RBD Earns Highest Grossing Touring Act Honors for November

RBD is celebrating a November to remember…

After two months at No. 2, the reunited Mexican Latin group takes the helm as the highest grossing touring act of November.

RBDThe group’s Soy Rebelde Tour grossed $71.1 million and sold 734,000 tickets from November 3 to 30, per Billboard Boxscore figures. The tour is the act’s first trek since 2008’s Tour del Adios.

Current through November 30, the Soy Rebelde Tour has grossed $197.1 million since launching in August. About half a million dollars shy of Daddy Yankee’s 2022 farewell tour, RBD’s reunion will become the second-highest grossing tour by a Latin act once its December shows are reported, behind Bad Bunny‘s World’s Hottest Tour.

RBD’s monthly crown is due to hustle. Other than Trans-Siberian Orchestra, the perennial holiday favorite that includes two touring ensembles for either coast of the U.S., RBD played more shows in November than any act among the top 30. With 17 shows split between seven markets, the group earned its spot atop the heap by playing hard.

After sitting at No. 2 behind Beyoncé and Pink in September and October, respectively, RBD levels up, and its routing has much to do with it. Not only did the group play more shows than in either of the previous months, but after touring the U.S., RBD took on Latin America in November, transitioning to a primarily Spanish-language audience.

That move allowed RBD to move from arenas to stadiums, multiplying its nightly audience by more than two. In the U.S., the group paced about 18,000 tickets per night before rocketing to more than 43,000 each show in Colombia, Brazil and Mexico.

But the ticket pricing economy is much different in these geographical regions, and RBD’s average ticket price went from $241.30 in the U.S. to $96.81 in Latin America.

In all, its average gross stayed almost the same, even dipping by 4%. But the pure volume of seats that RBD could sell made up the difference, giving RBD its first monthly win yet.

At No. 1 for November, RBD is only the third Latin act to lead the monthly Top Tours chart. Los Bukis first broke ground in September 2021, and Bad Bunny pushed the boundaries further, ruling in February, March, August and September of 2022. Aventura, Daddy Yankee, Maluma and Rauw Alejandro have also hit the top five.

That means that RBD is the source for the genre’s first female artists to hit the top tier. The mixed-gender group’s reunion features original members Anahi, Dulce Maria and Maite Perroni, all hailing from Mexico. Beyond Latin music, they continue a hot streak for women atop the chart: after a nearly four-year drought, Beyoncé, Pink and RBD have kept women at No. 1 for six of the last seven months.

Beyond the No. 1 act, Pink and Madonna add support at Nos. 3 and 5, respectively. Mariah Carey, Shania TwainMs. Lauryn Hill and in her monthly Boxscore debut, Doja Cat, follow. While a grand total of seven women acts in the top 30 doesn’t give them a majority, the 23.3% gender split is up from the 2023 year-end wrap, where women’s representation doubled from the previous year.

Four of RBD’s seven stops in November crack the 30-position Top Boxscores chart. Four shows at Allianz Parque in Sao Paulo, Brazil (Nov. 16-19) earned $17.4 million and sold 191,000 tickets, while another four at Estadio Antanasio Girardot (Medellin, Colombia; Nov. 3-6) took in $17.2 million from 150,000 tickets.

In Sao Paulo, RBD played another two shows at Estadio do Morumbi on Nov. 12-13, grossing $11 million. If the group had consolidated their Sao Paulo run at one venue, the combined gross would’ve given them the No. 1 spot with more than $28 million.

Bad Bunny Breaks Billboard Boxscore Record for Highest Gross for Artist in Calendar Year

Bad Bunny is closing out the year with a bang…

The 28-year-old Puerto Rican superstar closed out his World’s Hottest Tour over the weekend in Mexico City, closing out a historic year on the Billboard Boxscore charts.

Bad BunnyUltimately, his 81 concerts in 2022 – culled from two separate tours –  combine for the highest gross for an artist in a calendar year ever, since Billboard Boxscore launched in the late 1980s.

