Last week, Billboard revealed its year-end Boxscore charts, ranking the top tours, venues, and promoters of 2023. That coverage included analysis of the new wave of genre diverse artists crashing stadium stages, and in turn, our charts. This week, we are breaking down the year’s biggest tours, genre by genre. Today, we continue with rock.
Rock music has been at the center of the touring industry for decades, with legendary acts like The Rolling Stones, U2, and the Eagles controlling stadium calendars and delivering record-breaking grosses. That is still the case, as rock is responsible for more entries in the all-genre top 10, 20, 40 and 100 than any other genre.
But at 32.4% of all top 100 tours’ grosses, rock takes a dramatic hit from last year’s 42.5% figure. Combined with pop, the two central genres have lost a third of their total market share since the pandemic, as pockets of Latin and K-pop acts take up prime Boxscore real estate. And as rock accounts for many of the oldest artists in the top 100, with Latin and K-pop bringing up the chart’s youngest names, the future of rock bands as touring titans is blurrier than it was 5-10 years ago.
But with a new round of legacy tours from ‘90s and ‘00s bands, plus steady arena grosses from 21st century acts like Arctic Monkeys, Greta Van Fleet and Imagine Dragons, there is still plenty of juice for the coming years.
Scroll to check out the top 10 highest-grossing tours by rock artists, with such acts qualifying due to recent performance on Billboard’s Top Rock Albums and/or Hot Rock Songs charts. Rankings are determined according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore. All reported shows worldwide between Nov. 1, 2022 – Sept. 30, 2023 are eligible.
