Top 5 Highest Grossing Tours of All Time
1. U2 360° Tour: £678 million
Years: 2009 – 2011
Bono, The Edge, Larry Mullen and Adam Clayton kicked off their 360° Tour at the Camp Nou stadium in Barcelona on 30 June 2009.
The 360° Tour was in support of their album No Line On The Horizon and saw the band take the biggest stage set ever constructed across the world with them, allowing them to be seen “in the round”.
By the time the tour wound up on 30 July 2011 in Moncton, Canada, they’d performed to 7.2 million people and made $736 million dollars.
Add a decade’s worth of inflation on top and this is still the highest-grossing tour ever at $839 million.
2. Ed Sheeran ÷ Tour: £628 million
Years: 2017-19
The ÷ (pronounced “divide”) tour was Sheeran’s third trek around the world, in support of his third album of the same name. It began in Turin, Italy on 16 March 2017 and the final curtain came down on home turf at Ipswich’s Chantry Park on 26 August 2019, after 255 shows.
With a gross of $776 million Sheeran’s tour is officially the highest grossing UNTIL you adjust for inflation, in which case U2 have the bigger box-office taking. “Sheerios” obsessed with the singer-songwriter and his one-man show, bought an estimated 8.9 million tickets, across six continents, leading to his crowning as the all-time king of concert cash.
3. The Rolling Stones A Bigger Bang Tour: £557 million
Years: 2005-2007
In keeping with tradition, the Rolling Stones performed a surprise club show on 10 August 2005 at the Phoenix Club Theatre in Toronto, before an audience of 1,000, with each only paying $10 (the Phoenix’s regular cover charge). Mick Jagger and the boys then officially launched the Bigger Bang tour at Boston MAs Fenway Park on 21 August. The veteran rockers were still at it two years later when the final show took place on home turf at London’s O2 on 26 August 2007.
The tour was in support of their album of the same name, which was their 22nd British and 24th American studio album.
4. Guns N'Roses Not In This Lifetime... Tour: £473 million
Years: 2016-2019
In the ’80s, when the up-and-coming Guns N’Roses boys were hitchhiking home from their own gigs, they must never have imagined becoming the biggest metal band in the world, let alone splitting up and then regrouping for one of rock history’s most lucrative tours, which delighted over 5 million fans.
The long-awaited reunion of the classic GN’R lineup of Axl Rose, Slash and Duff McKagan took place at their old haunt The Troubadour in Hollywood on 1 April 2016.
The tour officially ended on 2 November 2019 at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, by which point the band had made $585 million. Along the way, Axl even found time to stand in for the retiring Brian Johnson as singer of AC/DC.
5. Coldplay Head Full Of Dreams Tour: £442 million
Years: 2016-2017
Coldplay’s seventh album spawned this mammoth jaunt around the world, which began in Argentina on 31 March 2016 and ended back in Argentina on 15 November 2017, by which point they’d taken $523 million on the door ($557 million in today’s money).
The concert experience was called “a Technicolor feast for the eyes” by the Miami New Times, with its extensive visuals, laser show, confetti cannons, pyrotechnics, and interactive light-up LED wristbands for fans. The following year after the tour’s conclusion, the band released Live in Buenos Aires, which was recorded on the final two nights of the tour in La Plata, Buenos Aires.
