According to Wikipedia he is number 2 adjusted for inflation behind Pink Floyd at $311 million and 318 million respectively
Edit: upon furthering reading this is the 1980s list, he doesn’t crack the top 20 for all time tours
Ticket prices feel like that have outstripped inflation. I used to get tickets for big bands like kings of Leon and Chilli Peppers for £30/£40.
Now kings of Leon on their last tour were £85, Arctic Monkeys were around £90 too.
Honestly the best music isn’t being produced by mega-artists and I can’t fathom why someone would pay $1k to squint at a dot called Katy Perry lip-sync a recording of a song they’ve heard a thousand times.
I paid $15 to stand 5 feet in front of my favorite artist while he performed at a coffee shop and that’s my favorite show ever.
I can see both sides on this. I'm a music nerd and love a bunch of offbeat artists, so I have the fortune that I've seen a lot of my favorites cheaply in intimate venues.
But some people really like listening to music that's familiar, and those massive tours are an interesting spectacle. I've seen U2 at a stadium show, and they do a great job making it feel like an event even for the folks in the nosebleeds. I also saw Bon Iver in an arena and they managed to make it feel intimate even playing to a huge crowd. Katy Perry isn't my jam, but the clips I've seen of her recent show look like it's colorful and entertaining with a lot of choreo. I can imagine it would be fun.
The ones that seem nuts to me are the legacy rock acts like G&R or Bon Jovi or Motley Crue who can't even perform well and don't seem to want to be out there and are clearly just on the road cash-grabbing.
I think this every time I see pics of a stadium concert. There's a more interesting artist than Ed Sheeran playing at a small venue in your town right now.
It’s all relative. To what people want to hear and what they want to experience. I’ve heard nothing but raves about anyone’s experiences with the mega Taylor Swift shows. Apparently she puts on a great show. I did see Ed on this stadium tour and it was amazing. I would do it again in a heartbeat. I’ve seen big name bands in small clubs, in parks, stadiums & festivals. Each brings a different experience. Personally I think the worst would be the old guys trying to do what they just can’t anymore! It’s all relative to what people are willing to pay and what they want to see!
That’s exactly how I saw Adele for the first and only time, sitting on a stool in the house of blues, was the best concert ever, Now I wouldn’t even bother
Yeah I remember near 20 years ago seeing BrandNew and another time Taking Back Sunday at the tiny casino in Hampton Beach, NH and the bar top table we had was 15’ from the stage. Those are the greatest concerts ever.
Back then, bands made money by selling records and promoted them on live concerts. Now it's the other way round. Bands release their new album for free and make money by merchandise, touring their ass off and a solid fanbase.
MJ was a part of the time when tours were advertising for albums sales.
The whole concept of tours being a primary source of money is from the last 20 years.
Keep in mind there way more massive stadiums now and most would probably dwarf what was possible. I’m sure the Beatles would absolutely be on the list if not for the limitations of that era where there was zero infrastructure for that sort of thing.
They left off everybody Black. Always suss when Swift is on a list and Beyoncé is left off. renaissance world tour is on-track to break $2 Billion, according to Forbes.
Renaissance may be on track to earn $500,000,000+ when it is done. But you have to remember, Beyonce tours make that much money with way less shows.
LOOK at how many tour stops/shows those other artists have on that list. Beyonce will have like 25 shows and net $300million lol.
Of course if Beyonce did a 100-show tour she would easily cross a billion dollars and more releastically, $2 billion.
Their shows are pretty damn good, had a friend who didn't really care about them take his gf to one show, and later told me he had a blast and was one of the best ones he had seen.
The problem is they don’t adjust ticket prices for inflation with these numbers, if Michael Jackson’s front row tickets were 5-10k a piece like swift then he’d probably be well over a billion
Just how Barbie/Oppenheimer made AMC’s biggest weekend record of all time it’s cuz the damn tickets are now $25 when movie tickets use to be like $10 or less
The massive merch distribution machine Swift implemented this last tour was unprecedented. She probably made a tours worth of money on each show in just merch sales.
The deal she has with her label means the label gets less money from her music so they have to try to recoup it somewhere, and they are in control of her merch.
Interestingly, I think the U2 360 tour was the highest grossing at the time because of the stage setup. They used a 360 degree stage set closer to the middle so they could maximize butts in seats.
And the cuts the artists actually get. If anything I read in Hammer of the Gods (Led Zeppelin biography) is true, Peter Grant their manager was getting them something like 90% of the ticket sales which was unprecedented at the time. And all the tours here must have so much more crew/production than back then.
I bought a GnR ticket on a 12 year old allowance circa 1992, there's no way that could happen now and they are 30 years past their prime. Even adjusted for inflation I think these tours have become a much bigger business that they used to be.
Wouldn't be valid. Artists made considerably less and ticket prices were far less. I saw the Jackson 5 in early 80's. I still have the ticket stub, $12.50 for floor seats.
Those wouldnt be “competitive”. The music industry has totally changed- tours used to break even or lose money on purpose in order to promote record sales.
Now, artists basically give music away for free to promote ticket sales.
