Taylor Swift’s Eras dominates year-end tour charts

Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour earned US$1 billion-plus for the second year in succession to more than double the haul of its nearest rival, according to Pollstar‘s 2024 data.

The epoch-defining 21-month trek, which wrapped this month, grossed an all-time record US$2,077,618,725 (€1.96 billion) at the box office after selling more than 10.1 million tickets.

Eras‘ 80 shows this year raked in $1,043,421,552 (€993.4m) from 5.2m ticket sales at an average ticket price of $200.27 (€190.68).

Coldplay’s Music of the Spheres World Tour was a distant second – generating $421.7m, having moved 3.3m tickets for 54 concerts (average ticket price: $128.05). Nevertheless, the ongoing run now holds the overall record for tickets sold on a single tour, shifting 10.3m tickets since commencing in March 2022, and is already the second highest-grossing ever.

“While the industry has slowed since 2023, we still saw record-setting revenues, with the top two tours of all time running concurrently”

“2024 has proven to be a historic year for the live entertainment industry, one we may never see again in our lifetimes,” says Andy Gensler, Pollstar editor-in-chief. “While the industry has slowed since 2023, we still saw record-setting revenues, with the top two tours of all time running concurrently. Taylor Swift’s powerhouse The Eras Tour shattered the all-time touring record, while Coldplay’s Music of the Spheres Tour sold more tickets than any artist in live entertainment history. That tour also grossed over $1.3 billion and remains the second highest-grossing tour ever, with 48 more dates scheduled in 2025.”

Also featuring in Pollstar‘s top 5 rankings are P!nk, who placed third with a $367.3m gross, and veteran Latin singer Luis Miguel at No.4 on $261.5m, followed by Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band with $251.3m.

The Top 10 rankings are completed by the Rolling Stones ($235m), Bad Bunny ($210.9m), Zach Bryan ($199.2m), Metallica ($179.4m), and Madonna ($178.8m).

Total grosses for the Top 100 worldwide top touring artists increased to a record $9.5bn, up from 2023’s $9.2bn.

The Top 10 in North America were the Rolling Stones (No.1), Bad Bunny (No.2), Zach Bryan (No.3), Luke Combs (No.4), Luis Miguel (No.5), Kenny Chesney (No.6), P!nk (No.7), Madonna (No.8), Aventura (No.9), and Taylor Swift (No.10).

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Tour grosses rise in Q3 but ticket sales drop 4%

The third quarter of 2024 brought mixed results for the live business, as revenues scaled new heights despite a near 4% drop in ticket sales.

According to Pollstar data for the period up to mid-August, the average ticket price for the top 100 tours reached an all-time high of $126.55 – up 11.2% on 12 months ago, when the figure stood at $113.85 – continuing the trend seen in the last five years.

As a result, total worldwide grosses for the top 100 rose 14.1% to a record $5.68 billion (€5.1bn), although ticket sales were up just 2.6% to 44.9 million.

The volume of shows and show gross averages both advanced 6.8%. However, the sole negative saw ticket sales averages dipped 3.9%, from 15,365 to 14,766, compared to 2023.

“The nearly 4% drop in ticket sales YoY is concerning, but it’s trending in the right direction”

“While most of this quarter’s data points are positive, there is reason for cautious optimism,” concluded the publication. “The nearly 4% drop in ticket sales YoY is concerning, but it’s trending in the right direction coming off last quarter’s almost 15% decrease.

“Also concerning this year were myriad reports indicating a softer live market for both festivals and tours with a number of high-profile cancellations for a variety of reasons – but which more often than not boiled down to softer ticket sales. Some smaller venues and touring acts, too, faced economic hardship, finding it more difficult this year to make ends meet with such negative factors as increased prices, lower demand and weather maladies.

“Still, the fact that the top of the industry saw significant growth in revenue, overall ticket sales and average ticket prices with strong consumer demand for live events bodes well for other segments of the market going forward.”

Coldplay’s Music of the Spheres was the top-grossing tour for the period, which covered 16 November 2023 to 14 August 2024, taking $237.4 million from 1,881,411 tickets sold across 34 dates. The top 5 was completed by Luis Miguel ($222.9m), Bad Bunny ($210.9m), Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band ($201.5m) and Madonna ($178.8m). Estimated grosses for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour were not included in the rankings.

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Live revenues up, ticket sales down in H1 2024

Concert ticket sales revenue has topped $3 billion (€2.8bn) at the mid-year point for the first time, according to Pollstar data for H1 2024.

The record $3.07bn haul represented an 8.3% uptick on the $2.83bn garnered at the same point in 2023.

The gross was boosted by a 16% increase in the volume of shows during the period, as well as the average ticket price, which rose to $127.38 – up 9.4% year-on-year.

Nevertheless, worldwide ticket sales dipped slightly (0.7%) to 24,108,321, compared with 2023’s Q2 ticket total of 24,271,825. The rankings do not include estimates for Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour.

The average number of tickets sold per show was 10,767, down 14.9% on 2023’s record average of 12,655.

“For the first time in two-and-a-half years, the live industry has returned to earth,” notes the Pollstar article. “The stratospheric post-pandemic concert exuberance that swept markets across the globe starting in the US in the later half of 2021 and saw the concert business explode with continuous record-setting revenues, attendances and ticket prices is returning to a more traditional pattern of measured growth.”

