Angeles, on Aug. 9. She hit a total of 20 U.S. cities, and 11 of those venues have provided attendance figures to Billboard. Based on those numbers, as well as estimates based on aggressive scaling at the other nine stadiums, Swift likely sold 3.3 million tickets over 53 shows in the United States, or an average of 63,000 tickets per show.
Sources close to the tour point to an average domestic ticket price of around $252. This is in line with the prices for the summer’s other major concert event, Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour, which maintained a $135 ticket in Europe and a $253 ticket in North America. While ticket prices might dip in certain markets and bloom in others, using that number as an average puts the U.S. leg of The Eras Tour at $838.3 million. That total gross spreads out to $15.8 million per show, a staggering figure that exceeds recent tours by Bad Bunny, Beyoncé, and The Rolling Stones, each of which had giant totals of their own.
Taylor Swift performs onstage during Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour at Levi’s Stadium on July 28, 2023, in Santa Clara, Calif.
Jeff Kravitz/TAS23/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management
That projected $838 million haul is more than enough to make Eras the highest-grossing U.S. and North American tour ever. John’s Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour holds the official Boxscore title, with $567.7 million in the United States and Canada. That total reflects 135 shows over a span of four years, compared to Swift’s 53 shows in less than six months.
Moreover, The Eras Tour’s U.S. gross would situate it as the second-highest grossing tour of all time based on global figures, before even crossing the border. John’s farewell tour remains the official record-holder with $939.1 million.
Since wrapping the Eras Tour’s U.S. leg, Swift played four shows at Mexico City’s Foro Sol (Aug. 24-27) and, more recently, nine South American shows, spread between Buenos Aires in Argentina and Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. Those dates bring her much closer to John’s global record, even based on relatively conservative projections. But as we’ve seen with virtually every worldwide stadium tour in the last two years, the post-pandemic surge in ticket prices hasn’t been as severe outside the United States.
Further, these are Swift’s first shows in these Latin American markets. That means pent-up demand likely drove huge sales, though her base isn’t quite as explosive there as it is in the States.
Based on estimates considering the high end of grosses and ticket prices for each Latin American venue’s post-pandemic history, The Eras Tour likely earned another $60 million to $75 million and more than 750,000 tickets from those 13 shows.
In all, Billboard estimates that Swift has generated $906.1 million and sold 4.1 million tickets in 2023 across all shows in the United States, Mexico and South America. That would unofficially make The Eras Tour the biggest tour of 2023. And when considering Swift’s total revenue from the tour, it doesn’t even account for merchandise sales, sponsorships, music streaming and sales boosts, or her self-produced and released Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour concert film.
Swift is scheduled to resume The Eras Tour on Feb. 7 with four shows at the Tokyo Dome in Japan. Then, she’ll play seven shows in Australia and six in Singapore. In May, she kicks off a 50-date run in Europe before returning to North America for 18 shows in new markets, including the tour’s first entry into Canada. In all, that’s 85 shows to go, with the possibility of more to come, considering her recent concert additions to runs in London and Vancouver.
These upcoming international legs are already more ambitious than any previous Swift tour. While this year’s 53 U.S. shows are in line with what she did on 2018’s Reputation Stadium Tour and 2015’s The 1989 World Tour, those treks included just six and seven shows in Europe, respectively — a fraction of next year’s slate of 50.
If we use the comparison between Beyoncé’s recent European and North American grosses as a north star, in Europe, Swift could be looking at $8.5 million per show, or about $420 million over the entire leg. And even if next year’s North American shows dip from 2023’s record-breakers, the U.S. and Canada shows could add another $240 million to 260 million. Including the 17 shows in Asia and Australia, The Eras Tour is likely headed toward a total gross of $1.6 billion to $1.7 billion by the end of 2024. It will be the first in history to earn more than $1 billion in ticket sales and will set Swift far apart from her competitors. If figures skew toward the higher end of what’s possible, she could double John’s current record gross.
Representatives for Swift did not respond to a request for comment on Billboard‘s estimates at press time.
U2 wrapped the first leg of the U2:UV Achtung Baby Live at Sphere residency on Nov. 4 with unprecedented box-office results. According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, U2’s 17 Sphere shows in Las Vegas grossed $109.8 million and sold 281,000 tickets. Opening night at Sphere was Sept. 29. U2 played another show the next […]
P!nk played 10 shows, split between two separate tours, in October. In all, those dates grossed $51.2 million and sold 271,000 tickets, according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore. That’s enough to rule Billboard’s monthly Top Tours chart, marking her third month at No. 1 since the charts launched in February 2019.
