These are the Top 100 Highest-Grossing Worldwide Tours of 2018 So Far

Pollstar just released their annual list revealing the top grossing tours of 2018 mid-way through the year, and some notable metal and metal-adjacent acts make an appearance in the top 100.

As with the weekly Boxscore reports we feature, these figures only include gross ticket sales and do not show the whole picture of an artist’s actualized earnings. Most importantly, each artist still has to pay a ton of expenses off the top; management, booking agent, promoter, venue, travel, equipment (sound/lights/staging), band members, crew, hotels, tours busses, etc. On the other hand, these figures don’t include ancillary income streams such as merch sales, which can be huge. Still, these numbers give a good picture of artists’ earning power relative to one another.

Here are the top 10 for 2018 so far:

1. Ed Sheeran – $213.9 million
2. Bruno Mars – $113.4 million
3. The Rolling Stones – $100.8 million
4. Taylor Swift – $98 million
5. Pink – $95.9 million
6. Eagles – $84 million
7. Justin Timberlake – $83.8 million
8. Kenny Chesney – $62.1 million
9. Roger Waters – $60.7 million
10. U2 – $59.9 million

No metal or hard rock acts there, which is a bummer. Still, some of the names you’d expect make an appearance in the top 100:

12. Foo Fighters – $53.6 million
19. Metallica – $40.6 million
21. Bon Jovi – $38 million
22. Phil Collins – $38 million
35. Queen + Adam Lambert – $23.9 million
43. Journey / Def Leppard – $21.2 million
51. Rod Stewart – $18.2 million
52. Iron Maiden – $17.3 million
53. Kid Rock – $17.1 million
83. Avenged Sevenfold – $10.5 million
91. Scorpions – $10.1 million
94. Santana – $9.3 million

For some reason Guns N’ Roses aren’t on this list despite staggering numbers and a European tour currently in progress… maybe those figures just aren’t in yet? Beats me.

You can view the full list of 100 right here.

[via Ultimate Guitar]