Top 10 highest-grossing concert tours of all time

What a tour gross includes

Gross ticket revenue is the amount taken at the box office before the costs of staging the shows are deducted. It is therefore a measure of commercial scale, rather than profit. A long run with many dates can overtake a shorter tour even if the shorter one earns more per show. Ticket prices, venue capacities and the number of performances all contribute to the final position. Comparing tours by attendance alone would remove part of the ticket-price effect and answer a different question.

Why an annual chart is a different list

Billboard’s year-end touring charts use a reporting period. An all-time chart adds the reported performances across the whole tour, which may span several calendar years. Music of the Spheres is a useful example from these answers: a figure for one year should not be mistaken for its cumulative total. The Eras Tour and Farewell Yellow Brick Road also illustrate why a tour name matters. Combining every tour by the same performer would turn this into an artist ranking.

How to read the archived answers

The question accepts the performer as a way of identifying the tour, but the answer row names the tour itself. That distinction prevents separate concert series from being silently combined. There is also no adjustment for exchange-rate movements between reporting periods. The ranking is not adjusted for inflation, so older tours are compared using their reported dollar amounts rather than equivalent purchasing power. There is no added dollar chart here because the original ten-row historical revenue table has not been recovered. The replay remains available, but the original historical order should be treated as provisional until the underlying revenue figures are recovered.

Sources & further reading

• Billboard: touring coverage and Boxscore reports

Explanation updated Thursday, October 1, 2026. The puzzle’s original data date is listed below.