P!nk began the month in San Diego, playing an Oct. 3 show at Snapdragon Stadium. After three more stadium shows on the Summer Carnival tour, she transitioned to the arena-focused Trustfall Tour, playing dates in California, Denver, and Kansas City. She’s the first artist to lead the Top Tours list via multiple tours. It’s rare enough for an artist to play two tours within a year of one another, but it does happen, per recent treks by Bad Bunny and Post Malone, among others. Both tours’ setlist, personnel and staging are relatively similar, though the Trustfall Tour puts an extra accent on its namesake album.
The October Summer Carnival shows earned $30.9 million and sold 190,000 tickets, while the six Trustfall shows brought in $20.2 million and 81,100 tickets. That means that on average, P!nk’s stadium dates averaged more than twice as much revenue as her arena concerts, at $7.7 million and $3.4 million, respectively.
The transition from stadiums to arenas, particularly in North America, makes sense as the weather shifts and outdoor concerts become less viable. Still, with active stadium tours in Oceania and South America, P!nk’s monthly gold medal in (primarily) arenas is significant.
In fact, P!nk is the first artist to crown the Top Tours chart while touring arenas in 2023 – though she did so with the help of four stadium performances. Trans-Siberian Orchestra staged the last arena win in December of last year. Before that, Bad Bunny was tops in February and March of 2022, before ruling the chart in stadiums later that year.
P!nk was No. 2 in August, when she and Beyoncé became the first women to ever rank Nos. 1-2 together. She previously topped the chart in March and July of 2019, while barreling toward the end of the Beautiful Trauma World Tour. That trek grossed $397.3 million and sold 3.1 million tickets, standing tall as the third highest-grossing tour by a woman in the Boxscore archives, behind Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour ($579.8 million in 2023) and Madonna’s Sticky & Sweet Tour ($407.7 million in 2008-09).
P!nk is one of just three woman-identifying acts to lead the Top Tours chart. She follows Beyoncé, who ran the ranking in four of the previous five months. Plus, the Spice Girls were No. 1 in June 2019. Both in terms of unique artists, and in total months, women have been No. 1 for less than 20% of the time since the monthly chart premiered.
Including the Summer Carnival Tour from earlier this year, and current through the Nov. 14 Trustfall show in Miami, P!nk has grossed $309.4 million and sold just over 2 million tickets in 2023.
Eight of P!nk’s October dates appear on the Top Boxscores chart, at No. 7 with $9 million from Las Vegas’ Allegiant Stadium on Oct. 7, and at No. 10 with $8.1 million from the SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif. on Oct. 5. Unsurprisingly, the stadium shows come up first, even above double-header arena engagements in San Francisco and Kansas City.
Top Boxscores is led by RBD. The Latin pop group grossed $19.5 million over four nights at Los Angeles’ BMO Stadium (Oct. 18-20, 22). Without any other reported shows in October, it’s enough to make the venue No. 1 on Top Stadiums.
Those dates power RBD’s No. 2 finish on Top Tours with $39.4 million overall, scoring a second consecutive month in the runner-up position. Through Nov. 19, the Soy Rebelde Tour has grossed $182.6 million and sold 1.1 million. It’ll likely cross $200 million before the end of the year, becoming the second tour by a Latin act to ever do so. Bad Bunny’s World’s Hottest Tour grossed $314.1 million last year.
Last month, RBD joined Beyoncé, Coldplay, Drake and Morgan Wallen in the top five, making the most genre-diverse top five ever. October’s ranking isn’t quite as spread-out – SZA and The Weeknd double up for R&B, and Luis Miguel adds more Latin star-power – but it does block rock, the most traditionally steady genre on the touring circuit, from the upper echelon altogether.
Paul McCartney, the Eagles, John Mayer and Depeche Mode follow at Nos. 6-9, giving rock its due in the top 10. Still, October marks only the third month since the charts’ 2019 beginning without a rock act in the top five. Previously, KISS was held off at No. 6 in April 2019, and Elton John in the same spot in October ’19.
