Top 10 Highest Grossing Concert Tours Ever

There’s nothing like the thrill of live music. The euphoria of connecting with your favorite artist in a giant room filled with like-minded people is powerful enough to make you forget about the exorbitant ticket prices, the ridiculously long bathroom lines, and even the $16 beers. In a digital world where it’s easy to feel lonely and isolated, concerts are more important than ever.

They’re also big business, as evidenced by this roundup of the 10 highest-grossing concert tours of all time (as of August 2024). The list includes some veteran rockers, a couple of pop superstars, and two very powerful women whose influence transcends music. You can probably guess their names.

It took just 58 shows in North America and Europe for The Rolling Stones to gross more than a half-billion dollars. The No Filter Tour started in 2017 and lasted until November 2021 due to COVID-19. Sadly, it marked the end of the road for drummer Charlie Watts, who died on August 24, 2021, at the age of 80.

This lucrative two-year outing for The Rolling Stones included two nights at the Beacon Theater in New York City—filmed by Martin Scorsese for the concert film Shine a Light—and the halftime performance at Super Bowl XL in Detroit. In 2006, the Stones also played one of the biggest free shows of all time, rocking 1.5 million people at Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro.

Queen Bey needed just 56 shows in 2023 to land herself on the list of all-time touring champs. Notably, she’s the only Black performer in the Top 10, and she’s one of only two women.

At long last, classic-era Guns N’ Roses members Axl Rose, Slash, and Duff McKagan settled their differences and decided to go make a lot of money. The Not in This Lifetime… tour spanned more than three years, and while it wound up being a huge success, it got off to a rocky start: Axl broke his foot prior to the second show in Las Vegas and had to perform in a special throne Dave Grohl had previously used when he suffered a broken leg.

Originally slated to start in 2020 but postponed due to the pandemic, Harry Styles’s Love On Tour lasted nearly two years and coincided with the promotion of two different albums: 2019’s Fine Line and 2022’s Harry House. The tour included a pair of memorable Halloween gigs at New York City’s Madison Square Garden where Harry dressed up like a clown and Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz.

When you’ve been in the game as long as U2, the challenge is finding new ways to keep fans coming back for more. For U2 360°, the Irish rockers played in the round on a 164-foot structure nicknamed “The Claw.” According to Rolling Stone, it was twice as large as the stage the Stones constructed for their A Bigger Band Tour, which held the previous record for biggest stadium stage set. U2 360° became the highest-grossing tour of all time—until the next one on our list bested it.

In August 2019, with 12 dates remaining, The ÷ (Divide) Tour surpassed U2 360° as the highest-grossing concert tour of all time. As The Guardian reported, Sheeran brought his poppy folk-rock stylings to smaller audiences—an average attendance of 34,541, compared to U2’s 66,091—and sold tickets for 14.2 percent lower than U2 did. He made up the difference by playing more shows—255 in all.

Sir Elton John sold 6 million tickets and came this close to topping a billion dollars with his triumphant farewell tour. Along the way, John rocked the legendary Glastonbury Festival with a performance billed as his last ever in the UK.

Environmentally conscious rockers Coldplay worked with BMW to develop the “world’s first rechargeable show battery,” which helped to power their super-lucrative Music of the Spheres World Tour. Chris Martin and company also promised to plant one tree for every ticket sold. For a while, Music of the Spheres was parked behind Elton’s farewell on the list of highest-grossing tours, but Billboard announced on August 16, 2024, that Coldplay had moved into second place.

In December 2023—with plenty of dates still to come—Taylor Swift’s career-spanning Eras Tour became the first tour to top a billion dollars in gross revenue. If there had been any doubt, the tour solidified Swift’s status as the most famous person on the planet. Between the friendship bracelets and surprise song sets, the 3.5-plus-hour shows quickly became the stuff of legend, and when she released Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour on the big screen in October 2023, it naturally became the highest-grossing concert film of all time.

Source: MentalFloss, GettyImages, The Guardian, RollingStone, Billboard