Beyoncé smashes Madonna box office record
Beyoncé has overtaken Madonna to achieve the highest-grossing tour by a female artist in Billboard Boxscore history, according to new figures.
Billboard reports that the 42-year-old’s Live Nation-promoted Renaissance World Tour has now generated $461.3 million (€435m), surpassing the $408m grossed by Madonna’s 2008/09 Sticky & Sweet Tour (although Madonna still comes out on top once the takings are adjusted for inflation).
In addition, Beyoncé has smashed her own record for the highest-grossing month of any touring artist since Boxscore records began in 1985.
Renaissance‘s North American tour leg netted $179.3m (€169m) from 697,000 ticket sales across 14 concerts in August. The haul bettered the previous best of $127.6m in July for 11 shows – set by Beyoncé just one month earlier – by more than 40%.
The Texan has now scored the highest-grossing tour in three months of 2023
Highlights included her three-night stand at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium from 11-12 & 14 August, which sold 156,000 tickets for a total gross of $39.8m.
The Texan has now scored the highest-grossing tour in three months of 2023 – May, July and August – and sits alongside Bad Bunny and Harry Styles as the only acts whose tours have achieved $100m+ months this year.
Beyoncé sold more than one million tickets for the tour’s opening European leg, which ran from May to June, grossing $154.4 million (€141.6m) from 1.05m ticket sales over 21 dates.
Billboard forecasts the CAA-booked world tour to have passed the $500m mark at the box office by the time it wraps up in Kansas City at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium on 1 October.
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Beyoncé tops box office for highest-grossing month
Beyoncé has posted the highest-grossing month of any touring artist since the Billboard Boxscore launched in the mid-1980s.
The star grossed $127.6 million in July for 11 shows on the North American leg of her Renaissance World Tour, with more than half a million tickets sold.
With the new Boxscore figures, Beyoncé knocks Bad Bunny and his 123.6m gross in September 2022 off the top spot.
Highlights from the past month on the Renaissance World Tour include two nights at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium ($33.1m), a night at Chicago’s Soldier Field ($30.1m) and two shows at Toronto’s Roger’s Centre ($18.3m).
Up until 1 August, The Renaissance World Tour has grossed $295.8m and has been crowned as the singer’s highest-grossing tour to date long before its conclusion.
This isn’t the first time Beyoncé has set a Boxscore record with the Renaissance World Tour; her five-show run at London’s Tottenham Hotspur Stadium grossed $42.2m was the highest-grossing engagement ever by a woman, a Black artist, or any American artist.
With two months of shows yet to be reported, Billboard expects the total to soar past the half-billion mark
With two months of Renaissance World Tour shows yet to be reported, Billboard expects the total to soar past the half-billion mark.
The 41-year-old conquered Europe with a $150-million run but has made almost as much ($141.4 million) in North America with far fewer shows.
Her 12 North American dates have averaged $11.8 million, which is more than double the business that Beyoncé was doing in the territory on 2016’s The Formation World Tour and 2018’s On the Run II Tour with Jay-Z.
The CAA-booked tour is due to wrap up in Kansas City at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium on 1 October.
Fans of the singer were recently given the chance to buy “listening only” tickets for select US tour dates. The US$157 passes offered admission for seats behind the stage, with no view of the show.
The “limited view” tickets – which are usually sold to visually impaired people at a reduced price – were first made available for the 41-year-old’s 29-30 July concerts at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium.
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Renaissance becomes highest-grossing Beyoncé tour
Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour has officially been crowned as the singer’s highest-grossing tour to date after generating US$295.8 million (€268.9m) at the box office.
The haul, reported by Billboard Boxscore, surpasses the $256.1m grossed by 2016’s Formation run, and could yet go on to generate over $500m, with more than 20 tour dates still to go.
While the 56-date Renaissance (1.6 million) currently trails the 49-date Formation in terms of ticket sales (2.2m) it is projected to move another one million tickets to settle on around 2.6m by the tour’s end. Her 2018’s On the Run II Tour alongside Jay-Z brought in $253.5m from ticket sales of 2.17m.
Beyoncé sold more than one million tickets for Renaissance’s recent European leg, which became the 41-year-old’s biggest non-US tour leg. The Live Nation-promoted 21-date run finished at Warsaw’s PGE Narodowy Stadium in Poland at the end of June, having grossed $154.4m from 1.05m ticket sales.
The tour is due to wrap up in Kansas City at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium on 1 Octobe
The CAA-booked tour is due to wrap up in Kansas City at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium on 1 October.
Fans of the singer were recently given the chance to buy “listening only” tickets for select US tour dates. The US$157 passes offered admission for seats behind the stage, with no view of the show.
The “limited view” tickets – which are usually sold to visually impaired people at a reduced price – were first made available for the 41-year-old’s 29-30 July concerts at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium.
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Total gross revealed for Elton John farewell tour
Elton John’s record-shattering Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour ended with a total gross of US$939.1 million (€837m), according to Billboard Boxscore.
Six million people attended the epic 330-show run, which began at the PPL Center in Allentown Pennsylvania way back in September 2018 and took in five continents before wrapping up in Stockholm with the second of two nights at Tele2 Arena on 8 July this year.
While the trek stopped short of becoming the first $1 billion tour, it comfortably surpassed Ed Sheeran’s 2017-19 ÷ (Divide) Tour – which grossed $776.2m from 255 dates – to be crowned as the highest-grossing concert tour ever.
“To every person who has worked on this tour and my extraordinary crew, the backbone of every show, I cannot begin to express my thanks,” writes Elton on Instagram. “From the lighting wizards to the talented sound and design engineers and costume magicians, tireless drivers and incredible caterers, talented photographer, our brilliant partners at AEG, Marshall Arts and Chugg Entertainment and of course my first-class band, each one of you brings this show to life.
“Thank you from the bottom of my heart for making every performance an unforgettable experience and filling the last five years of the farewell tour with memories I will never forget.”
A special report on the tour appears in the current issue of IQ Magazine, which can be read by subscribers here.
“We knew we would do well, but we didn’t set out to be the highest-grossing tour in history”
“We started having this conversation [about the farewell tour] in 2016/17,” says Rocket Music Entertainment Group’s Keith Bradley, who has been working with Elton for more than 40 years and is the artist’s de facto agent outside of North America, as well as tour director on Farewell Yellow Brick Road.
“David [Furnish, Elton’s manager husband] and I flew to LA to meet with Jay Marciano at AEG, and I gave them an idea of what we were thinking in terms of the number of shows and the amount of money,” adds Bradley. “And everyone thought I’d lost my mind. In my head, it was going to be closer to 400 shows.”
Bradley confirms that, pre-pandemic, the tour was originally set to conclude two years earlier, in 2021, at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, US.
“The tour has outperformed all of our expectations,” adds Rocket Entertainment Group CEO Furnish, speaking to IQ. “We knew we would do well, but we didn’t set out to be the highest-grossing tour in history.
“It’s just been a total team effort. Everybody rose to the occasion because I think they felt that they were part of something very special. Elton sets a very high bar; he goes on stage and thinks every show has to be as good as or better than the last one. He’s really focused and dedicated, and I think everybody feels inspired by that.”
Other new entries in Billboard‘s all-time top 10 are Harry Styles’ ongoing Love on Tour, which checks in at No.4 with $590.3m from 4.7 million ticket sales, while Coldplay’s current Music of the Spheres Tour is at No.6, having grossed $561.2m from 5.8m attendees.
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