The Top Tours chart is spiked with four co-headline billings. Enrique Iglesias, Pitbull & Ricky Martin kicked off The Trilogy Tour on Oct. 14, earning $20.9 million from the first eight shows. Iglesias had previously toured with Pitbull and Martin, though these are the first concerts for the trio as a group. Elsewhere, Billy Joel and Stevie Nicks grossed $10.5 million from one date at Baltimore’s M&T Bank Stadium, at No. 3 on Top Boxscores.
The other two co-headline pairs are blink-and-you’ll-miss-it team-ups. Ben Gibbard pulls double duty as the lead of Death Cab for Cutie and The Postal Service, each celebrating a 20th anniversary of landmark 2003 albums. Their collaborative – or split-personality – tour brought in $11.5 million in October, finishing with a total of $22.1 million since its September kick-off.
Finally, Ms. Lauryn Hill & The Fugees are No. 30 with $7.8 million and 61,500 tickets from five shows, showcasing Hill’s run of ‘90s R&B and hip-hop, alongside Wyclef Jean and Pras. While we noted that P!nk and Beyoncé achieved a first-time top-two finish for women only a couple months ago, Hill is part of an even-more-sparse Boxscore history: She is just the second female rap artist to ever appear on the chart, following Cardi B via her co-headline appearance with Bruno Mars on the inaugural February 2019 list.
Tate McRae wrapped the sold-out Are We Flying Tour in October, but she’s busier than ever. After launching her next cycle with “Greedy,” she will be performing this weekend (Nov. 18) on NBC’s Saturday Night Live, en route to the release of the album Think Later in December. Next year, McRae takes the new album on tour on the biggest stages of her career.
The Are We Flying Tour grossed $2.2 million and sold 60,000 tickets between Sept. 5 and Oct. 15, according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore. Expect those numbers to triple (and then some) next year, as McRae levels up from clubs and small theaters to boutique amphitheaters, and in one major case, an arena.
At its most extreme, McRae’s level-up expands her audience almost five times over. After selling out Dallas’ House of Blues at 1,674 tickets on Oct. 15, she’s scheduled to play the 8,000-capacity Toyota Music Factory in July. After playing House of Blues in Boston to a crowd of 2,705 fans on Sept. 16, she’ll play two nights at the MGM Music Hall at Fenway, to a potential combined crowd of more than 10,000. Similar jumps follow in Minneapolis, Nashville and San Francisco.
Of the 16 North American markets that line up with shows from her recent tour, McRae is playing a venue at least twice the size in 12. The only market with a dip in capacity is Los Angeles: She sold out two nights at the Hollywood Palladium (7,671 tickets on Oct. 4-5) and is scheduled to play the Greek Theatre (6,162 capacity) on July 11.
While McRae could move 10,000 tickets in Boston and at the Walmart Arkansas Music Pavilion in Rogers, Ark., two markets could break 15,000. In Toronto, she’ll play the Budweiser Stage, a 16,000-capacity amphitheater that has recently hosted sold-out concerts by Morgan Wallen, Post Malone, Janet Jackson and more. Hailing from Calgary, Alberta, it’s the only home-country show on the tour.
And after clearing two nights at The Rooftop at Pier 17 (7,494 tickets on Sept. 19-20), McRae is scheduled to close out the North American leg at New York’s Madison Square Garden, which has hosted A-list pop stars from Harry Styles to Madonna. Assuming she doesn’t play in-the-round, she could sell as many as 15,000 tickets.
With every show on McRae’s 2023 tour sold out, the upgrade in 2024 is warranted. There’s also her forthcoming album, already sporting the biggest single of her career. “Greedy” is No. 11 on the Nov. 18-dated Billboard Hot 100, bringing her closer to a top 10 hit than ever before. Previously, “You Broke Me First” slow-burned its way to No. 17. She has five other Hot 100 entries to her name, including collaborations with Khalid, Troye Sivan and Tiesto.
And while McRae can anticipate tripling her North American audience, and potentially expand her grosses further with accelerated demand, The Think Later World Tour will be her first major trip outside North America. The trek begins with 25 shows in Europe and ends with nine in Australia and New Zealand.
