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Ed Sheeran’s tour highest grossing for second consecutive year

Ed Sheeran has once again topped the Billboard touring charts for the year with his record-setting Divide Tour, which spanned from March 2017 to August 2019.

The British popstar sold 2,587,445 tickets and grossed more than $223m (£169m/€201m), bringing the tour’s total income to a record $776.2m, surpassing the previous record of $736.4m set by U2’s The 360 Degree Tour between 2009-11.

Sheeran joins The Rolling Stones as the only two artists to have the top-grossing tour for two consecutive years. However, Sheeran is the first act to ever out-gross and outsell all artists for two years in a row, as Dave Matthews Band and NSYNC beat The Rolling Stones in attendance figures in 1999.

In 2019, P!nk was the second highest grossing tour, shifting more than 1.8 million tickets and bringing in $217m, with K-pop supergroup BTS in third with 1.6 million tickets and $196.4m of revenue.

Elton John sits in fourth place with his Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour, The Rolling Stones is in fifth in 2019 and Metallica is in sixth.

Billboard also reported the top 10 promoters of 2019, with Live Nation coming out on top in terms of gross income with $3.4bn. AEG Presents was in second place with more than double the number of shows than Live Nation promoted, bringing in $2.2bn. AEG put on 13,845 shows in 2019, compared to the Ticketmaster owner’s 5,673. OCESA-CIE, TEG Dainty/TEG Live and SJM Concerts rounded out the top 5.

Image: Markus Hillgärtner

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