2017 Mid-Year Special Features

Worldwide Success

The Top 50 Worldwide Tours grossed a combined $1.97 billion that is just short of last year’s record $1.98 billion.

The total number of tickets sold by the Top 50, however, was up 3.5% to a record 23.4 million.

That number was driven by a $3.11 or 3.5% drop in the average ticket price from $87.51 to $84.40.

Guns N’ Roses generated an industry-leading $151.5 million gross to take top touring honors for the first half of the year.

They were also the only concert act to sell more than 1 million tickets this year. 


Andrew Allcock

The band’s June 16-17 shows at  generated the largest individual box office gross at $17.3 million.

Mid Year Business Analysis

Top 100 North American Tours

Top 100 Worldwide Tours

Top 100 Concert Grosses

Worldwide Ticket Sales

Top 100 Tours

Top 100 Promoters

Top 200 Arenas

Top 200 Theatres

Top 200 Clubs

Top 50 Outdoor Sites

Top 50 Amphitheatres

See Also: Ticket Sales Charts Archive

Top Tours / Quarterly Worldwide 


North America Sales Soar

The Top 100 North American Tours grossed a combined $1.64 billion, which represents an 11% increase that broke last year’s industry record of $1.47 billion.

The total number of tickets sold by the Top 100 was 22.8 million which also smashed last year’s record of 19.8 million.

That represents a huge 15% increase for butts in seats. The average show gross among the Top 100 acts was up nearly 5% to a record $658,600.

The average number of tickets sold per show was also up 706 to a record 9,128. The average ticket price in North America seems to be moderating, as they were on our Worldwide chart.

The average price of admission to see one of the Top 100 acts was $72.16. That represents a decline of $2.46 or about 3.3% from last year.

The industry record was the $76.20 average set in 2015.

The bottom line is the industry took in more money and sold more tickets than ever before with a slightly lower ticket price… and that’s good for everyone.

U2 did the No. 1 tour in North America with $118.1 million in just 16 cities. Metallica was No. 2 with an impressive $68.7 million gross but that’s nearly $50 million less than U2.

Ticket Sales Charts

The volume of data collected by Pollstar continues to soar in 2017. So far, more than 65 million tickets have been reported sold for a gross approaching $4 billion.

The 22,000 individual box office reports received in the first half of the year is an increase of more than 3% as our reporting network continues to expand.

The global ticket sales charts for both Theatres and Clubs has been expanded from 100 positions to a Top 200 in each category.

The Amphitheatre chart remains at 50 positions, however, as the volume of shows at those venues seems to be declining in the face of increased festival traffic.

Live Nation, which reported sales of nearly 18.7 million tickets, remains by far the world’s largest concert promoter.

AEG remains a solid second with nearly 6.6 million and that’s without reporting the numbers from Coachella and their other festivals.

 continues to dominate the Arena sales chart with more than 1 million tickets sold as it becomes what some would call the most important venue play in the world.

No one is laughing now about the white elephant once known as the Millennium Dome.

Although box office reports from North American arenas continue to grow, it is interesting to note that five of the top 10 arena ticket sellers are in the U.K., two are in Germany and one each in Spain and the Netherlands.

The  in Brooklyn at No. 9 was the only U.S. venue to make the Top 10.

Keep Calm & Carry On

The terrorist attack at Ariana Grande’s concert at  was yet another shock for an industry already on high alert.

We all would be kidding ourselves if we didn’t think there will be more of this to deal with.

Concert events represent some of the ultimate “soft” targets and venue managers and concert promoters have to remain vigilant.

Everyone needs to do their best to anticipate the worst, and be ready to deal with it when it happens.

The British have it right when disaster strikes. Just keep calm and carry on.