When it comes to making money in the music industry, the biggest way to earn is through concerts. Compared to merchandise sales and money earned from streams or albums, an artist’s ability to fill up a stadium is one of their most critical selling points. Their ability to perform on that stage is a very close second. After all, the goal is to keep earning on future tours.
But when you think about rock music, along with metal and punk, it’s hard to gauge which bands have earned the most. In fact, there’s often a surprising name on the list when it comes to earnings—and this isn’t specific to just rock. In just about any industry, there are a few shocking names to find on an all-time money list.
For example, in the world of poker, the all-time poker money list doesn’t include a world-famous name in the first position. It’s not Phil Hellmuth, the Poker Brat, or Daniel Negreanu, considered the world’s most skilled player. Instead, first place goes to American Justin Bonomo. Even though most people haven’t ever heard of him, he’s taken home over $60 million in live tournament earnings alone.
So, are you confident you can name the top earners in terms of rock music? Keep reading for a breakdown of the world’s most lucrative bands according to live concert earnings.
The Rolling Stones, $2.5 billion
The Rolling Stones are an icon in rock—and considering they’ve been around for six decades, it’s not surprising they would have earned so much money. Compared to other rock bands that came up in the 1960s, the Rolling Stones have fared well. And that’s an important fact here, as most of the band’s biggest earnings have come in the last decade. In fact, their tour brought in $115 million after selling over 500,000 tickets for only twelve tour dates. What’s the lesson here? Nostalgia is one of the best-sellers in rock music.
U2, $2 billion
With a founding date in 1976, U2 benefits from the same longevity as the Rolling Stones. However, U2 has endured more cyclical growth than the latter thanks to their near death in the 1980s. But by the 2000s, they had totally renewed their image and, by extension, public interest. Their U2 360 Tour, which lasted from 2009-2011, held the world record for the highest-attended and highest-grossing concert tour until it was topped back in 2019.
Metallica, $1.2 billion
When it comes to the best-selling concert series of all time, Metallica comes in 9th place behind other groups like the Eagles, Bon Jovi, Bruce Springsteen, and Elton John. And that’s for a good reason. When Metallica took on heavy metal in the early 1980s, it was still a highly fringe genre. Thrash metal simply didn’t exist—and Metallica managed to pull ahead of the other three bands in the Big Four, including Slayer and Megadeth. And when looking at sales as tracked by Nielsen SoundScan (active since 1991), Metallica was the third best-selling group back in 2017 in terms of sales on music.