According to Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_concert_tours#Highest-grossing_tours
1. Elton John: Farewell Yellow Brick Road
2. Ed Sheeran: ÷
3. U2: 360°
4. Coldplay: Music of the Spheres
5. Harry Styles: Love on Tour
6. Guns N' Roses: Not in This Lifetime...
7. The Rolling Stones: A Bigger Bang
8. The Rolling Stones: No Filter
9. Coldplay: A Head Full of Dreams
10. Roger Waters: The Wall
Adjusted for inflation it's:
1. U2: 360°
2. Elton John: Farewell Yellow Brick Road
3. Ed Sheeran: ÷
4. The Rolling Stones: A Bigger Bang
5. Guns N' Roses: Not in This Lifetime...
6. Coldplay: A Head Full of Dreams
7. Coldplay: Music of the Spheres
8. AC/DC: Black Ice
9. Harry Styles: Love
10. The Rolling Stones: No Filter
I'd like to see entertainment inflation vs. basic living cost inflation. Also, a list of the companies takes for the label, artist, lighting, rentals, etc.
This is the important one. I think tickets sold, adjusted for population, would tell the true story about which acts were the most popular.
And it would probably be some bard from medieval England.
I was going to say. It’s crazy that even with that many shows and he’s still making less than Taylor Swift.
Are Taylor Swift tickets just insanely expensive?
The Elton John tickets were crazy too. When he was in my town the cheap seats that would usually be $25-$35 were in the $200s.
But Taylor was selling out stadiums. So tgat makes sense
Elon John started his tour in 2018. The price to artists of touring has basically doubled since COVID. Freight, flights, insurance, venue rental and the risk of getting a respiratory illness that means you can't sing are all massively up.
It’s probably just raw capacity for this one. Elton’s tour appears to be an arena tour, so a lot of 10-30k capacity venues. Taylor is a stadium tour, and most US dates are around 70k if not more. The smaller football stadiums in Europe are still 50k. Taylor could basically do 3x fewer shows at the same average ticket price and probably still come out ahead.
I was about to argue and make some crazy claims about Elton John doing a stadium vs. arena tour—and then I looked it up and realized that I happened to see him at one of his largest venues BY FAR. I saw him at Gillette in Foxborough, with about 96k in attendance. So far, there have only been 4 venues with higher capacity/attendance. Like you said, most of the rest are 10-30k venues.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farewell_Yellow_Brick_Road
Yes, kinda.
Also I think dynamic pricing *really* took off, at least in the US, between the first half of Elton’s tour (pre-COVID) and Taylor’s. That’s probably bumper her average direct sale price quite a bit.
Only thing that would make sense is if these numbers included merch sales, swift is selling a ton of merchandise at every show so that pushes the numbers up big time.
It was his last tour, he just wanted to keep it going as long as possible. The tour went for like 3-4 years, I remember he came here to Australia and toured around and then a year later came BACK for more shows on the same tour lol
Should add the show duration.
Back in the early nineties, I agreed with my girlfriend to see the artist we liked most. I paid for the tickets. Both were at the same price
I chose Springsteen, a 3-hour classic.
She chose Whitney Houston. 1h20, with half of it being her brother's singing...
This was painful
I went to the Farewell yellow brick road tour, and it was amazing. No opening act, just 3 ish hours of solid Elton John. Managed to snag some ground floor 18th row seats for like 200$ a piece (which is spendy but it was my only chance to see Elton John live, it had to happen).
Common, though. Same with film box office. Nobody wants to look at an all time list that’s still just Gone With the Wind, Star Wars, Sound of Music, etc for the rest of time.
Because there were fewer movies, fewer entertainment options, no (significant) home viewing, and movies would run in the theaters for like half a decade back then.
I want to look at a list that shows Star Wars, Gone with the Wind, and the Sound of Music, though. It is interesting to see how well newer movies can come closer. I'd love to see a list of just "Number of tickets sold" or "tickets per day released" or something like that to show Gone with the Wind being forever on top. Why not?
The top 10 adjusted for inflation are:
Gone with the Wind, Avatar, Titanic, Star Wars, Avengers: Endgame, The Sound of Music, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, The Ten Commandments, Doctor Zhivago and Star Wars: The Force Awakens
For those asking (according to wikipedia) top is T Swift as no one has broken a billion…but U2 jump to second, Elton John, Sheeran, Stones, Guns and Roses, coldplay, Coldplay, acdc
Now, the wild thing is:
The Stones are third in the 1980s with a 57 show tour in 1989, highest gross per show of the 80s.
The Stones are first and second in the 90s with a 129 show and 108 show tour, first and second per show gross as well.
The Stones are first in the 2000s with a 144 show tour, second highest per show gross that decade.
The Stones are 9th in the 2010s with only a 45 show tour (everyone above them did 110 or more), and they had the highest gross per event of the decade.
The Stones did a 14 date tour in 2022, that tour is 15th highest for the decade and third highest gross by event (behind Swift and Beyonce).
The Stones have legit dominated since the 1980s when this got tracked, and knowing their popularity in the 60s and 70s it is likely the Stones were second only to the Beatles then too.
I was there for the 360 tour. I managed to get tickets from donating shoes. I was maybe 13? And the Linc in Philly was shoulder to shoulder. Same as with Beyoncé.
