With Taylor Swift’s The Eras world tour wrapping up on Sunday in Vancouver, Canada, the final numbers are in: It was the world’s biggest-grossing tour, and by a wide margin.
Across 149 shows over nearly two years, The Eras brought in USD $2,077,618,725 in ticket sales. Taylor Swift Touring, the singer’s production company confirmed the number to the New York Times.
That works out to more than $13.9 million in gross sales per show, evidently a record in and of itself.
A total of 10,168,008 people attended the shows, which means the average ticket price across the entire tour worked out to $209, the Times reported, well above the average for 2013, which came in at $131, according to Pollstar.
And this isn’t the only record that Taylor’s The Eras tour has broken. Early this year, the tour’s concert film became the highest-grossing concert film of all time, as well as the highest-grossing documentary, bringing in $261.6 million in box office revenue globally.
Target announced last week that “Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour Book,” available exclusively at the retailer, sold nearly 1 million copies at the retailer in its first week, and the book is the fastest-selling new release in the US in the past four years.
As far as the concert tour goes, The Eras’ numbers are nearly double the next biggest tour ever recorded, Coldplay’s Music of the Spheres world tour, which had more shows than The Eras (164 in total) and grossed USD $1,144,590,969, with an average per-show take of $6.54 million – again, about half that of Taylor’s tour.
Third place belongs to Harry Styles, whose Love On Tour grossed $617.3 million from 2021 to 2023, with a per-show take of $3.65 million.
Most of the high-profile tours of earlier years don’t come close to the financial success of Taylor Swift and Coldplay’s tours, even when grosses are adjusted for inflation.
For instance, the Rolling Stones’ Steel Wheels Tour (1989) grossed around $241 million in 2023 dollars, while The Eagles’ Hell Freezes Over tour in the mid-90s grossed around $126 million.
There are several reasons for that. One, as Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino has mentioned, is that VIP ticketing is an increasingly large part of the ticketing business.
“We’ve been selling to the super fan for quite a while,” Rapino said on the company’s Q3 earnings call in November.
“We always sell out of the boxes, sell out of the premium inventory first. We never have a problem selling that.”
He noted that Live Nation’s venue renovations include increased shares of VIP seats, and he said he believes he can grow the premium ticket segment to 20% of all sales.
Another factor is that world tours by major artists have increased the number of shows, thanks to the globalization of music fandom.
A growing number of fans in emerging markets can afford tickets to major acts, and social media has shown artists that they have fan bases in many parts of the world that weren’t previously covered by touring artists.
Speaking at a media conference in September, Live Nation CFO Joe Berchtold said he’s seen a 20% to 50% increase in the dates that artists are adding to tours, and “almost all” are outside the traditional major touring markets in North America and Western Europe.
“Ten years ago, the conversation was, ‘Let’s talk about the US tour, maybe some European dates.’ Now it’s ‘Hey, let’s talk the three-year plan. What’s the role of the US, Europe, Latin America? Do we do Asia?’” Berchtold said.Music Business Worldwide