Christopher BarrettColdplay’s long-running Music Of The Spheres World Tour was the highest earning tour globally during the first half of the year, while the overall market has seen a mixed bag of results.
Pollstar’s mid-year analysis of the world’s top 100 tours saw a rise in year-on-year average per-show grosses and ticket sales, but a slide in mid-year overall gross and ticket sales figures
Coldplay’s sustainability-focused outing topped the mid-year tour chart having grossed $136,838,807 from 21 concerts with an average ticket price of $114. In second place was Shakira’s Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran tour with $115,550,442 from 20 dates, with an average ticket price of $121, while Lamar & SZA’s Grand National run generated $100,324,708 from only nine shows, with an average ticket price of $224.
The results show a 24.9% increase in average revenue per show at $1,713,557 from 2024’s $1,371,510, along with a 32.1% year-on-year jump in per show average ticket sales to 14,229.
Pollstar’s Bob Allen said that part of the increase in average revenues and attendance can be attributed to venue size, specifically more stadium tours: “Indeed, 18 treks in 2025’s mid-year survey had average ticket sales topping 30,000, while in 2024 there were only 11 with an average attendance over that amount.”
The report also found that the average revenue increases were mitigated by a 5.5% drop in average ticket prices from $127.38 in 2024 to $120.43 this year. It also found that the number of reported live performances was down by 26.7% during the first two quarters among the top 100 worldwide touring artists compared to 2024. The cumulative $2.81 billion worldwide gross for the top 100 tours in the first half of this year was down 8.4% on last year’s $3.07bn.
Said Allen, “While there are certainly mixed numbers in 2025’s mid-year recap, the good news is that this industry has, for the most part, retained the overall value of live’s precipitous post-pandemic growth.”