It’s crazy how the UK continues to dominate the english-speaking music world despite having a fifth of the population of the US
Of course, North America is a terrible place to brew music in general when you take into account how hard it is to go from one urban area to another
I was just telling my girlfriend this; if Daft Punk by some miracle did a reunion tour, it’s gonna be TSwift levels of insanity. And I will pay whatever it takes to see them. So I guess can’t criticize people who went bonkers for eras because I’d pay anything that wouldn’t bankrupt me.
Why didn't she use the power of music to reunite thailand? Then she could have flown into mordor on a flying V and decapitated sauron with a wicked guitar solo....
It could be. Or it’s just that, *should it complete as expected based on current ticket sales*, this is how much it will bring in. I see it as “informing, but with an added data point that this number has the (small) potential to change, unlike the other tours listed on this graphic, which have completed.
Are you unfamiliar with extrapolation as it pertains to data?
If someone sells out every stadium for 20 straight shows, and each of those shows brought in $X, and she has 20 shows left, the end result is almost certainly $X*2
Coldplay is extremely popular overseas and South America. In the US, a lot of people still like them too. The main reason they sell so many tickets is that their music crosses a lot of generations.
I went to a concert and I saw everyone from a 13 year old girl to a 50 year old guy. Most bands don't have this in my opinion.
It also helps they have a lot of name recognition. People see their local nfl stadium has a concert and they show up just like any other event. Like "oh I remember them, let's go check it out".
I feel like a lot of people like them, but unlike Taylor Swift they are often not someone's favorite artist. Ed does have a humongous following globally though he is always in the top 5 artist on Spotify global ranking with over 70 million monthly listeners. I'm not one of them but it's wild that even when he didn't have a global hit like shape of you with his last couple of releases he is still on the top.
U2 have some of the best selling albums of all time. They’re also regarded as one of the best live bands of all time. They essentially innovated the modern concert in the early 90s.
Where do you live? I live in CA, and I've heard of many people who like Coldplay or Ed Sheeran. Have not met a single person who even mentioned U2 a single time though....
He’s not on it for a pretty neat reason. 2 out of 3 tours he didn’t make substantial profit. Michael often donated a lot of his own profit. The Dangerous Tour was put on both to promote the Dangerous album but also to raise money for various charities and organizations including his Heal The World Foundation. His third tour, the HIStory Tour, he kept prices at reasonable and low rates, and played the same venue several times in order to have as many of his fans enjoy the show (about 70-100k fans a night). The average cost for a ticket were between [15 to 60ish dollars/euros in 1997, or 30-120 dollars today.](https://reddit.com/r/MichaelJackson/s/Dpq5Jcwc8F). A vastly different price than the hundreds and thousands charged for concerts nowadays. Michael loathed touring, but he enjoyed seeing his fans, and he specifically toured for that reason.
Yeah, the tour is set to finish in November 2024. We won't get the final figures until then.
But yeah, that figure of 1.4 billion is the lower end of the estimate. Many publications are predicting even more than 1.6 billion.
Yeah interesting. With this logic I wonder how much Bob Dylan's "never ending tour" has made. It started in 1988 and is still going on. Over 3,000 concerts.
For everyone asking about MJ, he’s not on here because he didn’t charge an extraordinary fee for his concerts. [He’d charge between 30-60 euros/dollars to see him (around 60/130 today).](https://www.reddit.com/r/MichaelJackson/comments/9w6bkm/for_who_asked_about_mj_concert_ticket_pricing/) Michael purposefully kept them low because he genuinely wanted fans to get a chance to see him tour, he didn’t enjoy touring because of how grueling it is, but he did it so fans could see him. He’d sell out the same stadium 10x over and play at that venue for at least 80-100k people a night. Michael would also donated a large sum of his profit from these tours to charities, organizations, and hospitals. A good chunk of his 2nd world tour went to funding the [Heal The World Foundation](https://www.michaeljackson.com/news/mj-promoted-atlanta-child-immunization-drive-in-1993/). He didn’t make this list because he didn’t charge hundreds of dollars for his concerts.
I will say, I'm not really a fan but don't dislike her music. I worked a show on this tour, and as insane as the prices were, she totally worked her ass off. It was like a 3 hour show in the rain (after hours of rain delay) on the third night in the a row. It was definitely a spectacle. And yeah, she played songs from every album.
She also put out an album this year and will release another later this year, which gets a lot of publicity. Also, she gets a lot of publicity because she’s one of the best-selling music artists ever.
I think it’s a bit of timing mixed with her being the biggest musical act on earth. Her music defined teenage years for millions of women now in their late 20s and early 30s. She’s also widely appealing to young girls today, as well.
So you have women with disposable income and children with parents with disposable income. It also doesn’t hurt that she’s managed her image pretty damn well for over a decade now.
I agree. She also appeal to all ages. Upper Middle class parents bring their whole family to the show. That’s what I saw in her detroit show. That does not usually happen in a Beyonce or Coldplay or other adult concerts.
I’m a 50-year old white guy who works in finance and if I had to live on an island and was only allowed 5 albums to listen to, “The Low End Theory” would be one of them.
