List of highest-grossing live music artists

The highest-grossing live music artists (also known as "highest-grossing touring artists")^[a] are reported by Billboard and Pollstar boxscores. The cumulative figures may be incomplete because not all concert dates are reported by those publications. For simplification, the figures are presented in nominal dollars without being adjusted for inflation, hence they do not reflect the real value of revenue from older concerts.

Taylor Swift is the highest-grossing live music artist of all time, collecting $3 billion according to Pollstar. The Rolling Stones are the highest-grossing live music group of all time, collecting over $2.9 billion according to Billboard Boxscore. U2, Coldplay, and Elton John also passed two-billion mark in concert revenue. The concert industry is very male-dominated,^[1] and only five women have grossed more than $1 billion (as of 2024), with Madonna being the first.^[2]

All-time ranking

Pollstar

More information Rank, Artists ...

Artists with concert revenue of over US$1 billion according to *Pollstar*
Rank	Artists	Nationality	Nominal gross	Tickets sold	As of	Ref.
1	Taylor Swift	United States	$3 billion	19.73 million	2024	^[3]^[4]
2	The Rolling Stones	United Kingdom	$2.40 billion	22.99 million	2024	^[b]
3	U2	Ireland	$2.37 billion	26.84 million	2024	^[3]^[6]
4	Bruce Springsteen · E Street Band	United States	$2.16 billion	25.98 million	2024	^[c]
5	Coldplay	United Kingdom	$2.10 billion	22 million	2024	^[9]
6	Elton John	United Kingdom	$2 billion	22 million	2023	^[10]
7	Metallica	United States	$1.68 billion	24.08 million	2024	^[d]
8	Madonna	United States	$1.62 billion	12.80 million	2024	^[3]^[17]
9	Beyoncé	United States	$1.59 billion	12.12 million	2023	^[3]^[7]
10	Pink	United States	$1.47 billion	13.13 million	2024	^[3]^[18]
11	Ed Sheeran	United Kingdom	$1.44 billion	16.93 million	2023	^[e]
12	Celine Dion	Canada	$1.35 billion	10.90 million	2022	^[3]
13	Bon Jovi	United States	$1.32 billion	17.75 million	2022	^[3]
14	Eagles	United States	$1.31 billion	10.99 million	2022	^[3]
15	Paul McCartney	United Kingdom	$1.19 billion	10.45 million	2022	^[3]
16	Billy Joel	United States	$1.18 billion	16.97 million	2022	^[3]
17	Kenny Chesney	United States	$1.11 billion	16.41 million	2022	^[3]
18	Dave Matthews Band	United States	$1.08 billion	23.27 million	2022	^[3]

Billboard

More information Rank, Artists ...

Artists with concert revenue of over US$1 billion according to *Billboard*
Rank	Artists	Nationality	Nominal gross	Tickets sold	As of	Ref.
1	The Rolling Stones	United Kingdom	$2.9 billion	28.9 million	2024	^[21]
2	U2	Ireland	$2.46 billion	28.96 million	2024	^[22]^[23]
3	Bruce Springsteen · E Street Band	United States	$2.13 billion	19.27 million	2024	^[f]
4	Coldplay	United Kingdom	$2 billion	21.1 million	2024	^[30]
5	Elton John	United Kingdom	$1.98 billion	20.6 million	2023	^[31]
6	Madonna	United States	$1.6 billion	12.8 million	2024	^[32]
7	Pink	United States	$1.41 billion	12.01 million	2024	^[33]^[34]
8	Beyoncé	United States	$1.3 billion	11.6 million	2023	^[35]
9	Ed Sheeran	United Kingdom	$1.27 billion	—	2023	^[g]
10	Kenny Chesney	United States	$1.172 billion	17.9 million	2023	^[38]
11	Celine Dion	Canada	$1.115 billion	8.8 million	2019	^[h]
12	Metallica	United States	$1.115 billion	11.6 million	2024	^[i]
13	Bon Jovi	United States	$1.03 billion	—	2016	^[44]
14	Eagles	United States	$1 billion	—	2022	^[45]
15	Paul McCartney	United Kingdom	$1 billion	—	2022	^[46]

Decade ranking

2000s

More information Rank, Artists ...

Top 10 highest-grossing live music artists globally of the 2000s (*Billboard*)^[47]
Rank	Artists	Nationality	Nominal gross	Tickets sold
1	The Rolling Stones	United Kingdom	$869,471,325	8,236,586
2	U2	Ireland	$844,157,925	9,869,953
3	Madonna	United States	$801,299,671	6,387,124
4	Bruce Springsteen	United States	$688,136,476	8,605,238
5	Elton John	United Kingdom	$603,804,670	5,789,833
6	Celine Dion	Canada	$536,593,262	4,099,963
7	Dave Matthews Band	United States	$505,447,901	11,230,696
8	Kenny Chesney	United States	$477,931,760	9,210,288
9	Bon Jovi	United States	$419,481,741	5,384,747
10	Billy Joel	United States	$418,421,266	4,141,287

More information Rank, Artists ...

