Highest-grossing female touring artist

Published by the trade magazine Pollstar (founded 1981) on 25 July 2022, “Top Touring Artists of the Pollstar Era - Boxoffice Grosses” ranked Madonna (USA, b. Madonna Ciccone) fifth overall – after The Rolling Stones, U2, Elton John and Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band – with a box-office gross of $1,389,746,222 (£1,157,136,058).

This figure includes revenue from the highest-grossing music tour by a female artist: Madonna’s Sticky & Sweet Tour made $411 million (£252.9 million) from 85 shows staged across four legs in 2008–09, according to Pollstar.

The other female artists ranked within the top 20 box-office grosses were Celine Dion (6th; $1,354,352,578), Beyoncé (15th; $1,012,704,645) and Taylor Swift (17th; $924,991,375). The Rolling Stones were top with a gross of $2,165,280,638.

In the same July 2022 edition, Pollstar revealed that Madonna had shifted a female record 11,672,443 tickets for her live shows, placing her 21st overall. (U2 were top with 26,178,043 tickets sold.)

Celine Dion (10,906,984) was the only other female artist with ticket sales in excess of 10 million in the Pollstar era. For their “Box-office Grosses” and “Tickets Sold” charts, Pollstar used touring data collected between July 1980 and July 2022.