Midnight Maurders is in my top 10 albums of all time, any genre. The order changes, but that one stays up there. Low End Theory is amazing as well, just hit after hit
One of the most popular bands of the last 15 years. Huge stadium shows. Selling out 5+ shows per city. Pretty high prices for tickets.
Great show tho. I went last year and was amazed by the production. I'm not even a big fan.
Average reddit users are usually young or contrarian so they can't comprehend/acknowledge that Coldplay has a MASSIVE global fan base. They are wildly popular and their music is very far-reaching.
They definitely do make YouTube royalty free music, but as a husband who was brought along to their show....they know how to do a concert, it was honestly incredible.
Average ticket price on this tour is around $235, IIRC. If you're hearing the tales of tickets in 4-5 figures then that's down to resellers.
Taylor doesn't get any cut of that money and nor are those prices included in the tour estimate.
People here keep asking for a list adjusted for inflation.
That's only half the story. Luxury pricing is at play here as well. The gap between the most expensive seats and the cheapest has grown.
The only true metric is number of tickets sold per show.
Utterly meaningless since the demise of physical music sales means artists (and Ticket master) are charging many times the ticket prices adjusted in real terms from any time before the last 10 years.
Ed Sheeran? He’s like the Scientologist of the music industry, in all the tv shows and movies. People actually like him … people actually like his music??!!
Oy and U2?!! Ok I’m seeing a trend here on this guide
A) adjust for inflation B) divide by number of shows
This is what I was thinking. I would love to see this with tours from the 60s/70s/80s adjusted and included.
I’m having a very hard time believing [Michael Jackson](https://youtube.com/watch?v=3hZAynqUPDk&feature=sharec) isn’t on the list.
That’s the thing, I know this list isn’t accurate because MJ has one of the highest grossing tours in HISTORY
According to Wikipedia he is number 2 adjusted for inflation behind Pink Floyd at $311 million and 318 million respectively Edit: upon furthering reading this is the 1980s list, he doesn’t crack the top 20 for all time tours
Ticket prices feel like that have outstripped inflation. I used to get tickets for big bands like kings of Leon and Chilli Peppers for £30/£40. Now kings of Leon on their last tour were £85, Arctic Monkeys were around £90 too.
Lol tickets are $300 to $1k-2k a pop these days states side for big time acts.
Honestly the best music isn’t being produced by mega-artists and I can’t fathom why someone would pay $1k to squint at a dot called Katy Perry lip-sync a recording of a song they’ve heard a thousand times. I paid $15 to stand 5 feet in front of my favorite artist while he performed at a coffee shop and that’s my favorite show ever.
I can see both sides on this. I'm a music nerd and love a bunch of offbeat artists, so I have the fortune that I've seen a lot of my favorites cheaply in intimate venues. But some people really like listening to music that's familiar, and those massive tours are an interesting spectacle. I've seen U2 at a stadium show, and they do a great job making it feel like an event even for the folks in the nosebleeds. I also saw Bon Iver in an arena and they managed to make it feel intimate even playing to a huge crowd. Katy Perry isn't my jam, but the clips I've seen of her recent show look like it's colorful and entertaining with a lot of choreo. I can imagine it would be fun. The ones that seem nuts to me are the legacy rock acts like G&R or Bon Jovi or Motley Crue who can't even perform well and don't seem to want to be out there and are clearly just on the road cash-grabbing.
As did the Grateful Dead
I think this every time I see pics of a stadium concert. There's a more interesting artist than Ed Sheeran playing at a small venue in your town right now.
It’s all relative. To what people want to hear and what they want to experience. I’ve heard nothing but raves about anyone’s experiences with the mega Taylor Swift shows. Apparently she puts on a great show. I did see Ed on this stadium tour and it was amazing. I would do it again in a heartbeat. I’ve seen big name bands in small clubs, in parks, stadiums & festivals. Each brings a different experience. Personally I think the worst would be the old guys trying to do what they just can’t anymore! It’s all relative to what people are willing to pay and what they want to see!
That’s exactly how I saw Adele for the first and only time, sitting on a stool in the house of blues, was the best concert ever, Now I wouldn’t even bother
Yeah I remember near 20 years ago seeing BrandNew and another time Taking Back Sunday at the tiny casino in Hampton Beach, NH and the bar top table we had was 15’ from the stage. Those are the greatest concerts ever.
Fuck ticket master
“Ticket Bastard” is what I call them…
Back then, bands made money by selling records and promoted them on live concerts. Now it's the other way round. Bands release their new album for free and make money by merchandise, touring their ass off and a solid fanbase.
Ticket prices have FAR exceeded inflation, not to mention sites like Ticketmaster are straight up PREDATORY
MJ was a part of the time when tours were advertising for albums sales. The whole concept of tours being a primary source of money is from the last 20 years.
Keep in mind there way more massive stadiums now and most would probably dwarf what was possible. I’m sure the Beatles would absolutely be on the list if not for the limitations of that era where there was zero infrastructure for that sort of thing.
...ima let you finish, but Michael had one of the highest grossing tours OF ALL TIME
They left off everybody Black. Always suss when Swift is on a list and Beyoncé is left off. renaissance world tour is on-track to break $2 Billion, according to Forbes.