Top 10 highest-grossing live music artists in North America of the 2000s (*Pollstar*)^[48]
Rank	Artists	Nationality	Nominal gross	Tickets sold
1	Dave Matthews Band	United States	$529.1 million	11.6 million
2	Celine Dion	Canada	$522.2 million	4 million
3	Kenny Chesney	United States	$455.6 million	8.6 million
4	Bruce Springsteen	United States	$444.3 million	5.7 million
5	The Rolling Stones	United Kingdom	$426.9 million	3.2 million
6	U2	Ireland	$391 million	4.4 million
7	Madonna	United States	$325.3 million	2.1 million
8	Eagles	United States	$313.4 million	2.8 million
9	Elton John	United Kingdom	$286.4 million	2.5 million
10	Jimmy Buffett	United States	$285.8 million	4.5 million

2010s

More information Rank, Artists ...

Top 10 highest-grossing live music artists of the 2010s (*Billboard*)^[36]
Rank	Artists	Nationality	Nominal gross
1	U2	Ireland	$1.018 billion
2	Taylor Swift	United States	$910.2 million
3	The Rolling Stones	United Kingdom	$907.6 million
4	Ed Sheeran	United Kingdom	$848.3 million
5	Coldplay	United Kingdom	Unrevealed
6	Bruce Springsteen	United States	Unrevealed
7	Beyoncé	United States	Unrevealed
8	Bon Jovi	United States	Unrevealed
9	Paul McCartney	United Kingdom	Unrevealed
10	Roger Waters	United Kingdom	Unrevealed

More information Rank, Artists ...

Top 10 highest-grossing live music artists of the 2010s (*Pollstar*)^[49]
Rank	Artists	Nationality	Nominal gross
1	U2	Ireland	$1,038,104,132
2	The Rolling Stones	United Kingdom	$929,196,083
3	Ed Sheeran	United Kingdom	$922,361,663
4	Taylor Swift	United States	$899,627,048
5	Bon Jovi	United States	$868,715,392
6	Beyoncé	United States	$857,405,819
7	Paul McCartney	United Kingdom	$813,811,559
8	Coldplay	United Kingdom	$731,805,591
9	Bruce Springsteen	United States	$729,789,815
10	Roger Waters	United Kingdom	$702,231,419

Most $100-million tours

The following artists have the most tours grossing over US$100 million according to Billboard Boxscore.

More information Artists, Nationality ...

Artists with the most tours grossing US$100 million according to *Billboard*^[21]
Artists	Nationality	Number of tours
The Rolling Stones	United Kingdom	10
Bruce Springsteen	United States	7
Eagles	United States	7
U2	Ireland	7
Madonna	United States	6

Notes

The figures are not limited from touring and may include standalone concerts or concert residencies.
The Rolling Stones grossed $2,165,280,638 as of 2022 according to Pollstar.^[3] They expanded the number with $235,077,193 in 2024.^[5]
Bruce Springsteen grossed $1,527,407,373 as of 2022 according to Pollstar.^[3] He expanded the number with $379,496,085 in 2023 and $251,296,432 in 2024.^[7]^[8]
Metallica grossed $1.4 billion as of 2019 according to Pollstar.^[11] They expanded the number with at least $21,897,870 in 2022,^[12]^[13] at least $75,603,082 in 2023^[14]^[15] and $179,373,637 in 2024,^[16] although there is no complete data for 2022 and 2023 from Pollstar.
Ed Sheeran grossed $922,361,663 as of 2019 according to Pollstar.^[19] He expanded the number with $251,000,000 in 2022 and $268,017,633 in 2023.^[20]^[7]
Bruce Springsteen grossed $1,196,116,507 as of May 2014, according to Billboard.^[24] He expanded the number with $255,364,196 in 2016, $37,972,463 in 2017, $380,000,000 in 2023 and $256,100,000 in 2024.^[25] ^[26] ^[27] ^[28]^[29]
Ed Sheeran grossed $848.3 million as of 2019 according to Billboard.^[36] He expanded the number with $417.67 million in 2022 and 2023.^[37]
Majority of Celine Dion's figure came from her Las Vegas concert residencies. She remains the highest-grossing residency artist of all time, with a total of $681 million as of 2019, according to Billboard.^[39]
Metallica grossed $593,100,000 as of February 2019, according to Billboard.^[40] They expanded the number with $177,434,939 at the end of 2019,^[41] $43,398,993 in 2022,^[42] $125,800,000 in 2023^[43] and $175,200,000 in 2024.^[28]

References

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