The Top 10 highest grossing tours of all time

27 May 2023, 12:00

When the rock legends tour, much money changes hands. Radio X looks at the tours that made the most money and how much, exactly.

The industry titles Billboard and Pollstar are a goldmine of information for tour grosses and totals, but to make things simpler and more relatable, these figures have been adjusted for inflation to 2022 dollars, then converted into British pounds based on the current exchange rate (May 2023).

1. U2 360° Tour: £711 million

   

   Bono, The Edge, Larry Mullen and Adam Clayton packed their bags and headed to the Camp Npu stadium in Barcelona to kick off their latest tour on 30 June 2009. The 360° Tour was in support of their album No Line On The Horizon and immediately trumped all previous tours by the band, in that they took the biggest stage set ever constructed across the world with them, allowing the group 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 $887 million.

2. Elton John: Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour

   

   When SIr Elt said that he was calling time on his touring career, his farewell shows quickly became THE hot ticket and his swansong has shot all the way to No 2 in this chart. It began in Pennsylvania in September 2018 and will end Stockholm at the start of July 2023, just after Elton headlines Glastonbury.

3. Ed Sheeran ÷ Tour: £660 million

   

   One of Britains' biggest exports of the past decade, this was amazingly, only Sheeran's third trek around the world, in support of his third album ÷. 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.

4. The Rolling Stones Bigger Bang Tour: £585 million

   

   Mick Jagger and the boys hit the road on 10 August 2005 with a surprise club show in Toronto, before business got underway in earnest at Boston MAs Fenway Park on 21 August. The veteran rockers were still at it two years later when the final show took place at London's O2 on 26 August 2007.

5. Guns N'Roses Not In This Lifetime... Tour: £496 million

   

   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.

6. Coldplay Head Full Of Dreams Tour: £474 million

   

   The British band's seventh album spawned this mammoth jaunt around the world, which unusually began in Argentina on 31 March 2016 - their first tour had started at Glasgow University's Queen Margaret's Union by way of a comparison. With a pleasing sense of coming full circle, the tour ended back in Argentina on 15 November 2017, by which point they'd taken $523 million on the door ($590 million in today's money).

7. The Rolling Stones - No Filter Tour: £464 million

   

   Despite the COVID pandemic interrupting it for two years and the death of longtime member Charlie Watts in August 2021, the Stones' latest tour has shot into the Top 10, proving that the veteran rockers can still pull in an audience. The No Filter Tour kicked off in Hamburg on 9th September 2017, paused in August 2019 and resumed, with Steve Jordan in the drum stool on 20th September 2021. The remaining Stones - Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood - show no signs of slowing down and they have only just finished their SIXTIETH anniversary tour.

8. AC/DC Black Ice World Tour: £440 million

   

   Acca Dacca's last tour with founding member Malcolm Young began in Pennsylvania on 28 October 2008 and the riffs didn't stop until 28 June 2010 in Bilbao, Spain. $441 million was spent on tickets in 2010 money, which adds up to $548 million today.

9. Roger Waters The Wall Live: £428 million

   

   One of the founding membes ofr Pink Floyd performed the classic 1979 album in full for the first time in 20 years with this epic show that traversed the globe between 15 September 2010 and 21 September 2013.

10. U2 Vertigo Tour: £419 million

    

    The Dublin boys make the list again, thanks to their shows to support the How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb album. They began the campaign on 28 March 2005 in San Diego and closed the book on 9 December 2006 in Honolulu. Takings in '06 were $389 million, which translates as $522 million in 2023.