Revenues from the global concert touring business, reduced to a trickle due to the Covid pandemic in 2020 and 2021, came roaring back in 2022, with an even bigger surge in 2023. Total ticket sales from the top 100 tours, which reached a high of $5.6 billion in 2019, sank to $1.2 billion in 2020 and $1.7 billion in 2021, according to Pollstar, before chalking up a new record — $6.3 billion — in 2022. Then came 2023’s surge, to a total $9.2 billion. There were big gains in 2023 for the number of total tickets sold — from 59 to 70 million — and the average price per ticket rose as well, from $106 in 2022 to more than $130 in 2023, according to Pollstar’s stats.
The top 10 tours of 2023 played an outsized role in boosting those aggregate results for the top 100 tours, especially Taylor Swift’s 2023/2024 Eras tour, which continues to break all kinds of records for the artist named Time magazine’s Person of the Year. Average ticket sales for each of the 60 stadium shows performed so far topped $17 million, according to Pollstar’s estimates. That makes sales for the Eras trek not just the highest-grossing concert tour for 2023, but for all time, topping the $1 billion mark in total revenues within its first year. (And there are even more Eras shows planned for 2024 than there were in 2023).
Other tours did spectacularly well in 2023. Beyoncé’s Renaissance tour raked in $580 million, according to Pollstar, a sum well above what it would normally take to earn the top slot on the year-end charts — and even topping the record announced by Pollstar last year for Bad Bunny’s $435 million “World’s Hottest Tour” in 2022. With 56 shows in 39 cities, Pollstar also calculated Beyoncé’s average price per ticket at $209 — a per-ticket average exceeded only by Taylor Swift ($239) and Drake ($260) for their 2023 tours.
2023 treks for Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band and Coldplay both topped Beyoncé’s tour results in terms of the number of tickets sold, according to Pollstar, but with ticket prices a little below the industry average, those tours came in at number three and four, respectively. Rounding out our top 10 list, based on 2023 data published by both Pollstar and Billboard, were tours by Harry Styles, Morgan Wallen, Ed Sheeran, P!nk, Elton John and The Weeknd.
Top Tours of 2023: Crew and Gear*
- 1 Taylor Swift: https://fohonline.com/articles/showtime/1-taylor-swift/
- 2 Beyoncé: https://fohonline.com/articles/showtime/2-beyonce-2/
- 3 Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band: https://fohonline.com/articles/showtime/3-bruce-springsteen-and-the-e-street-band/
- 4 Coldplay: https://fohonline.com/articles/showtime/4-coldplay/
- 5 Harry Styles: https://fohonline.com/articles/showtime/5-harry-styles/
- 6 Morgan Wallen: https://fohonline.com/articles/showtime/6-morgan-wallen/
- 7 Ed Sheeran: https://fohonline.com/articles/showtime/7-ed-sheeran/
- 8 P!nk: https://fohonline.com/articles/showtime/8-pnk/
- 9 Elton John: https://fohonline.com/articles/showtime/9-elton-john/
- 10 The Weeknd: https://fohonline.com/articles/showtime/10-the-weeknd-2/
*The Top Tours of 2023 List order and grosses were sourced from Pollstar and Billboard. Data is from Nov. 17, 2022 to Nov. 15, 2023 (Pollstar) and Nov. 1, 2022 to Sept. 30, 2023 (Billboard).