Some may have thought there were no Boxscore records left to break for Bad Bunny.

His arena tour in the spring, titled El Ultimo Tour Del Mundo, grossed $116.8 million, according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore.

This made it the highest grossing Latin tour of all time. On a city-by-city basis, he broke local revenue records in 13 North American markets.

He then launched World’s Hottest Tour, a stadium run that made him the first artist to ever mount separate $100-million-tours in the same year. That trek broke local records in 12 of its 15 domestic markets, ultimately earning $232.5 million in the U.S.

Its 11 shows in September grossed $123.7 million, breaking the record for the highest one-month gross since Billboard launched its monthly rankings in 2019.

Bad Bunny topped the year-end Top Tours chart with a $373.5 million take, though he was still in the middle of a Latin American leg when the year-end tracking period ended. (Year-End Boxscore charts are based on shows that played between Nov. 1, 2021 – Oct. 31, 2022.)

In doing so, he became the first Latin artist, and first artist to primarily perform in any language other than English, to crown the annual ranking.

Finally, Bad Bunny closed out World’s Hottest Tour with two shows at Mexico City’s Estadio Azteca on December 9-10, adding $10.3 million and 116,000 tickets to its total. The Latin American run spanned 21 shows in 15 cities, earning $81.7 million from 910,000 tickets sold. Mexico was the highlight – not only for its two CDMX concerts, but for the $17.1 million out of Monterrey’s Estadio BBVA.

Altogether, the tour grossed $314.1 million and sold 1.9 million tickets, re-setting the record for the biggest Latin tour ever.

Added to his arena tour, plus three hometown shows in San Juan in July that were not a proper part of either of his two tours, Bad Bunny grossed $434.9 million in 2022, narrowly eclipsing Ed Sheeran’s $434.4 million in 2018, for the highest calendar-year gross in Billboard Boxscore history.

Bad Bunny’s gigantic year on the road is just one piece of his 2022 puzzle. He was also named Billboard’s Top Artist of the year, bolstered by the success of Un Verano Sin Ti. Released in May, his seasonal smash spent 13 weeks atop the Billboard 200 and landed seven of its tracks on the year-end Billboard Hot 100 ranking.

That album, plus his two 2020 releases, brought Bad Bunny from arena-contender to stadium-conqueror. His previous touring cycle, 2019’s X100 PRE Tour, earned $45.8 million between two legs, averaging $1.1 million per night. World’s Hottest Tour went stratospheric, pacing $3.7 million per show in Latin America and $11.1 million in the U.S.

Dating back to a Rosemont Theater show in October 2017 — his first show reported to Billboard Boxscore as a headliner — Bad Bunny has grossed $508.7 million and sold 3.3 million tickets. That’s one more broken record — enough to make him the highest grossing Latin artist in Boxscore history.

Bad Bunny Becomes First Latin Act to Lead Billboard’s Year-End Top Tours Chart

Bad Bunny is officially this year’s tour de force…

The 28-year-old Puerto Rican superstar has finished as the year’s top touring act (No. 1 on Top Tours) with total gross of $373.5 million from 1.8 million tickets across 65 shows.

Bad BunnyBad Bunny is the first Latin act, and first act who doesn’t perform in English, to finish atop Billboard’s year-end Top Tours chart. Beyond the historic nature of his win for genre and language, he is the only artist to mount separate $100-million tours in the same year.

Further, while Boxscore charts often favor older acts with deeper histories on the road, like 2020 and 2021 champs Elton John and The Rolling Stones, Bad Bunny’s win this year is a testament to the growing power of contemporary stadium acts.

In fact, he is just the third artist to simultaneously crown the year-end Top Tours and overall Top Artists charts, following Taylor Swift in 2015 and One Direction in 2014.

Bad Bunny’s year in touring breaks down into several parts. First, he played two hometown stadium shows at San Juan’s Hiram Bithorn Stadium, earning $6.5 million on December 10-11, 2021.

That was followed by El Ultimo Tour Del Mundo, an arena run named after his 2020 album that broke ground as the first all-Spanish-language set to top the weekly Billboard 200 chart.

