Guns N’ Roses ‘Not In This Lifetime’ Americas Haul: $106M in 2017

Guns N’ Roses’ “Not In This Lifetime Tour” has wrapped up and submitted box office reports from its now-eighth leg, a North American run of arenas that started in October and included three nights at Madison Square Garden Arena, two at Toronto’s Air Canada Centre and two shows at the Forum in Inglewood, Calif. 

Photo by Marc Grimwade / WireImage – Guns N’ RosesNot In This LIfetime Tour in Brisbane, Australia, Feb. 7.

For all of the Americas in 2017, which included a sixth leg in North American stadiums earlier this year as well as a few big outdoor plays in South America with The Who in support, GNR moved 993,765 tickets and grossed a total of more than $109 million, as submitted to Pollstar.

Highlights from the most recent leg of the Live Nation tour include two nights at the Forum (Nov. 25 and Nov. 29) in Inglewood, Calif., which sold out a combined 27,012 tickets and grossed just under $3.4 million, Oct. 29-30 at Air Canada Centre in Toronto, which also sold out at 25,724 tickets and grossed just under $3.3 million, and three nights at Madison Square Garden Arena Oct. 11-16, which sold out a combined whopping 41,818 tickets and grossed $6.16 million. The leg kicked off with a warmup show at the Apollo Theater in New York City July 20. 

Tickets for the GNR tour mostly ranged from $50 to $250, as promoters continue to increase the top ticket price to make scalping less enticing and fans clearly feel their favorite artists are worth it. Artists certainly see more of a profit this way too. 

The total also included big shows in South America with The Who.

These headline plays included Oct. 1 at the Estadio Unico Cuidad De La Plata in Argentina, which sold more than 34,000 tickets and grossed $4.8 million for promoter Mercury Concerts. Another with Mercury listed as promoter was “Santiago Rock City” Sept. 29 at Estadio Monumental in Chile, which sold 42,743 tickets and grossed $4.14 million. The Who were on all South American GNR dates reported to Pollstar, including Rock in Rio festival in Brazil, which sold out 80,000 tickets for an estimated gross of $2.53 million.

The Gunners also played Asia and Australia to kick off 2017 and did a lengthy run of European stadiums in June – and of course have been touring nonstop since kicking off the original Not In This Lifetime tour in April 2016. This is not to mention when Axl Rose somewhat unexpectedly stepped in to handle lead vocal duty for the AC/DC Rock Or Bust Tour from 2015-2016.

The frontman once notorious for erratic behavior and late concert starts has become a model of consistency and a true road warrior.

The band’s demand is impressive by any measure, and with the release of Pollstar’s Top 20 Worldwide Tours Of 2017, GNR was No. 2  with $292.5 million grossed and 2.68 million tickets sold. 

Guns N’ Roses were No. 1 based on worldwide ticket sales at 3Q after already nearing the top for 2016 as well.

For year end 2016, Axl and Co. were No. 6 in Worldwide Ticket Sales (1.7 million) , No. 2 on the North American tours feature with a total gross of $130.8 million  and No. 4 Worldwide with a total gross of $188.4 million.

While maybe slowing down to some degree, GNR is clearly still not done touring, with a full ninth leg booked of European dates starting in June with yet more stadiums and festival plays. Who knows how many more tour legs they can squeeze in before all is said and done? 

United Talent Agency’s Ken Fermaglich is GNR’s responsible agent in North America; while internationally the band is represented by International Talent Booking.