Without any Boxscore history on either continent, projections are tricky. But McRae’s international chart history bodes well for her live prospects. While “You Broke Me First” clawed its way to the top 20 of the Hot 100 in March of 2021, it got there five months sooner on the global stage, reaching No. 17 on the Billboard Global Excl. U.S. list in October 2020, and then peaking at No. 15 in November. Further, “Greedy” has spent its first eight weeks on the Global Excl. U.S. chart in the top 10, returning to its so-far high of No. 3 this week. On Billboard’s Hits of the World chart, “Greedy” already hit No. 1 in Australia, Austria, Denmark, Luxembourg, Norway, and the Netherlands. It’s a top 10 hit in 16 more territories.
Live Nation will promote the Think Later World Tour, with Presley Regier as support in North America, and charlieonafriday in Europe and Australia.
McRae, who is the latest Billboard cover star, is set to perform for the 2023 Billboard Music Awards, which streams Sunday (Nov. 19) at 8 p.m. ET via BBMAs.watch and the Billboard and the BBMAs’ social channels.
From Jay-Z to Nicki Minaj and beyond, here are the highest grossing artists, according to Billboard Boxscore.
Yet again, Beyoncé crowns Billboard’s monthly Boxscore recap. According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, the Renaissance World Tour grossed $121.9 million and sold 476,000 tickets across nine shows in September.
This is the third consecutive month, and fourth overall, that Beyoncé has crowned Top Tours. That ties her with Bad Bunny for the second-most since the charts’ launch in February 2019, only behind Elton John’s seven. And while he, Bad Bunny, The Rolling Stones and others have achieved back-to-back wins, Queen Bey is the first act to go three-in-a-row.
It’s also her third consecutive month north of $100 million, after setting all-time monthly record with $179.3 million in August.
In addition to this monthly chart feat, Billboard previously reported upon Beyoncé’s Oct. 1 finale that The Renaissance World Tour is the highest-grossing tour by a woman, by a Black artist and by any American soloist in the Boxscore archives. Between its May 10 kickoff in Stockholm and its recent closing show in Kansas City, the tour grossed $579.8 million and sold 2.8 million tickets, making it the biggest of her career, and the seventh highest grossing trek of all time.
September is Beyoncé’s second month at No. 1 on Top Boxscores. After reigning in July with two shows at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium, she claims the crown with three shows on the opposite coast. Playing SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif. (Los Angeles area) on Sept. 1-2 and 4, the Renaissance World Tour brought in $45.5 million and sold 156,000 tickets.
More, Beyoncé follows herself at No. 2 with two hometown shows at Houston’s NRG Stadium. Those, on Sept. 23-24, grossed $31.3 million and sold 123,000 tickets. Though more than 30% off from her SoFi shows, the weekend in Houston earned more than double its next closest competition.
Depeche Mode’s trio of dates at Mexico City’s Foro Sol took in $15.4 million, leading a group of 13 reports between $10-15 million. Three of those 13 come from Beyoncé herself, at Nos. 6, 8 and 12.
While Beyoncé is one of a growing group of solo women who have shifted the make-up of Boxscore’s top earners in the last several months, she is one of just three on September’s Top Tours. P!nk follows at No. 6 with $30.2 million from a handful of North American stadium shows as part of the Summer Canival tour. Elsewhere, Lady Gaga is No. 29 with $11.1 million from eight dates as part of her Jazz & Piano residency at MGM’s Dolby Live in Las Vegas.
While these women make up just 10% of the acts on the chart, their grosses combine to 22% of the top 30’s combined earnings, in large part due to Beyoncé’s giant haul.
Notably, RBD adds to the gender shift, at No. 2. The Mexican pop group reunited with five of its six original members – three women and two men – to winning results. Through Oct. 1, the Soy Rebelde Tour has earned $90.2 million, $65.7 million on which came from shows in October. That’s more than the group’s entire concert revenues from before reuniting, from 2005-08.
The upper echelon of this month’s rankings is notably diverse. Morgan Wallen, Drake and Coldplay round out the top five spots on Top Tours, adding country, rap and rock to RBD’s Latin pop and Beyoncé’s mix of pop, R&B and dance music. In 39 editions of the Top Tours chart, this is the first time that each of the top five acts represent different genres.
While Beyoncé’s nine-figure haul includes revenue from her Sept. 11 show in Vancouver, Wallen gives Canada a spotlight among his September dates. Ten out of his 13 concerts were above the border, making up 61% of his total monthly earnings. Those include three in Toronto (Sept. 14-16; $7.2 million; 47,800 tickets) and others in Montreal (Sept. 23; $3.1 million; 15,200) and Calgary (Sept. 30; $2.9 million; 13,600).
