Janet Jackson wrapped the Together Again Tour in June to the biggest numbers of her storied career. According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, the run earned $50.9 million and sold 479,000 tickets across 37 shows in the U.S.
That’s the biggest gross of any tour in Jackson’s Boxscore history, eclipsing $46.9 million for the All for You Tour (2001-02).
Market by market, Jackson hit career highs. Her double-header at New York’s Madison Square Garden (May 8-9) grossed $3.8 million and sold 24,500 tickets, making it the biggest reported engagement of her career (excluding her residency at Las Vegas’ Park Theater in 2019). To secure the personal record, it surpasses a three-show run at the same venue in August 2001, when she earned $3.2 million and sold 42,500 tickets.
She also posted best-ever grosses in Atlanta, with a $3.1 million take at the State Farm Arena on April 26-27; and in Los Angeles, where she drew $2.8 million at the Hollywood Bowl on June 10.
Inflation and a ballooning ticketing market make it difficult to compare grosses for a 2023 tour against those from two or three decades ago. But while Jackson’s ticket prices have expectedly increased since the early ‘90s, the Together Again Tour didn’t squeeze consumers in unprecedented ways. The tour averaged a $106.13 price, only 15% more than 2008’s Rock Witchu Tour, and 7% less than the $113 tickets on 2011’s Number Ones tour.
If Jackson priced tickets within the realm of her previous runs, and played far fewer shows – less than half – than her most extensive tours, how did she earn more than ever? The old-fashioned way: She sold more tickets.
The 37 shows on the Together Again Tour averaged 12,958 tickets, restoring Jackson’s peak 10,000-plus audience that followed her through the 1990s and early 2000s. The Together Again Tour didn’t just approach her chart-topping high – it surpassed the per-show attendance of the All for You Tour (2001-02), the Velvet Rope Tour (1997-98) and the Janet. World Tour (1993-94), marking her best ticket sales since the Rhythm Nation World Tour 1990.
Jackson’s tours displayed remarkable consistency throughout the first 13 years of her Boxscore history. It’s not hard to see why – she was No. 2 on Billboard’s decade-end Top Artists ranking for the 1990s and continued with No. 1 singles on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2000 (“Doesn’t Really Matter”) and 2001 (“All For You”).
As Jackson climbs back to the same heights on tour, she’s five years removed from her last Hot 100 appearance and eight years from the release of her last full-length set (Unbreakable in 2015). Selling out arenas on a $50 million tour without a hit album to promote might be her destiny, 40 years on from her first album. The Boxscore charts are spotted with legacy acts across genres who can harness the whole of their careers into a two-hour package that sells for hundreds of dollars per person.
But that return to form wasn’t guaranteed. Jackson’s sharp rise over the last decade indicates that her enduring catalog has survived the final remains of a well-documented controversy that limited her touring profile (and her audience) in the mid-2000s and early 2010s. The Together Again Tour’s success follows a critical re-appraisal of Jackson’s catalog, an induction to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and a four-part televised documentary that notched a two-year ratings high.
Dating back to March 1990, Jackson has grossed $254.9 million and sold 4.5 million tickets across 418 reported shows.
