Coldplay’s Tour Is the Third-Highest Grossing of All Time
Coldplay’s A Head Full of Dreams tour, which ended on Nov. 15, has been confirmed as the third-highest grossing road trip of all time – replacing Roger Waters in the runner-up position behind U2 and the Rolling Stones.
Promoters Live Nation confirmed that, during the tour in support of their 2016 album A Head Full of Dreams, Coldplay took a total of $523,033,675 in ticket sales and performed to approximately 5,389,586 fans. The income compares to top-placed U2, who generated $736.4 million during their 360 tour from 2009 to 2011, and $558.2 million taken by the Stones on their A Bigger Bang tour of 2005-2007. Waters made $459 million from 2010 to 2013 with his The Wall Live tour.
“The success of such tours throughout 2017 has been credited to expanding capabilities for arena shows, which constituted a large number of Coldplay’s itinerary,” Billboard reported. They quoted Doug Thornton of SMG, a company that manages arenas and stadiums around the world, as saying, “People that go to a stadium show now, [they] have a better opportunity to see the artist because of the size and quality of the screens… and Coldplay’s show is the best I’ve ever seen.”
Before the release of A Head Full of Dreams, frontman Chris Martin triggered rumors that it might be their last LP when he said, “It’s our seventh thing and the way we look at it, it’s like the last Harry Potter book. That’s not to say there won’t be another thing one day, but this is the completion of something.” Earlier this year they released an EP entitled Kaleidoscope, designed as a companion title to the previous LP.