After Wallen’s $25.8 million in Canada, Coldplay follows with $9.2 million from two shows in Vancouver, before Beyoncé with $7.9 million from her own Vancouver date. Ten other acts among September’s top 30 played shows in Canada, from Ed Sheeran and Guns N’ Roses in the top 20, to Lionel Richie and Marco Antonio Solis at Nos. 28 and 30, respectively.
While the stacked grosses by Beyoncé, RBD and others are certainly worth celebrating, September’s overall figures are record-breaking, well beyond the top-earning tours. For the first time since the charts launched, all 30 tours grossed more than $10 million, down to Solis’ $10.9 million. Previously, June ’23 set the high-mark with 27 tours.
September’s eight-figure treks go well beyond the top 30, in fact, with another eight artists above the benchmark. Fuerza Regida just misses the chart cut-off with $10.8 million, while Lana Del Rey ($10.7 million), The Postal Service & Death Cab for Cutie ($10.6 million) and blink-182 ($10.4 million), among others, follow.
Still looking at the big picture, though slightly zoomed in, Live Nation crowns Top Promoters, yet again. With over 8.4 million tickets sold in September, the concert giant has reported grosses of more than $1 billion for the first time.
After repeated monthly triumphs, a series of broken records and 39 cities turned to mute, Beyoncé closed out the Renaissance World Tour on Oct. 1. According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, the tour grossed $579.8 million and sold 2.8 million tickets across 56 shows in North America and Europe.
In a vacuum, those are massive numbers. And in the context of Boxscore’s nearly 40-year history, they are monumental. The Renaissance World Tour is the highest grossing tour by a woman, by a Black artist and by any American soloist.
Among women and domestic solo acts, Beyoncé passes Madonna’s Sticky & Sweet Tour, which broke ground upon its 2009 finale with $407.7 million. Among Black acts, she replaces herself atop the heap, exceeding The Formation World Tour’s 2016 gross of $256.1 million by a margin of 2.26 to 1. In the interim, The Weeknd’s ongoing After Hours Til Dawn Tour has slid in the middle, with a gross of $305.9 million as of Sept. 30.
Doubling her previous peak – already a towering high that topped Boxscore’s 2016 year-end round-up – and digging deep into the record books, Beyoncé breaks the top 10 highest grossing tours of all time, hitting No. 7. She’s barely blocked by Guns N’ Roses’ Not in This Lifetime… Tour, which earned $584.2 million from 2016-19, and ahead of The Rolling Stones’ A Bigger Bang Tour, which brought in $558 million from 2005-07.
Notably, those tours ran for four years and three years, respectively. In fact, the Renaissance World Tour is the only one among the all-time top 10 to take place within one calendar year. At 56 shows, it played for roughly half the length of all-timers by Coldplay, The Rolling Stones and U2; about one fifth of Ed Sheeran’s The Divide Tour; and one sixth of Elton John’s Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour.
Post-pandemic-era ticketing practices such as dynamic pricing and primary market resale have allowed fan demand to push an artist’s market value higher than ever before. The Renaissance World Tour averaged $253 a ticket, allowing grosses to bloom quicker than her fellow all-time leaders.
The next highest one-year earner is Taylor Swift’s Reputation Stadium Tour, which brought in $345.7 million in 2018. Coincidentally, Beyoncé and Swift have shared a very bright spotlight this year, as their concurrent treks have dominated headlines and boosted economies. Official numbers have yet to be reported for The Eras Tour, but it’ll likely join the Renaissance World Tour in this vaulted space.
In speeding to the all-time top 10, Beyoncé maintained a breathtaking pace from May through October. The Renaissance World Tour earned $141.8 million and sold more than a million tickets from 21 shows in Europe. (Previous reports cited $154 million, but official numbers have since been adjusted.) That evens out to $6.8 million and just under 50,000 tickets (49,873) per show.
Though those averages were already the highest of any leg of any Beyoncé tour, (much) bigger business awaited across the pond. Her 35 Renaissance shows in the U.S. and Canada averaged $12.5 million each night. In all, the North American leg earned $438 million, alone enough to break the global touring records referenced above.
