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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.
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.
After announcing that he’ll be back on the road after seven years with his Importante Tour 2025-2026, Miguel Bosé is preparing to return to the United States next fall, with seven dates in as many cities.
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Ahead of his U.S. dates, Bosé will launch the trek in February in Mexico and will travel across Spain in the summer.
The U.S. leg of the tour, produced by Live Nation, is set to launch on Oct. 2 in New York City at The Theater at Madison Square Garden, according to a press release sent in advance to Billboard. The Spanish pop icon will also make stops in Rosemont, Ill.; Irving and Houston, Texas; and San Diego and Inglewood, Calif., where the trek will conclude on Nov. 8 at the YouTube Theater.
A presale for Citi card members starts Tuesday (Dec. 17) at 10 a.m. ET and ends Thursday (Dec. 19) at 10 p.m. ET through the program Citi Entertainment, with general tickets going on sale Friday (Dec. 20) at 10 a.m. local time at miguelbose.com. There will also be VIP packages available for purchase here.
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After dealing with voice issues that kept him away from the stage for several years, Bosé announced his Importante Tour 2025-2026 on Nov. 18 through a series of posts on social media.
“It’s the reborn BOSÉ. It’s the fully matured BOSÉ. It’s the warrior of the NEW ERA, the family man, the CONSCIOUS, the CONNECTED, the SPIRITUAL. It’s the IMPORTANT one,” he wrote.
A month earlier, on Oct. 18, Bosé hinted that something big was coming by posting a video on Instagram featuring his perennial song “Bandido” as the soundtrack.
“Fantastic. We are all happy, and it will be an honor,” he said at the end of the clip, which included a collage of images of him smiling, posing in a photo shoot, and singing live at past massive shows.
With more than 30 million albums sold throughout a five decades career, Bosé is one of the most recognized Latin pop artists globally. On the Billboard charts, he has placed hits like “Nena,” “Morena Mía,” and “Como un Lobo” on Hot Latin Songs and Latin Airplay, and multiple albums in the top 10 of the Top Latin Albums ranking, including Papito, Cardio, and Papitwo.
Bosé’s influence extends beyond music. Awarded with accolades such as the Latin Recording Academy 2013 Person of the Year, the Global Gift Humanitarian Award and Telemundo’s El Poder en Ti, as a philanthropist, Bosé is deeply involved in causes such as Patrimonio Indígena Mex, Fundación Lucha Contra el Sida, and National Geographic’s Pristine Seas.
Check out the dates and venues announced in the U.S. for Bosé’s Importante Tour 2025-2026:
Oct. 2: The Theater at Madison Square Garden (New York City)Oct. 4: Kaseya Center (Miami)Oct. 11: Rosemont Theatre (Rosemont, Ill.)Oct. 24: The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory (Irving, Texas)Oct. 25: Smart Financial Centre at Sugar Land (Houston)Nov. 7: Cal Coast Credit Union Open Air Theatre (San Diego)Nov. 8: YouTube Theater (Inglewood, Calif.)
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Three more accusers who are male have come forward with sexual assault lawsuits against Diddy, who wants to “seek sanctions” on other lawsuits.
On Thursday (Dec. 12), three more male accusers filed sexual assault lawsuits against Diddy in New York’s Supreme Court. The plaintiffs all allege that Diddy drugged them and then sodomized them in incidents that took place from 2019 to 2022. These new suits add to the over 30 suits already filed against the embattled mogul.
Each of the three allegations made comes with certain nuanced differences – one of the accusers claimed that the alleged rape was filmed by Diddy’s associates and that he was paid $2,500. The others did not mention receiving any payoff after their attacks. Two of the accusers alleged that they were raped in hotel suites – one of them claiming that their attack took place at the Park Hyatt Hotel in Manhattan, where Diddy was apprehended by federal agents in September. The other plaintiff alleged that he was drugged and woke up to Diddy sodomizing him along with other Bad Boy Records members at one of his parties in the Hamptons.
In an interview with the BBC, the attorney representing the accusers, Thomas Giuffra, said that nearly 60 people reached out to his office wishing to file complaints against Diddy, aka Sean Combs. He said that he and his team reviewed the allegations made by each, then proceeded to move forward with the three cases, shielding the accusers’ identities for fear of reprisal from Diddy.
“These complaints are full of lies. We will prove them false and seek sanctions against every unethical lawyer who filed fictional claims against him,” lawyers for Diddy said after the new lawsuits were filed. Diddy is currently incarcerated at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn awaiting his trial on charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, and transportation to engage in prostitution. The trial is set for May 2025.
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.
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Cardi B is not letting up on Tasha K. The rapper says the blogger is avoiding paying her with a bankruptcy filing.
As spotted on TMZ the Bronx, New York native is not taking no for an answer when it comes to her settlement. The “Bodak Yellow” performer sued Tasha K for defamation after the media personality made several videos claiming Cardi had contracted a sexually transmitted disease and other shocking allegations relating to her short stint as an exotic dancer. After a two-week trial the Tasha K was found liable for “defamation, two other forms of wrongdoing, invasion of privacy through portrayal in a false light, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.” As a result she was ordered to pay Cardi B $1.25 million dollars in damages and cover her legal fees.
Since then the popular YouTuber has filed for bankruptcy, claims she is financially tapped out and doesn’t have to means to make good on the debt. Becalis’ legal team aren’t buying her crocodile tears and infer that she could be potentially hiding her assets in offshore accounts. Cardi B’s lawyers came with receipts and point to the Tasha K’s newest apartment rental which costs about $7,000 a month. Also in the court documents are references to her Instagram account where the woman born LaTasha Kebe can be seen sporting designer fabrics and expensive jewelry.
Country fans can celebrate the end of 2024 with Jon Pardi! NHL and TNT are set to host Barnburner, a hockey-focused fan experience on Dec. 31 in celebration of the 2025 Discover NHL Winter Classic, with Pardi as the headliner. The event, which takes place around Chicago’s Wrigley Field, will take place from noon to […]
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
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