Metallica Grossed Over $2 Million Per Show on Their Recent European Tour

While it’s not quite as eye-popping as the $4.6+ million per show average Metallica grossed on last summer’s tour of North America, the numbers for the band’s recent European run are enough to make any underground metal band playing dark basements and stageless VFW halls jealous beyond belief.

According to Pollstar, the band’s European tour earlier this year averaged $2,137,474 and 20,451 tickets sold per show. To put that in perspective, using some recent numbers from Germany as a base, Periphery would need to play 133 shows in Europe just to equal the amount grossed at ONE Metallica show! That’s mind boggling, but it’s testament to just how massively huge the Metallica machine is.

It’s worth noting, of course, that show gross ≠ profit. The band needs to pay ALL their expenses out of that gross — travel, transportation, gear rental, crew (massive crew), accommodations for all those people, gear, etc. — not to mention the promoter, venue, manager and booking agent all taking a cut. Still… even if all those expenses account for 50% of the gross (just a guess), that’s a MASSIVE take home. And those numbers don’t even include merch sales, which must be massive. No wonder they’re able to afford plush $16 million homes overlooking the Golden Gate bridge!

Metallica have some North American dates scheduled for later this year and into early 2019 with another European run on the horizon for later in 2019, so we can all reasonably expect those paychecks to keep flowin’.

[via Metal Injection]