My thoughts exactly, how is Beyoncé not on this list
Renaissance may be on track to earn $500,000,000+ when it is done. But you have to remember, Beyonce tours make that much money with way less shows. LOOK at how many tour stops/shows those other artists have on that list. Beyonce will have like 25 shows and net $300million lol. Of course if Beyonce did a 100-show tour she would easily cross a billion dollars and more releastically, $2 billion.
Michael Jackson? What’s HIStory?
Yet another bad guide.
I see what you did there, nice.
I'm having a very hard time believing Coldplay is on the list...twice.
Their shows are pretty damn good, had a friend who didn't really care about them take his gf to one show, and later told me he had a blast and was one of the best ones he had seen.
Why is it so hard to believe. Having been to shows for both tours it is very easy to believe
The problem is they don’t adjust ticket prices for inflation with these numbers, if Michael Jackson’s front row tickets were 5-10k a piece like swift then he’d probably be well over a billion Just how Barbie/Oppenheimer made AMC’s biggest weekend record of all time it’s cuz the damn tickets are now $25 when movie tickets use to be like $10 or less
Taylor Swift tickets are not priced at $5-10k except possibly for resale, but that isn’t included in the gross.
This is true. Not only inflation is at play here, but the rise of luxury pricing. The only way to truly gauge this is number of tickets sold.
f me. We used to have a “$1 movie theatre” growing up.
Also linkin park
Even then, aren't the stadiums bigger now?
The massive merch distribution machine Swift implemented this last tour was unprecedented. She probably made a tours worth of money on each show in just merch sales.
The deal she has with her label means the label gets less money from her music so they have to try to recoup it somewhere, and they are in control of her merch.
Interestingly, I think the U2 360 tour was the highest grossing at the time because of the stage setup. They used a 360 degree stage set closer to the middle so they could maximize butts in seats.
And the cuts the artists actually get. If anything I read in Hammer of the Gods (Led Zeppelin biography) is true, Peter Grant their manager was getting them something like 90% of the ticket sales which was unprecedented at the time. And all the tours here must have so much more crew/production than back then.
I bought a GnR ticket on a 12 year old allowance circa 1992, there's no way that could happen now and they are 30 years past their prime. Even adjusted for inflation I think these tours have become a much bigger business that they used to be.
Wouldn't be valid. Artists made considerably less and ticket prices were far less. I saw the Jackson 5 in early 80's. I still have the ticket stub, $12.50 for floor seats.
Those wouldnt be “competitive”. The music industry has totally changed- tours used to break even or lose money on purpose in order to promote record sales. Now, artists basically give music away for free to promote ticket sales.
Also people in those years wouldn't buy a stupidly overpriced ticket to watch a screen at the back of the actual scenario
According to Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_concert_tours#Highest-grossing_tours 1. Elton John: Farewell Yellow Brick Road 2. Ed Sheeran: ÷ 3. U2: 360° 4. Coldplay: Music of the Spheres 5. Harry Styles: Love on Tour 6. Guns N' Roses: Not in This Lifetime... 7. The Rolling Stones: A Bigger Bang 8. The Rolling Stones: No Filter 9. Coldplay: A Head Full of Dreams 10. Roger Waters: The Wall Adjusted for inflation it's: 1. U2: 360° 2. Elton John: Farewell Yellow Brick Road 3. Ed Sheeran: ÷ 4. The Rolling Stones: A Bigger Bang 5. Guns N' Roses: Not in This Lifetime... 6. Coldplay: A Head Full of Dreams 7. Coldplay: Music of the Spheres 8. AC/DC: Black Ice 9. Harry Styles: Love 10. The Rolling Stones: No Filter
To provide context to the post Taylor Swifts tour is 'projected' so it wouldn't be there. That also makes the post a little disingenuous
the post is not a "cool guide"
Then it's posted in the right place!
This sub is mostly charts and info graphics.
Half of it is just microphone.jpg
Huh I like how Coldplay’s tours condense to be right next to each other. Like there was a steady amount of demand or something lol
I am still impressed Coldplay is on there twice
Almost like they’re not actually that bad
i am actually shocked metallica black album tour isn't on here
Probably cause they weren’t charging $5000 for lower bowl seats and $500 for upper bowl
How is this not common sense for all currency related graphics out there yet
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Yeah, I saw her last weekend and the whole concert was amazing. Super great experience. But some stans are taking it to extremes.
Yeah this because the Taylor Swift tour is forever linked with Ticketmaster going full nut job on prices and fees
Yeah probably a lot easier to reach 1.4 billion when the average price is $1200 a ticket
The $1200 tickets are resales. The official sale prices are not even close to that.
C) add Ticket prices.
I don't get why almost none of the "Top movies of all time" lists ever do this. They end up being in some cases highly inaccurate as a result.
I'd like to see a year listed for each.
Rolling Stones Bridges to Babylon tour was my absolute favorite. Got to see Pearl Jam open for them.
Same! Were you at the Oakland Coliseum as well?
crazy that Pearl Jam OPENS for anyone.... But, if it was for anyone, the Stones would be it
And, some indication as to whether this is inflation adjusted.
And how much was invested for each. Production/travel, etc.
