Earlier this week, Billboard revealed its year-end Boxscore charts, ranking the top tours, venues and promoters of 2024. We’re breaking it down further, looking at the biggest live acts, genre by genre. Today, we continue with rock.
Rock acts remain dominant among the year’s biggest earners, responsible for 36% of every dollar made by the top 100 artists. That’s more than double any other style of music, but it’s among the lowest yearly market shares in the genre’s history. For 10 of the first 11 years of this century, rock owned more than half of the top 100. Of the last 12 years (excluding 2020 and 2021 due to venue closures amid the COVID-19 pandemic), it has only exceeded 50% once, and not since 2017.
Part of the problem contributing to rock’s diminishing presence is the lack of younger acts filling arenas as some of its icons retire. None of the genre’s top 10 acts began touring in the 21st century, with just two of them dating back to the 1990s. The only asterisk is Dead & Company, which originated in 2015 but tours in tribute to The Grateful Dead, which formed in 1965.
Still, rock rules, with its biggest act of the year reigning supreme on the all-genre Top Tours chart.
Scroll to check out the 10 highest-grossing tours by rock acts, with such acts qualifying due to recent performance on Billboard’s Top Rock Albums and/or Hot Rock Songs charts. Rankings are determined according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore. All reported shows worldwide between Oct. 1, 2023 – Sept. 30, 2024 are eligible.