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HE ROLLING STONES HAVE COMPLETED
their summer-long ascent to the top of
Billboard’s monthly Boxscore recap as their
No Filter Tour becomes the highest-grossing
trek of August.
After two runs of concerts in Europe in 2017-
18, the rock icons brought the show to North America this sum-
mer, with the leg’s two opening dates in Chicago netting them
the No. 8 position on the June Boxscore recap. They followed
that with six shows in July, which landed them at No. 2 on that
month’s tally, losing the top spot to P!nk by a margin of under
1%. Now, with a gross of $95 million and 415,219 tickets sold
across eight concerts between Aug. 1 and 31, according to figures
reported to Billboard Boxscore, the band is finally No. 1.
These grosses pushed the tour’s final take to $415.6 million,
making it the eighth-highest-grossing outing of all time. It is
the group’s second tour to join the top 10 highest-grossing treks
following A Bigger Bang Tour, which pulled in $558 million
between 2005 and 2007.
Since Billboard began publishing monthly touring recaps in
March, each No. 1 on the Top Tours chart has outgrossed the
previous one. The Rolling Stones’ gargantuan August total is no
exception, shooting past P!nk’s $61.5 million in July to set a new
high mark. Further, their $95 million gross is the highest one-
month total for any act since 2011, when British boy band Take
That surpassed $100 million touring U.K. stadiums.
The Stones’ August take is also more than double that of Ed
Sheeran, who is in the No. 2 spot
on Top Tours with $45.1 million in
grosses. Sheeran has appeared on
Billboard’s monthly Top Tours chart
since its inception — he was in the
top 10 for six of its seven months
and was No. 1 in April — but his
August showing will presumably be
his last appearance for some time:
His ÷ (Divide) tour, in support of his
2017 studio album of the same name,
wrapped Aug. 26 with a total gross of
$776 million.
Despite trailing the Stones by
$50 million, however, Sheeran
notches the month’s best-selling tour,
with 451,710 tickets sold compared
with the Stones’ 415,219. Sheeran
kept ticket prices low, but thanks to
the sheer number of shows he played
during the trek’s 30-month run, the
tour became the highest-grossing
outing of all time in early August,
weeks before it officially ended.
The Stones, with decades of touring
under their belts, took a different
approach and pushed top-tier ticket
prices toward $500 in order to reach
their chart-topping grosses.
All seven of the No Filter Tour en-
tries crack the Top Boxscores chart,
and six of them are in the top 10.
(The seventh ranks at No. 11.) But
while the Stones dominate the chart
in pure volume, the highest-gross-
ing engagement of the month is San
Francisco’s Outside Lands Music and
Arts Festival, promoted by Another
Planet Entertainment. The three-
day event earned $29.6 million and
sold over 200,000 tickets thanks to
headliners like Paul Simon, Childish
Gambino and twenty one pilots.
The Top Boxscores ranking is
evenly split between 15 engagements
in the United States and 15 interna-
tional dates. The domestic portion
is mostly fueled by the Stones, with
appearances from Queen + Adam
Lambert, Janet Jackson and the Jo-
nas Brothers. The overseas half gets
boosts from Metallica and Sheeran,
as well as Ariana Grande, Hugh Jack-
man and Fleetwood Mac.
With the final dates of the No Filter Tour, The Rolling Stones top the August
Boxscore recap with the highest one-month gross by an act in eight years
BY ERIC FRANKENBERG
No Filter, No Problem
Mick Jagger (center)
and The Rolling Stones
at Soldier Field in
Chicago on June 21.
SEPTEMBER 21, 2019 • WWW.BILLBOARD.COM 1 6 5
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