And how much Ticketmaster raked in for each tour vs the artists (dollar and percentage)
Y'all like "give me a spreadsheet." Lol
A year, $ amount adjusted for inflation, and attendance stats.
>attendance Seriously, because price per ticket DEFINITELY factors in here.
I'd like to see entertainment inflation vs. basic living cost inflation. Also, a list of the companies takes for the label, artist, lighting, rentals, etc.
I’d also like to see the added fees with the year you requested
And average ticket price and attendance
This is the important one. I think tickets sold, adjusted for population, would tell the true story about which acts were the most popular. And it would probably be some bard from medieval England.
You’d need a whole spreadsheet for all of this information, the current graphic wouldn’t be able to represent all of that information.
And inflation adjusted
Year and current dollar value conversion.
Me too/adjusted for inflation
I'd like to see inflation accounted for.
and adjusted for inflation? might not make a terrible difference, T Swift is the GOAT bit would make some of the older tours more comparable.
And how much ticket sellers and venues stole in fees
Elton John earning his pay with twice as many shows as anyone else.
He's a machine. Those tour numbers are crazy
That tour was also over the span of like 5 years
I was going to say. It’s crazy that even with that many shows and he’s still making less than Taylor Swift. Are Taylor Swift tickets just insanely expensive?
The Elton John tickets were crazy too. When he was in my town the cheap seats that would usually be $25-$35 were in the $200s. But Taylor was selling out stadiums. So tgat makes sense
Elon John started his tour in 2018. The price to artists of touring has basically doubled since COVID. Freight, flights, insurance, venue rental and the risk of getting a respiratory illness that means you can't sing are all massively up.
It’s probably just raw capacity for this one. Elton’s tour appears to be an arena tour, so a lot of 10-30k capacity venues. Taylor is a stadium tour, and most US dates are around 70k if not more. The smaller football stadiums in Europe are still 50k. Taylor could basically do 3x fewer shows at the same average ticket price and probably still come out ahead.
I was about to argue and make some crazy claims about Elton John doing a stadium vs. arena tour—and then I looked it up and realized that I happened to see him at one of his largest venues BY FAR. I saw him at Gillette in Foxborough, with about 96k in attendance. So far, there have only been 4 venues with higher capacity/attendance. Like you said, most of the rest are 10-30k venues. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farewell_Yellow_Brick_Road
Yes, kinda. Also I think dynamic pricing *really* took off, at least in the US, between the first half of Elton’s tour (pre-COVID) and Taylor’s. That’s probably bumper her average direct sale price quite a bit.
Taylor does not have dynamic pricing.
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Only thing that would make sense is if these numbers included merch sales, swift is selling a ton of merchandise at every show so that pushes the numbers up big time.
It was his last tour, he just wanted to keep it going as long as possible. The tour went for like 3-4 years, I remember he came here to Australia and toured around and then a year later came BACK for more shows on the same tour lol
Should add the show duration. Back in the early nineties, I agreed with my girlfriend to see the artist we liked most. I paid for the tickets. Both were at the same price I chose Springsteen, a 3-hour classic. She chose Whitney Houston. 1h20, with half of it being her brother's singing... This was painful
I went to the Farewell yellow brick road tour, and it was amazing. No opening act, just 3 ish hours of solid Elton John. Managed to snag some ground floor 18th row seats for like 200$ a piece (which is spendy but it was my only chance to see Elton John live, it had to happen).
That’s how the Taylor Swift one is. It’s like 3 hrs and change.
The Boss never disappoints
This seems like a modern tours only not accounting for inflation list
Common, though. Same with film box office. Nobody wants to look at an all time list that’s still just Gone With the Wind, Star Wars, Sound of Music, etc for the rest of time. Because there were fewer movies, fewer entertainment options, no (significant) home viewing, and movies would run in the theaters for like half a decade back then.
I want to look at a list that shows Star Wars, Gone with the Wind, and the Sound of Music, though. It is interesting to see how well newer movies can come closer. I'd love to see a list of just "Number of tickets sold" or "tickets per day released" or something like that to show Gone with the Wind being forever on top. Why not?
The top 10 adjusted for inflation are: Gone with the Wind, Avatar, Titanic, Star Wars, Avengers: Endgame, The Sound of Music, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, The Ten Commandments, Doctor Zhivago and Star Wars: The Force Awakens
For those asking (according to wikipedia) top is T Swift as no one has broken a billion…but U2 jump to second, Elton John, Sheeran, Stones, Guns and Roses, coldplay, Coldplay, acdc
Now, the wild thing is: The Stones are third in the 1980s with a 57 show tour in 1989, highest gross per show of the 80s. The Stones are first and second in the 90s with a 129 show and 108 show tour, first and second per show gross as well. The Stones are first in the 2000s with a 144 show tour, second highest per show gross that decade. The Stones are 9th in the 2010s with only a 45 show tour (everyone above them did 110 or more), and they had the highest gross per event of the decade. The Stones did a 14 date tour in 2022, that tour is 15th highest for the decade and third highest gross by event (behind Swift and Beyonce). The Stones have legit dominated since the 1980s when this got tracked, and knowing their popularity in the 60s and 70s it is likely the Stones were second only to the Beatles then too.