The sales figures are still up on the last pre-pandemic year of 2019. Of the 2024 worldwide tours to report their data, Madonna’s Celebration Tour grossed $178.8 million in the period to lead the way, followed by Bad Bunny ($175m), Luis Miguel ($169.5m), U2’s Las Vegas Sphere residency ($134.7m) and Karol G ($111.2m), Bruno Mars ($102.2m) and Coldplay ($100.5m).

The top 10 was completed by Seventeen ($74.6m), the Eagles ($69.4m) and Nicki Minaj ($66.2m).

“The year’s lower mid-year indices reflect more of a correction than a catastrophic decline,” adds the Pollstar report. “And 2023’s box-office success story followed a 2022 still in recovery with box-office results well under pre-Covid norms. Box-office totals for this year are still higher than all the mid-year figures in 2019, the last full year before the pandemic and a year that saw a continuation of steady, multiple-year growth in the live industry.”

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Official: Taylor Swift’s Eras is first $1bn tour

Taylor Swift’s planet-conquering Eras Tour has officially become the first tour in history to surpass $1 billion in revenue.

The American superstar has come out on top in an unprecedented year for the concert industry, with business up double-digit percentages in virtually every metric, according to Pollstar’s 2023 Year-End charts.

Total grosses for the Top 100 Worldwide Tours were up 46% to a $9.17bn (2022’s total was $6.28bn) and attendance was up 18.38% in total tickets sold to 70.1 million (2022’s total was 59.2m).

Swift took in an estimated ticket gross of $1.04bn, with 4.35m tickets sold from 60 shows, with the run calculated to have generated an additional $200m in merchandise sales, while Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour concert movie exceeded $250m in worldwide ticket sales, making it the highest-grossing concert movie of all time.

Pollstar projects that Eras Tour ticket sales will again hit $1bn in the next box office year, taking its overall total to more than $2bn.

“The live entertainment industry remains in the midst of a record-breaking Golden Era”

The rest of the Top 10 rankings on 2023’s Worldwide Tours are occupied by Beyoncé (No. 2), Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band (No. 3), Coldplay (No. 4), Harry Styles (No. 5), Morgan Wallen (No. 6), Ed Sheeran (No. 7), P!nk (No. 8), The Weeknd (No. 9), and Drake (No. 10).

“This has been the Year of the Blockbuster, none earning that title more than Taylor Swift’s cultural takeover in Eras, Pollstar‘s first-ever billion-dollar tour,” says Ray Waddell, president of Oak View Group’s media & conferences division, which oversees Pollstar and sister publication VenuesNow. “The live entertainment industry remains in the midst of a record-breaking Golden Era, marked by innovation and creativity, artist development, and a paradigm shift in fan experience, as defined by the Sphere in Las Vegas and U2’s amazing run.”

The annual Pollstar ranking of the concert industry’s top performing artists covers shows held between 17 November 2022 and 15 November 2023.

Swift has led a touring boom in 2023, with more tours than ever grossing above $300m (three), $200m (seven) and $100m (17).

“This is precisely why FanFair Alliance is now pushing for the UK to adopt more consumer-friendly legislation that closes these kinds of loopholes”

Meanwhile, the New York Times reports that secondary ticketing platforms are circumventing Australian regulations banning for-profit resale of tickets for the tour. The New South Wales and Victorian governments moved to crack down on scalping earlier this year after prices in excess of $3,000 were listed for the singer’s 2024 dates in Sydney and Melbourne.

The restrictions made it illegal to resell tickets for more than 10% over face value, with those that fail to comply facing large fines. However, the Times reports that Viagogo appears to have contravened the legislation by geoblocking resale tickets for the Australian shows and enabling fans from outside Australia to buy them. Viagogo has not commented on the report.

A spokesperson for UK campaign group FanFair Alliance tells IQ: “This is precisely why [we are] now pushing for the UK to adopt more consumer-friendly legislation that closes these kinds of loopholes, provides audiences with better services and outlaws the resale of tickets for profit.”

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Bad Bunny tops 2022 mid-year tour rankings

Bad Bunny’s El Último Tour del Mundo is the biggest tour of 2022 so far according to Pollstar‘s mid-year rankings.

The Puerto Rican rapper sold 663,868 tickets in North America alone for a gross of $120.1 million (€118.1m), leaving Genesis’ The Last Domino trek, which generated $72m (€70.8m), a distant second ahead of Elton John’s Farewell Yellow Brick Road on $70m (€68.8m).

K-pop juggernauts BTS are fourth on the list, bringing in $69.3m, followed by Morgan Wallen in fifth with $58.3m. The top ten is completed by Eric Church, Eagles, John Mayer, Coldplay and Garth Brooks.

The figures cover the period from 18 November 2021 to 18 May 2022.

Revenue and ticket sales among the top 100 tours both dipped compared to 2019 levels

The report notes that revenue and ticket sales among the top 100 worldwide tours dipped 2.2% and 14.4%, respectively, compared to 2019 levels, although it is not a like-for-like comparison as not all venues were open to full capacity.

Worldwide gross was $3.5 billion (€3.4bn) from 46.8m ticket sales for 20,684 shows, down from 2019’s $5.1bn (€5bn) from 76.6m tickets for 35,903 shows.

Harry Styles led the way last year as 2021’s top worldwide ticket seller, while the Rolling Stones claimed the highest-grossing tour.

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