These are the 10 highest-grossing tours of all-time: Will Taylor Swift beat them all?
Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour has already broken numerous records and today, an extra 14 shows have been added to the European leg.
Taylor Swift has been on the road since mid-March, taking her Eras show, a three-and-a-half hour career retrospective from coast to coast in the United States before it sets off on another whistle-stop journey to South America, Asia and Europe. Just five months in, the tour has been an overwhelming success - it smashed the record for the most concert tickets sold by an artist in a single day, drew the biggest single-day attendance ever seen in Nashville (71,000) and set the biggest three-day attendance on record twice - 210,607 over three nights in Arlington, Texas then 217,635 at the MetLife in New Jersey at the end of May.
The Eras Tour, which features star guests, celebrity duets, will travel the globe for the next 12 months. Such is the demand for tickets that an additional 14 dates have been added to next year’s itinerary.
Taylor Swift Eras Tour: 14 new dates added
- 12 May Paris (La Défense Arena)
- 19 May Stockholm (Friends Arena)
- 25 May Lisbon (Estádio da Luz)
- 3 June Lyon (Groupama stadium)
- 9 June Edinburgh (Murrayfield stadium)
- 13 June Liverpool (Anfield)
- 23 June London (Wembley)
- 30 June Dublin (Aviva stadium)
- 4 July Amsterdam (Johan Cruiff ArenA)
- 14 July Milan (San Siro)
- 17 July Gelsenkirchen (VELTINS-Arena)
- 19 July Gelsenkirchen (VELTINS-Arena)
- 1 August Warsaw (PGE Narodowy)
- 8 August Vienna (Ernst-Happel stadium)
In November last year, when the artist announced details of the Eras Tour, Billboard Boxscore, which compiles concert tour attendance data, estimated that Swift’s tour would gross $590 million. That figure however, was based solely on the initial 52 dates of the US leg and before the tour was extended to Europe, Asia, South America and Australasia. With the additional 14 dates confirmed today, the Eras Tour will complete 120 nights across the globe by the time it ends in August 2024.
Fans must register to apply for tickets which go on general sale in the UK on Monday 17 July but it looks as though most, if not all, of the European dates will also sell out which suggests that the Eras Tour will become the highest-grossing tour of all time, bringing in between $1 billion and $1.4 billion in sales.
The record was recently set by Elton John, whose Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour grossed $853 million, according to Billboard Boxscore’s latest figures. Elton’s farewell tour started in 2018 but many of the dates had to be rescheduled during the Covid-19 pandemic - it reaches its conclusion later this week at the Tele2 Arena in Stockholm.
So let’s take a look at the top 10 tours in terms of revenue, according to Billboard Boxscore.
Top 10 highest-grossing tours of all-time
- $853 million Elton John: Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour (2018-20, 22-8 July 2023)
- $776 million Ed Sheeran: The ÷ Tour (2017-19)
- $736 million U2: 360° Tour (2009-11)
- $584 million Guns N’ Roses: Not in This Lifetime... Tour (2016-19)
- $558 million The Rolling Stones: A Bigger Bang Tour (2005-07)
- $547 million The Rolling Stones: No Filter Tour (2017-19, 21)
- $524 million Coldplay: A Head Full of Dreams Tour (2016-17)
- $459 million Roger Waters: The Wall Live (2010-13)
- $442 million AC/DC: Black Ice World Tour (2008-10)
- $418 million Harry Styles: Love on Tour (2021-present)