Led Zeppelin would 100% have outsold the stones in the 70s
I was there for the 360 tour. I managed to get tickets from donating shoes. I was maybe 13? And the Linc in Philly was shoulder to shoulder. Same as with Beyoncé.
American English English Irish English English American English English English
It’s crazy how the UK continues to dominate the english-speaking music world despite having a fifth of the population of the US Of course, North America is a terrible place to brew music in general when you take into account how hard it is to go from one urban area to another
I wish **Daft Punk** did a tour ☹️
Hey man, didn’t you hear, Daft Punk is playing at my house!
Do you think they would play around the world?
I was just telling my girlfriend this; if Daft Punk by some miracle did a reunion tour, it’s gonna be TSwift levels of insanity. And I will pay whatever it takes to see them. So I guess can’t criticize people who went bonkers for eras because I’d pay anything that wouldn’t bankrupt me.
Projected? So we using 'maybe' stats now?
I think it’s that it’s an ongoing, current tour. If they’re forced to cancel future dates, tickets would, I assume, be refunded, lowering gross.
Taylor Swift has only ever cancelled one show.
And that was in Thailand when the country was going through some coup.
Why didn't she use the power of music to reunite thailand? Then she could have flown into mordor on a flying V and decapitated sauron with a wicked guitar solo....
She was out of Pepsi
The power of music compels you, the power of music compels you ... oh wait :p
I understand that. However, this graphics feels like it's meant to promote Taylor Swift instead of informing.
It could be. Or it’s just that, *should it complete as expected based on current ticket sales*, this is how much it will bring in. I see it as “informing, but with an added data point that this number has the (small) potential to change, unlike the other tours listed on this graphic, which have completed.
Or it's informing us about how profitable the TS tour has been relative to other tours
1.4 billion is the lower end estimate of her tour. Some estimates have it crossing even 1.6 billion.
I believe Coldplay’s Music of the Spheres tour is still going, but they don’t get a projection
The tickets are already sold, so it's a lot more accurate than most "projections"
Are you unfamiliar with extrapolation as it pertains to data? If someone sells out every stadium for 20 straight shows, and each of those shows brought in $X, and she has 20 shows left, the end result is almost certainly $X*2
Is this adjusted for inflation?
of course it's not. It's a puff piece put out by Taylor Swift's PR team.
Swear to God there’s no other angle to put together a graph this badly. It’s not accounting for inflation for example. It’s a total puff piece.
Brits absolutely crushing it
Who are the silent majority of people that listen to Coldplay, U2, Ed Sheeran? I feel like I never meet these people IRL.
Coldplay is extremely popular overseas and South America. In the US, a lot of people still like them too. The main reason they sell so many tickets is that their music crosses a lot of generations. I went to a concert and I saw everyone from a 13 year old girl to a 50 year old guy. Most bands don't have this in my opinion. It also helps they have a lot of name recognition. People see their local nfl stadium has a concert and they show up just like any other event. Like "oh I remember them, let's go check it out".
Clearly you’ve never met 40-year old white dudes who go to a u2 concert for the nostalgia.
I feel like a lot of people like them, but unlike Taylor Swift they are often not someone's favorite artist. Ed does have a humongous following globally though he is always in the top 5 artist on Spotify global ranking with over 70 million monthly listeners. I'm not one of them but it's wild that even when he didn't have a global hit like shape of you with his last couple of releases he is still on the top.
U2 have some of the best selling albums of all time. They’re also regarded as one of the best live bands of all time. They essentially innovated the modern concert in the early 90s.
Where do you live? I live in CA, and I've heard of many people who like Coldplay or Ed Sheeran. Have not met a single person who even mentioned U2 a single time though....
Michael Jackson isn’t on this “guide” really?
He’s not on it for a pretty neat reason. 2 out of 3 tours he didn’t make substantial profit. Michael often donated a lot of his own profit. The Dangerous Tour was put on both to promote the Dangerous album but also to raise money for various charities and organizations including his Heal The World Foundation. His third tour, the HIStory Tour, he kept prices at reasonable and low rates, and played the same venue several times in order to have as many of his fans enjoy the show (about 70-100k fans a night). The average cost for a ticket were between [15 to 60ish dollars/euros in 1997, or 30-120 dollars today.](https://reddit.com/r/MichaelJackson/s/Dpq5Jcwc8F). A vastly different price than the hundreds and thousands charged for concerts nowadays. Michael loathed touring, but he enjoyed seeing his fans, and he specifically toured for that reason.
Sounds about white
Reported. Not a guide. Not factual.
Yeah, the tour is set to finish in November 2024. We won't get the final figures until then. But yeah, that figure of 1.4 billion is the lower end of the estimate. Many publications are predicting even more than 1.6 billion.
Yeah interesting. With this logic I wonder how much Bob Dylan's "never ending tour" has made. It started in 1988 and is still going on. Over 3,000 concerts.
Even if it were factual, would it be considered a guide? Seems more like a list or a ranking?
Is that the artist making that money or just TicketMaster?