On that trek, he earned $116.8 million from 35 shows, enough to set a record for the highest-grossing Latin tour in Boxscore history.

That tour broke local records in Inglewood, Calif., Miami, Houston, Seattle, and more, setting the stage for an even bigger fall in 2022.

After releasing Un Verano Sin Ti and spending most the summer at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, Bad Bunny played three Puerto Rico shows for a $4 million gross, and then properly embarked on World’s Hottest Tour, living up to its name at each stop.

The trek leveled Bad Bunny to stadiums and took in $232.5 million in North America, plus another $13.8 million from its first four Latin American shows. After setting arena records throughout the U.S. in the spring, he set revenue records in 12 of the 15 domestic markets he played in the fall.

While Daddy Yankee’s La Ultima Vuelta World Tour quickly stole Bunny’s all-time Latin tour record from earlier this year, World’s Hottest Tour re-sets the pace as the first pan-American stadium tour of its size.

All of that combines to $373.5 million during the twelve-month tracking period, amounting to a record-setting, historic No. 1 finish, eclipsing Elton John and Ed Sheeran at Nos. 2-3, each of whom was a previous year-end victor.

These men lead the most eye-popping Top Tours chart ever. Five acts grossed more than $200 million, beating the previous high of four in 2018, and 16 acts generated more than $100 million in ticket sales, nearly doubling the previous high of nine in 2017 and 2018.

Billboard’s Year-End Boxscore charts are based on figures reported to Billboard Boxscore for engagements that played between November 1, 2021-October 31, 2022.

Bad Bunny’s “World’s Hottest Tour” Named Top-Grossing Tour of August

Bad Bunny continues making history on the road…

The 28-year-old Puerto Rican superstar has conquered stadiums this summer with the top-grossing tour of August.

Bad BunnyWorld’s Hottest Tour – Bad Bunny’s second chart-topping trek of 2022 – grossed $91.1 million and sold 404,000 tickets during the month, according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore.

Bad Bunny had previously mounted the biggest Latin tour in Billboard Boxscore history with $117 million on El Ultimo Tour del Mundo. Billboard began compiling Boxscore data in the late 1980s.

The total for Bad Bunny’s new tour, World’s Hottest Tour, is the second-highest one-month gross since the launch of Billboard’s monthly charts in February 2019.

Only The Rolling Stones have surpassed it in that time, grossing $95 million in August 2019.

Bunny had already claimed the all-time runner-up spot with his $65 million haul in March, though Coldplay snuck by with a $66.7 million take just last month. Now, he re-secures his standing with the highest one-month Boxscore gross for a solo act in the three years Billboard has been compiling monthly charts.

Bad Bunny only played nine shows in August, averaging a blistering $10.1 million and 45,000 tickets per show. While other artists near the top of the touring pack also played to massive crowds in stadiums around the U.S., their grosses are more reasonably head-spinning, between $5 million and $7 million each night.

World’s Hottest Tour, on the other hand, went stratospheric, pushing eight figures per show on the back of Un Verano Sin Ti, Bad Bunny’s summer-defining album that has logged 11 weeks (so far) atop the Billboard 200. Released on May 6, it impacted after the tour was sold out, though the added momentum of new music may have further affected resale demand.

There’s a saying that goes “your biggest competition is yourself.” If that’s true, Bad Bunny continues to win. He hit seven U.S. markets in August, improving upon the gross and attendance in each city from his Spring tour. That might sound obvious to the point of insignificance considering his upgrade to stadiums, but his arena tour played two or three shows in several markets and ultimately broke many local records.

Still, the Bad Bunny of February and March is no match for Bad Bunny of August. His $22.1 million run at Yankee Stadium August 27-28 nearly doubled the already-massive $11.1 million take in Brooklyn and Newark, N.J., combined. Grosses doubled, and then some, in Atlanta, Boston and Washington, D.C. His one show at Chicago’s Soldier Field earned $13.8 million and sold 51,791 tickets, besting a three-show run at the Allstate Arena ($11.2 million, 51,430 tickets) March 10-12.

