When Highest Grossing Concert Tours?
Concert tours have now become a large part of the music industry today. With album sales reducing over the years following the introduction of the digital era, artists have used touring as the main income earner. Many of the greatest concert tours in the history of music have earned hundreds of millions of dollars. If we were to cast our minds to the past few decades, certain years were considered the best time for highly profitable concert tours.
The Early 2000s The year 2000 and the years following it can be considered as one of the most successful for the top-grossing concert tours. Many of the major pop artists engaged in massive world tours which were record-breaking during that time. In 2000, Britney Spears started her Oops!… I Did It Again Tour which continued to achieve over $40 million in ticket sales. It was one of the most successful tours in the history of pop music at that time in terms of gross revenue. The following year, Janet Jackson took the honors with her $45m grossing All for You Tour.
It was in the same year that U2 put into action their Elevation Tour which, at $109 million, was the most ill-lucrative North American tour of that time. It marked the beginning of a highly popular era for the legendary Irish rock band. Still, they would beat this record in the coming few years.
The Mid 2000s In the 2000s shows such as American Idol featuring televised singing competitions also produced several major stars. Some of these pop singers contributed to more record-breaking tours from those shows. 2005 saw the American Idol winner, Kelly Clarkson start her Breakaway Tour, which has since grossed over $60 million.
At the same time, experienced performers kept on creating higher expectations. The Rolling Stones embarked on their record-breaking A Bigger Bang Tour in 2005 and 2007 and earned an unprecedented $558 million. It is considered to be one of the most successful concert tours in the history of music. Among the other prominent North American Tours, the Cirque du Soleil stage production Delirium became one of the most successful stage acts by grossing over $100 million in 2006.
Late 2000s Some of the biggest concert spectacles of the late 2000s which were headlined by female pop stars are among the most lucrative concert tours in history. She started her Wonder World Tour in 2009 after her sixteenth birthday, and the huge tour generated over $54 million. Taylor Swift also embarked on several touring activities at the time that she was growing into the world’s pop icon, earning tens of millions per tour.
And yet the undisputed champion was Madonna whose Sticky and Sweet Tour in 2008-09 surpassed all records by raking in over $ 400 million. It was also the largest of its kind by a single artist at the time and ranked among the most costly tours in the history of music. Everything that could be done – from designing a stage show to changing costumes – was lavish.
Early 2010s and Beyond The early 2010s began to see spectacular concert tours become longer, bigger, and more profitable. Taylor Swift further elevated her tours to the Speak Now World Tour generating over nine figures in gross and the two-year-long 1989 World Tour concluding in 2015. The latter made the record-breaking pop star’s tour cross over $250 million to become the most successful pop artist’s tour and established her as a formidable tour power.
Pop diva power was also evident when Lady Gaga’s Monster Ball Tour, which grossed over $227 in 2011. Katy Perry also embarked on some significant tours for other popular songs such as Firework and The Teenage Dreams, earning tens of millions for every tour leg at the start of the decade. At the same time such legends as Bon Jovi performed to tens of thousands of fans every night. They have grossed over $200 million during their 2010-11 tour.
Of course, it’s impossible to mention giants of touring without including Beyonce in this list. Her well-planned 2016 Formation World Tour had record-breaking attendance in stadiums across North America and Europe and grossed a quarter of a billion dollars. This underlined her position as one of the most remarkable pop live performers ever by combining singing, dancing, and dramatic elements.
I can go on listing a set of such favorable outcomes for a rather long time. The 2009-2011 360-degree tour broke more records for U2 which grossed over $700 million. British/Irish rock band, One Direction, whipped fans into a frenzy by touring off hits such as What Makes You Beautiful, earning more than $200 million for the Where We Are tour in 2014.
A couple of clear lessons can be learned when looking at when the most grossing tours take place. First, bands that have been around for some time and have a loyal following that has likely been cultivated over years or even decades perform the best. As stadium-fillers like the Stones and U2, artists are capable of touring almost indefinitely from one record to the next. It might be seen to what extent young pop stars also transform headlining arena tours after their first record. The fans are embodying themselves in the teams and products, generating sales of additional products.
Even if there is a clear tendency towards pop, rock, and R&B in the field of the most profitable touring artists, a show like Cirque du Soleil demonstrates that other kinds of mass entertainment can also make nine figures. From mid-career or comeback, mega pop stars schedule their tours for the next several months as this is where they stand to make the most of their money given that the recording business is continuously shifting. In the immediate future, it appears that betting on the eternal demand for a live performance for millions of fans around the world is quite reasonable. The concept of the billion-dollar concert tour may indeed only be in its infancy.
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