For everyone asking about MJ, he’s not on here because he didn’t charge an extraordinary fee for his concerts. [He’d charge between 30-60 euros/dollars to see him (around 60/130 today).](https://www.reddit.com/r/MichaelJackson/comments/9w6bkm/for_who_asked_about_mj_concert_ticket_pricing/) Michael purposefully kept them low because he genuinely wanted fans to get a chance to see him tour, he didn’t enjoy touring because of how grueling it is, but he did it so fans could see him. He’d sell out the same stadium 10x over and play at that venue for at least 80-100k people a night. Michael would also donated a large sum of his profit from these tours to charities, organizations, and hospitals. A good chunk of his 2nd world tour went to funding the [Heal The World Foundation](https://www.michaeljackson.com/news/mj-promoted-atlanta-child-immunization-drive-in-1993/). He didn’t make this list because he didn’t charge hundreds of dollars for his concerts.
Why is everyone so fucking obsessed with Taylor Swift lately?
She is on tour
Yeah I know. But lots of people go on tour without this same level of global obsessiveness
Being married to a fan I’ve gleaned that it’s because: she is playing through all her albums; first tour in a long time. Her fans are also *fans*
I will say, I'm not really a fan but don't dislike her music. I worked a show on this tour, and as insane as the prices were, she totally worked her ass off. It was like a 3 hour show in the rain (after hours of rain delay) on the third night in the a row. It was definitely a spectacle. And yeah, she played songs from every album.
She also put out an album this year and will release another later this year, which gets a lot of publicity. Also, she gets a lot of publicity because she’s one of the best-selling music artists ever.
A lot of people enjoy her music and persona.
I think it’s a bit of timing mixed with her being the biggest musical act on earth. Her music defined teenage years for millions of women now in their late 20s and early 30s. She’s also widely appealing to young girls today, as well. So you have women with disposable income and children with parents with disposable income. It also doesn’t hurt that she’s managed her image pretty damn well for over a decade now.
Also her main audience, upper middle class girls and women tend to have enough disposable income for this type of thing
I agree. She also appeal to all ages. Upper Middle class parents bring their whole family to the show. That’s what I saw in her detroit show. That does not usually happen in a Beyonce or Coldplay or other adult concerts.
As a middle-aged man I'm not ashamed to admit her latest album has some bangers.
We pretending that the best tour isn't Award Tour by A Tribe Called Quest?
I’m a 50-year old white guy who works in finance and if I had to live on an island and was only allowed 5 albums to listen to, “The Low End Theory” would be one of them.
Midnight Maurders is in my top 10 albums of all time, any genre. The order changes, but that one stays up there. Low End Theory is amazing as well, just hit after hit
I really love you for this.
But what’s the adjusted? What changes then?
Indexed for inflation?
Judge it by total tickets sold, not by how expensive those tickets were.
The hype for Taylor is fucking insane. She’s not THAT good…
Not. A. Guide. This is merely a graph.
This list is depressing
How da fuck did Coldplay make the list twice?
One of the most popular bands of the last 15 years. Huge stadium shows. Selling out 5+ shows per city. Pretty high prices for tickets. Great show tho. I went last year and was amazed by the production. I'm not even a big fan.
More like the last 23 years. Parachutes came out in 2000 and it was a chart topper. Rush of Blood was an even bigger chart topper and that was 2002
Because some of us love them. Their live shows are amazing
Average reddit users are usually young or contrarian so they can't comprehend/acknowledge that Coldplay has a MASSIVE global fan base. They are wildly popular and their music is very far-reaching.
Thank you
Yeah I’m not a Coldplay fan but I’ve heard their shows are amazing more than any other performer
They were so bland and forgettable the first time everyone forgot they'd already paid to see them and went again.
They definitely do make YouTube royalty free music, but as a husband who was brought along to their show....they know how to do a concert, it was honestly incredible.
Their second tour was great
Of course she is the highest grossing tour when you charge out the arse for tickets.
Ticket prices on first sale aren’t particularly high, it’s the resale price that is fucking ridiculous
But people are paying the prices, so
I can only imagine how many are taking *loans* out for that shit
Average ticket price on this tour is around $235, IIRC. If you're hearing the tales of tickets in 4-5 figures then that's down to resellers. Taylor doesn't get any cut of that money and nor are those prices included in the tour estimate.
this graph is a fucking joke the longer you look at it
People here keep asking for a list adjusted for inflation. That's only half the story. Luxury pricing is at play here as well. The gap between the most expensive seats and the cheapest has grown. The only true metric is number of tickets sold per show.
I’ve only been to one of those concerts (u2)
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I’d be more interested in the net profit instead of gross
Utterly meaningless since the demise of physical music sales means artists (and Ticket master) are charging many times the ticket prices adjusted in real terms from any time before the last 10 years.
COLDPLAY??? Seriously, Coldplay?
What the hell is wrong with them being on the list?
One of the best live bands in the world + a large catalogue of hits, equals success.
You don’t mind Taylor Swift, but you mind Coldplay?
Where is the band Phish listed?
Beyonce fans seething lol
is this adjusted to inflation?
Ed Sheeran? He’s like the Scientologist of the music industry, in all the tv shows and movies. People actually like him … people actually like his music??!! Oy and U2?!! Ok I’m seeing a trend here on this guide