Top 10 Summer '07 tours to date
Summer isn't over yet, and certainly not in the realm of touring, where a lot of major tours extend through September and -- more crucially for this post's purposes -- promoters haven't reported a lot of their attendance figures to Billboard Boxscore.
But it's still interesting to see what's pulling in the crowds so far, according to the latest BB BS figures through last week. Here are the top 10 tours, ranked by total gross (insert own Marilyn Manson joke here).
Rank. Artist: Gross in millions (number of dates); Attendance (rounded)/% of capacity
1. Police: $91.3 million (31); 804,000/100%: Easily the winner
2. Kenny Chesney: $47.3 million (34); 738,000/100%: Actually close behind The Police but charges considerably less for tickets
3. Tim McGraw & Faith Hill: $32.6 million (30); 379,000/86.5%: Two country tours in the top 3.
4. Celine Dion: $18.8 million (33); 136,000/99.6%: Based on residency in Vegas, more of a stationary tour, if you will, where people have to come to her. And they are.
5. Roger Waters: $17.4 million (14); 208,000/97.6%: Power of the Dark Side.
6. Tool: $15.9 million (34); 390,000/88.5%: There's probably a "power Tool" joke to be extracted somewhere, but I'm not really up to it at the moment.
7. Gwen Stefani: $15.3 million (31); 404,000/84.7%: Apparently a great escape this summer.
8. John Mayer: $14.1 million (29); 434,000/75.0%: Third-highest attendance figure this summer.
9. Rush: $13.8 million (24); 252,000/61.9%: The fans are still out there (when not bombarding this blog with complaints about slights to the band). However, the percentage-of-capacity figure is by far the lowest in the top 10.
10. Brad Paisley: $9.6 million (25); 375,000/76.1%: Country music, car tunes and cartoons -- what more do you want from a live experience?
Also, there was a question a little while back about how Lollapalooza did this year. Pretty well, actually. Attendance for the two-day Chicago festival slightly exceeded last year's, 167,000 to 166,000, but the total gross was way up: $9.8 million this year; $7.9 million last year. Higher ticket prices will do that, but give the fest credit -- it offered a bill that people were willing to pay higher prices to see. Percentage of capacity figures were about the same: 83.7% this year, 82.8% last year.
Listen Up - USATODAY.com
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