Three shows at the SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif. (Los Angeles area), earned $45.5 million and sold 156,000 tickets. That makes it the sixth-highest grossing engagement in Boxscore history. Like the tour it was a part of, it’s the biggest reported Boxscore for a woman, Black artist and American soloist. And like its parent tour, it reaches its all-time status with brevity. The five higher-grossing engagements range from a six-night stay at London’s Wembley Stadium for Coldplay to Harry Styles’ 15-show mini-residency at New York’s Madison Square Garden.
The tour follows Renaissance, Beyoncé’s latest solo LP. The set debuted atop the Billboard 200 last year and spawned two top 10s on the Billboard Hot 100 – “Break My Soul,” which became her seventh No. 1 hit, and “Cuff It,” which became her longest-charting song on the tally earlier this year. Renaissance and both singles won Grammy awards at this year’s ceremony, making her the most awarded singer in Grammy history.
And while the Renaissance World Tour has come to a close, its lifespan hasn’t ended just yet. Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé opens in theaters on Dec. 1, distributed directly by AMC Theaters.
Across her 20-year solo career, Beyoncé has grossed more than $1.3 billion and sold 11.6 million tickets, including her portion of co-headline runs with Jay-Z, and Alicia Keys and Missy Elliott.
Gone is the typical start and stop of touring cycles. Releasing an album and going on tour every few years can make for a simple structure for a pop star career, but particularly in the post-pandemic era, artists are blurring multiple albums into one tour. Or, after postponing a tour for a couple years due to COVID, some are ending their originally scheduled treks and then jumping into a new one the following year.
But no one is doing it quite like P!nk: After wrapping 41 stadium dates on Monday, she’s hitting pause on Summer Carnival only to kick off an entirely separate arena tour on Thursday night (Oct. 12).
So far, according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, P!nk’s Summer Carnival has grossed $257.6 million and sold 1.8 million tickets across 41 shows. (P!nk will play a makeup date at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, on Nov. 26 before the Summer Carnival resumes Feb. 9 in Sydney for a sweep of 20 shows in Australia and New Zealand.)
Summer Carnival began with 19 shows in Europe, bringing in $106.8 million from 871,000 tickets. The run was highlighted by two shows at London’s Hyde Park on June 24-25, earning $20.9 million and selling 130,000 tickets. Just behind The Rolling Stones’ $22.4 million, it’s the biggest gross by an American act or by a soloist in the venue’s storied history.
Just over the pond, P!nk flew Stateside for a $150.7 million run in the U.S. and Canada, selling 914,000 tickets. Boston and Philadelphia earned double-header status, claiming the North American leg’s tallest tallies. Two shows at Fenway Park (July 31-Aug. 1) grossed $13.6 million and sold 78,000 tickets, while two at Philly’s Citizens Bank Park topped out at $14.2 million and 93,000.
Not only were those the two biggest engagements on P!nk’s recent domestic run, they are the biggest continental engagements of her entire career. It’s not surprising, given this was her first stint in North American stadiums, after leveling up in Europe on the Beautiful Trauma World Tour in 2019.
The upcoming run in Oceania will be P!nk’s first try in stadiums over there, but one needn’t worry. On past tours, she’s stuck to arenas but played several shows in each city, sticking around for 18 nights in Melbourne on 2013’s The Truth About Love Tour. That equaled 235,000 tickets in the market, leaving more than enough room for multiple stadiums per city for the February-March leg.
But before we get there, P!nk has a 20-date arena trek. Consider Summer Carnival to be her grand reintroduction after a four-year gap since the Beautiful Trauma World Tour, while the impending start of the Trustfall Tour acts as the true celebration of its namesake album, released in February. Kicking off Thursday night in Sacramento and wrapping Nov. 19 in Orlando, it’s expected to earn more than $70 million and sell more than 300,000 tickets, according to promoter Live Nation.
Within 12 months, P!nk will have played three legs of Summer Carnival, all while squeezing in an entirely separate tour with the Trustfall shows. It’s likely to be the biggest year of her touring career, exceeding the $397.3 million from the Beautiful Trauma World Tour in 2018-19. When that wrapped, it was one of the 10 highest-grossing tours in Boxscore history. Edged out by recent runs by Elton John, Harry Styles and others, P!nk’s all-time stature continues to rise, as her career gross climbs to $973.6 million and total attendance just under 9 million. When it’s all said and done, Billboard projects she’ll be the newest member of two elite Boxscore clubs, blowing past $1 billion and 10 million tickets.