Pollstar’s Top 20 Global Concert Tours ranks artists by average box office gross per city and includes the average ticket price for shows worldwide, based on data provided to the trade publication Pollstar by concert promoters and venue managers.
The list is a clean snapshot of the live-music economy’s hierarchy: who gets the biggest stages, who pulls the highest averages, and what audiences are being charged to keep the machine humming. The numbers come from concert promoters and venue managers, the gatekeepers who feed the trade publication its data and help define which tours count as the winners.
Who Sits on Top
Bad Bunny is No. 1 with $8,242,147, 52,489 and an average ticket price of $157.02. Ed Sheeran is No. 2 with $5,804,043, 44,355 and $130.85. Eagles is No. 3 with $4,725,972, 16,374 and $288.63. Lady Gaga is No. 4 with $4,590,453, 20,113 and $228.22. ILLENIUM is No. 5 with $2,675,742, 16,302 and $164.13.
The ranking keeps going, laying out the touring economy in descending order like a ledger of cultural extraction. TWICE is No. 6 with $2,048,189, 14,696 and $139.37. Cardi B is No. 7 with $1,898,025, 12,278 and $154.58. New Edition is No. 8 with $1,897,324, 13,042 and $145.48. Peso Pluma is No. 9 with $1,694,929, 12,904 and $131.35. Nine Inch Nails is No. 10 with $1,330,654, 11,385 and $116.87.
The Price of Access
The figures show how the live circuit sorts artists and audiences alike. Gorillaz is No. 11 with $1,192,334, 10,409 and $114.55. Apache 207 is No. 12 with $1,158,859, 13,079 and $88.60. Matt Rife is No. 13 with $1,101,028, 12,581 and $87.51. Lainey Wilson is No. 14 with $1,071,739, 8,330 and $128.66. André Rieu is No. 15 with $1,032,905, 9,527 and $108.42.
Cody Johnson is No. 16 with $957,781, 11,761 and $81.44. Def Leppard is No. 17 with $859,643, 4,289 and $200.40. Nate Bargatze is No. 18 with $841,172, 10,106 and $83.23. Brandon Lake is No. 19 with $737,160, 11,901 and $61.94. James Arthur is No. 20 with $683,607, 9,596 and $71.24.
The average ticket prices, running from $61.94 to $288.63 in the ranking, show the cost of entry into the spectacle. The numbers are not just about popularity; they are about the pricing power of the touring apparatus and the way promoters and venue managers shape what gets counted as success.
What the Trade Publication Measures
Pollstar’s Top 20 Global Concert Tours ranks artists by average box office gross per city and includes the average ticket price for shows worldwide. That means the list is built from the commercial side of live performance, not from the crowd’s dreams or the music’s meaning, but from the receipts and the infrastructure that turns performances into revenue.
The data comes from concert promoters and venue managers, the people positioned between the artists and the audience, deciding what gets reported and how the market is described. For those at the bottom of the exchange, the result is straightforward: the price of a ticket, the size of a crowd, and the gross per city become the terms by which the whole thing is judged.
For free upcoming tour information, go to www.pollstar.com. The invitation is there, but the ranking itself makes the structure plain: a global concert economy measured in grosses, averages, and access fees, with the biggest names at the top and everyone else sorted beneath them.