Madonna Holds Record for Highest-Grossing Touring Solo Artist in Billboard Boxscore History
March 23, 2016 17:00 ET
Madonna Holds Record for Highest-Grossing Touring Solo Artist in Billboard Boxscore History
Over $1.31 Billion in Tickets Sold
Following the close of Madonna’s critically acclaimed Rebel Heart Tour this past Sunday night in Sydney, Australia, Madonna is the Top Grossing Touring Solo Artist in the history of Billboard Boxscore with over $1.31 billion in ticket sales sold over the course of her career. Madonna is also the third top grossing touring act (behind The Rolling Stones and U2) since tracking began in 1990.
Produced by Live Nation Global Touring, the Rebel Heart Tour kicked off on September 9th, 2015 in Montreal and visited arenas in 55 cities on four continents over seven months. Madonna performed 82 shows, plus a special fan club show in Melbourne. It grossed $169.8 Million with 1,045,479 in attendance.
Madonna visited several cities for the first time ever, including Bangkok, Hong Kong, Macau, Manila, Auckland, Taipei, Nashville, Omaha, and Louisville. She also performed multiple shows in several cities, including three shows apiece in New York, Turin, and Melbourne. She played two shows in Miami, Berlin, Barcelona, London, Paris, Tokyo, and Sydney, to name a few.
The Rebel Heart Tour also attracted raves for the Material Girl, with the New York Times calling her “unstoppable” and Rolling Stone remarking that “there’s nobody else near her throne.” Entertainment Weekly plain and simply summed it up proclaiming: “Madonna reigns.”
The Material Girl’s set list spanned all decades of the iconic superstar’s illustrious career, including songs from Rebel Heart (the No. 1 Dance hits Living for Love and Bitch I’m Madonna, to classic fan favorites like Material Girl and Holiday and a Dress You Up medley that included Into The Groove, Everybody, and Lucky Star.
Memorable highlights from the tour include her first-ever live concert performance of Take a Bow, acoustic versions of Like A Prayer, Secret, and Don’t Tell Me, and a moving tribute to her idol David Bowie during the show in Houston. She also paid tribute to the victims of the terrorist attacks in Paris during her show in Sweden on November 14th. During the song Unapologetic Bitch, Madonna would bring someone up from the crowd to dance with her during the song. Some nights it was a fan, another night it was Katy Perry. Other guest dancers included: Diplo, Amy Schumer, Ariana Grande, Jessica Chastain, Idris Elba, Gwendoline Christie, Anderson Cooper, and Graham Norton.
The Rebel Heart Tour was directed by Jamie King with musical direction by Kevin Antunes (the band’s keyboardist Ric’key Pageot, drummer Brian Frasier-Moore, guitarist Monte Pittman, and background vocalists Kiley Dean and Nicki Richards), lead choreography by Megan Lawson, hair by Andy LeCompte, makeup by Aaron Henrikson, and costume design by Arianne Phillips.
Beloved for her boundary-pushing fashion, Madonna and Phillips, whose original designs are also in the show, collaborated with Alessandro Michele for Gucci, Alexander Wang, Fausto Puglisi, Jeremy Scott for Moschino, Nicolas Jebran, Miu Miu, Prada and Swarovski to create the sumptuous costumes.
The final two shows of the tour in Sydney were filmed for an upcoming release.
Top Grossing Billboard Boxscore Touring Acts through March 23, 2016
- The Rolling Stones – $1.84 billion
- U2 – $1.67 billion
- Madonna – $1.31 billion
- Bruce Springsteen – $1.25 billion
- Elton John – $1.05 billion
- Bon Jovi – $1.03 billion
