genre pop

Earlier this month, Chappell Roan wrapped a brief run of concerts in the United States, paired with a few European dates in August. The Visions of Damsels & Dangerous Other Things Tour complemented Roan’s ongoing sweep of dominant festival performances over the last year and a half, cementing her as one of her generation’s fastest-growing live acts. She finished her recent tour, her only headline shows for 2025, playing to crowds of 30,000 and more, marking an eye-openingly fast rise to the biggest venues in the world.

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According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, Roan’s 11 headline shows in 2025 grossed $28.3 million and sold 276,000 tickets. They split between three overseas and eight in the United States. Some of the shows were in arenas and amphitheaters: Zurich’s Hallenstadion (12,539 tickets) and New York’s Forest Hills Stadium, which despite its name, is significantly smaller than a typical football or baseball stadium (53,458 tickets, spread across four shows). The others escalated her reach in Edinburgh, Kansas City, and Los Angeles.

Two nights at Royal Highland Centre in Edinburgh, Scotland drew 60,000 fans, averaging 30,000 per show. Two dates at Kansas City’s Liberty Memorial Park sold 69,600 tickets, averaging 34,800. The final two concerts, at Brookside Park at The Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif., moved 80,000 tickets, eclipsing 40,000 each night.

These venues are flat parks that recreate the sprawling crowd shots of Roan’s famed festival performances, more so than a typical football stadium with its enclosed stadium-style seating. But the number of tickets sold is comparable to any baseball stadium in the United States and far exceeds – roughly doubles – the capacity of an arena show.

These stadium-sized Boxscore figures elevate Roan even beyond the startling heights of her 2024. Her North American headline shows from last year broke into three legs. She averaged 2,083 tickets per show while performing one-offs during her opening stint on Olivia Rodrigo’s GUTS World Tour (Feb. – April). In May and June, following the release of breakout hit “Good Luck, Babe!,” she paced 3,581 tickets. By October, she was up to 10,179. One year later, Roan sold 25,389 tickets per show, ranging from 13,365 in New York to 40,010 in Los Angeles.

All of that growth, and all of these fans, with just one album under her belt. Selling out stadiums is a career-capping accomplishment for any artist, but almost an unfathomable one just two years removed from the release of one’s debut LP. The umbrella of stadium acts has grown wider in the years since returning from the COVID-19 blackout, but Roan’s supercharged ascent is still quite notable.

Zach Bryan first elevated to stadiums in 2024, almost exactly two years after he cracked the Billboard 200 with American Heartbreak. But his discography expanded by the time he played Oakland’s RingCentral Coliseum, with two more top 10 albums and four other charting titles. Fellow country chart-topper Morgan Wallen played one such show in 2021, three years and two albums deep.

Global stadium schedules have also welcomed younger artists who don’t primarily perform in English, specifically Latin and Korean acts. Still, all of them had meatier discographies than Roan’s to fill out their stadium setlists: Bad Bunny released three albums in three years before his stadium debut. Karol G and SEVENTEEN each had four albums in seven years. TWICE had six entries on the Billboard 200, all between 2020-23, before reporting a stadium show. By the time Fred again.. announced similarly eye-popping stadium shows, he had a few albums to his name.

Closer to Roan stylistically, Lady Gaga hit Mexico City’s Foro Sol (now called Estadio GNP Seguros) in May 2011, ending The Monster Ball in stadiums a year and a half after beginning it in theaters. Still, she had two top 10 albums and was weeks away from releasing her third. The year before, Taylor Swift also capped her debut headline tour at a stadium, but she was supporting her sophomore set Fearless, which won the Grammy for album of the year months prior.

Perhaps Peso Pluma comes closest to mirroring Roan’s timeline to stadiums. He played Monterrey, Mexico’s Estadio Mobil Super in November 2023, about 15 months after his first Billboard chart appearance. Even so, Genesis, his breakthrough album from 2023, was his third. J-Hope, JIN, and SUGA each hit at least one stadium on their first tours, but their history as part of BTS surely added depth to their respective ticket-buying bases.

Clearly, Roan has built a large, dedicated fan base from just one album. After first debuting on the Billboard 200 and Billboard Hot 100 in April 2024, she jumped from clubs to theaters to festivals, and then to solo headline stadium-sized engagements, all in the span of less than 18 months. Her recent tour was brief but mighty, leaving little to the imagination as to her potential box office success whenever her next shows are announced, whichever venues she decides to play.

Billboard‘s Live Music Summit will be held in Los Angeles on Nov. 3. For tickets and more information, click here.