August is Bad Bunny’s third month leading the Top Tours chart, following his gold medals in February and March. That ties him with The Rolling Stones for the second-most time atop the ranking, bested only by Elton John, who crowned four months in 2019-20.

Including a pair of September reports, World’s Hottest Tour has already grossed $122.5 million, eclipsing his previous run to become the highest grossing Latin tour in Boxscore history. It also makes him the first artist, in any genre, to mount two separate $100-million tours in the same year.

All seven plays on Bad Bunny’s August haul make the 30-position Top Boxscores chart, four of which crack the top 10. His shows help lift Soldier Field, Fenway Park and Yankee Stadium to the top five of Top Stadiums. And alongside Daddy Yankee, he helped push Cardenas Marketing Network to No. 3 on Top Promoters, earning $122.4 million, a record high for the Chicago-based company.

Bad Bunny’s El Ultimo Tour Del Mundo Tops Billboard’s Monthly Top Tours Chart

Bad Bunny is officially a tour de force

The 28-year-old Puerto Rican rapper/singer’s El Ultimo Tour Del Mundo repeats at No. 1 on Billboard’s monthly Top Tours chart.

Bad BunnyBad Bunny rules in March with El Ultimo Tour Del Mundo earning $64.8 million from 337,000 tickets across 20 shows, according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore.

That makes him the first artist to ever reign over back-to-back months. And one month after claiming the second-highest monthly gross for an arena tour ($39.8 million in February), his March figures rewrite the record entirely, blasting pass Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s $47 million run in December 2019.

Overall, it’s the second-highest monthly total since the charts launched in March 2019. Only The Rolling Stones stand in Bad Bunny’s way with their $95 million stadium sum in August 2019. Still, Bad Bunny’s March arena earnings stand above chart-topping stadiums runs by Ed Sheeran (April ’19), BTS (May ’19), Spice Girls (June ’19) and P!nk (July ’19).

The gargantuan $65 million haul is more than double the gross of his next closest competitors this month.

As previously reported, Bad Bunny’s February dates in Inglewood, Calif., and Dallas, among others, set local records for per-night gross and overall earnings.

In March, he continued to set regional high marks, including the three-night run at Allstate Arena in Rosemont, Ill. (20 miles outside of Chicago), which grossed $11.2 million and sold 51,400 tickets from March 10 to 12. More records were set in San Jose ($7.9 million on March 3-4), Phoenix ($3.2 million on March 6), and Orlando ($5.6 million on March 30-31).

While it didn’t quite reach the top, Bad Bunny’s double-header at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center earned $7.2 million immediately after his $3.8 million take the night before at the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J. That adds up to $11.1 million over three nights in the New York area.

These and other shows from the tour flood the Top Boxscores ranking, where Bad Bunny takes up seven spots. The Rosemont, San Jose and Brooklyn shows hit the top 10 at Nos. 2, 8 and 10, respectively.

El Ultimo Tour Del Mundo wrapped after two months on April 3 with $116.8 million. Its final triple-header in Miami will likely be the run’s last appearance on next month’s Boxscore report before yielding to Bad Bunny’s own next tour — World’s Hottest Tour. His follow-up level-up to stadiums in North and Latin America launches later this year.

In March, Bad Bunny narrowly took the No. 1 spot on Top Boxscores over a Latin American festival, keeping Mexico City’s Electric Daisy Carnival at No. 2. One month later, despite the record-setting overall haul, he is dethroned by Sao Paulo’s Lollapalooza Brasil. The three-day event grossed $23.2 million with a weekend attendance of 267,000 over March 25-27.

London’s O2 Arena is the month’s top-grossing venue with earnings of $26.8 million. It’s the first venue outside the U.S. to take the top spot on the 15,001+ capacity chart since Mexico City’s Foro Sol ruled over March 2020. Before that, you have to go back to May 2019, when the O2 itself topped the list with a slightly less massive $22 million.