Music

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.

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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