The concert tour industry’s leading publication Pollstar has released their ‘Top 20 Worldwide Tours of 2013‘ tally today, listing and celebrating the year’s highest grossing stage showings!
Sure to ruffle a few fan feathers and shed light on just how successful the year was for a certain Beyonce Carter, the list below also proves that all is never at seems in the smoke’n’mirrors employing production that is the music industry.
For, removed from the hype built around them to create the illusion of ‘list topping success’, many of the shows listed below found themselves being outperformed by tours that made major bucks without making major media noise.
Confused?
All will be explained below…
1. Bon Jovi ($259.5)
2. Beyoncé ($188.6)
3. P!nk ($170.6)
4. Justin Bieber ($169)
5. Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band ($145.4)
6. Rihanna ($141.9)
7. Cirque du Soleil’s Michael Jackson: The Immortal ($133.4)
8. Taylor Swift ($131)
9. Depeche Mode ($119.6)
10. One Direction ($114)
11. Paul McCartney ($113.5)
12. The Rolling Stones ($110.3)
13. Muse ($103.9)
14. Fleetwood Mac ($94.3)
15. Kenny Chesney ($90.9)
16. Roger Waters ($81)
17. Bruno Mars ($72.4)
18. Jay Z and Justin Timberlake ($69)
19. Elton John ($65.9)
20. Cirque du Soleil’s Corteo ($61.7)
On the list, Live Nation chief executive Michael Rapino shares:
“It’s a global business now, and that wasn’t the case five to 10 years ago — thanks to the Internet, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. When you realize that someone like Rihanna has 100 million followers and only 30 million of them are in [North] America, now a tour to South America becomes possible because such awareness is built through a whole new social media and Internet delivery system.”