Guns N’ Roses close third highest-grossing tour ever

Guns N’ Roses’ mammoth Not in this Lifetime world tour has finally drawn to a close, after three years that saw the rock legends play 158 concerts across six continents.

According to Billboard figures, the Live Nation-promoted tour grossed US$584.2 million from 5,371,891 ticket sales, making it the third highest-grossing tour in history behind Ed Sheeran’s ÷ tour ($775.6m) and U2’s 360° tour ($735.4m).

Beginning in 2016, the Not in this Lifetime tour marked the reunion of Guns N’ Roses members Axl Rose, Slash and Duff McKagan after 13 years. It was the most successful rock tour of 2016 and the second highest-grossing tour of 2017, beaten by U2’s Joshua Tree 2017 phenomenon.

The tour has seen the rockers, who are represented by ITB’s Rod MacSween and UTA’s Ken Fermaglich, play 31 shows in Europe, 16 in Asia, 15 in South America, 8 in Australia and a sole date in South Africa.

Although home-continent shows amassed the most in terms of region – $285.5m – they fell short proportionally

Over half of the tour (55%) took place in North America, with 87 dates in the United States, Canada and Mexico. Although home-continent shows amassed the most in terms of region – $285.5m – they fell short proportionally, with 55% of the tour accounting for 49% of overall gross and 43% of net ticket sales.

The highest-grossing individual show took place at the 66,000-capacity London Stadium on 16 June 2017. The concert grossed $17.7m – 3% of the tour total – selling 140,877 tickets.

More than 100,000 fans also attended single dates at Foro Sol in Mexico City, the River Plate Stadium in Buenos Aires and the MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford. The shows in London, East Rutherford and Buenos Aires all broke the $10m mark, along with dates at the Tallinn, Song Festival Grounds in Estonia and Allianz Parque in São Paulo, Brazil.

The mega tour ended at the beginning of November with two dates at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

As noted by consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), veteran acts have consistently performed well on the touring circuit in recent years, with tours by U2, Roger Waters, Eagles, Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen and Phil Collins bringing in “large totals” in 2018 alone.

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