Record-Breaking Q3 Revenue Tops $6B Amid Economic Challenges

By Andy Gensler & Bob Allen

Despite Economic Headwinds…

With 2026’s uneven business climate persisting and marked by an inflationary economy with near-all-time-high prices for gas and consumer goods, along with high interest rates and shaky consumer confidence, it would be logical to think the live industry would have a mixed year at best.

Box-office numbers tabulated for Pollstar ’s 2026 Q3 (see page 57), however, tell a vastly different story: The Worldwide Top 100 Touring Artists for 2026 are on track to have a record-setting year based on reported third-quarter tour revenues and ticket sales between Nov. 13, 2025 and Aug. 12, 2026.

The live business, based on this quarter’s data, would seem more impermeable to economic vicissitudes than other industries. Perhaps precisely because of these challenging times, concerts and shared communal experiences have become more essential than ever.

Joe Berchtold, President and Chief Financial Officer of Live Nation, the world’s largest concert promoter, substantiated this while speaking at the recent Goldman Sachs Conference. In response to the possibility of business slowing down in 2027, he said: “We’ve seen nothing. And again, on a global basis, every week we get the numbers, U.S., U.K., Mexico, Latin America, we’re not seeing any real issue that would say that we’ve got any macro problem at all.”

To All-time Highs This is good news for the live business. Continuing the upward trend from Pollstar’s Q1 and mid-year’s Top 100 Touring Artists charts, third-quarter totals reflect all-time highs in both gross and ticket sales. It’s a continuation of an overall pattern of growth for both metrics year-over-year since 2022’s “Great Return” and subsequent “Golden Age,” that followed the COVID shutdown.

Overall, grosses in 2026 thus far sit at $6.12 billion for the first three quarters, marking the first time concert revenues at Q3 topped $6 billion for the 100 highest grossing artists. And it’s a significant jump: a whopping 5.3% increase over 2025’s $5.81 billion.

While grosses post-pandemic have increased year-to-year, the level of growth has varied. In 2022, the first full year after the global shutdown, grosses reached a respectable $3.81 billion at Q3, which was only about 3% less than 2019’s record gross prior to the pandemic. But in 2023, concert activity skyrocketed, and the percentage increase was a massive 30.7%, reaching $4.98 billion. Then 2024 saw another two-digit increase of 14.1% to $5.68 billion, while 2025’s $5.81 billion was a more moderate 2.3% higher than the previous year.

A similar trajectory can be seen in ticket sales for the Top 100 Worldwide Touring Artists over the past five years. This year, a total of 47,453,010 tickets were sold during the first three quarters, setting a new global attendance record for Q3. That figure reflects a 4.9% increase over the 2025 ticket count of 45,244,907.

The five-year growth pattern is similar to what we see in grosses – year-to-year increases but less dramatic. While the ticket tally back in 2022 numbered 37.4 million through the third quarter, sales jumped to 43.7 million in 2023, a vigorous hike of 16.8%. But over the next two years, Q3 attendance leveled off quite a bit with a mere 2.7% increase the next year to 44.9 million and a 0.8% bump in 2025 to 45.2 million.

The averages per show for both gross and tickets, however, are decreases and a departure from the consistent year-over-year growth we’ve seen in overall totals.

The average gross of $2,292,175 is 5.4% less than last year’s $2.42 million, but it is more of a correction than a decline, as the 2025 gross average was almost 30% higher than the $1.87 million average in 2024, due to a greater number of stadium shows driving average gross increases. And the 2024 average gross was a record at the time, handily beating the 2023 average of $1.75 million and the $1.31 million average in 2022.

It’s a similar pattern with average ticket sales. This year, the top 100 artists averaged 17,759 tickets per show, a decrease of 5.8% compared to last year, but 2025’s 18,860-ticket average was the highest ever: 27.7% more than 2024’s 14,766 average. And, compared to 2024, the 2026 average also represents a double-digit increase of 20.3%.

The average ticket price in Q3 is a record high of $129.07, but the prices in each of the past three years have all been in a similar range, just over $125. In 2024, ticket prices averaged $126.55, then rose 1.5% to $128.46 last year, while this year’s price is only 0.5% higher than that.

Prior to the past three years, the 2023 average price was $113.85, 10% lower than in 2024, while the 2022 average price was 19.2% less at $102.21. That was the first year the average price topped $100. Before COVID, the highest was $96.17 in 2019.

Worth noting is the continued impact global touring has on this industry. Live Nation’s Berchtold also said that 30% of the promoter’s top 50 tours were by non-English-speaking artists, whereas pre-COVID it was at 8%. Among Q3’s top 100 artists, a quarter of them would not list English as their native language.

It’s A BTS World…

Jin, Suga, J-Hope, RM, Jimin, V and Jung Kook. You may not know their names, but 2,314,140 BTS fans across 38 shows in Q3 screamed their names full-throated for nearly three hours at every stop, betraying what K-pop fans call their “bias” for certain members. The outrageous Q3 gross for Bangtan Sonyeondan (Bulletproof Boy Scouts a.k.a. BTS) is a $465.8 million juggernaut, already topping Beyoncé’s 2025 totals for her No. 1-ranked “Cowboy Carter Tour,” which came in at $407.6 million. And they’re not done yet…

Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas sold the most tickets to see BTS on their “Arirang World Tour” with 245,691 members of the BTS ARMY in attendance at four shows, May 23-28. And Sin City grosses reached a decadent $66.6 million.

Along with BTS, Bad Bunny also topped $400 million on his “Debí Tirar Más Fotos World Tour.” He grossed $438.6 million from 3.1 million sold tickets in Latin America, Australia and Europe, from November of last year through the end of August, to score the No. 2 ranking. He sold the most tickets at Riyadh Air Metropolitano in Madrid, Spain with 639,656 fans in attendance at 10 shows in May and June.

The Weeknd ranks third in the top 100 with $261.4 million from 35 shows at 14 stadiums, including Stade de France in Paris, the only one of the 14 venues to host the tour four nights. (His five-show Wembley Stadium run in London occurred after the Aug. 12 cut-off date for Q3.) The four nights in Paris drew 299,578 fans and earned $47.3 million.

Ranked No. 4 is Lady Gaga with a $209.4 million gross from 982,530 tickets sold at 41 shows. She is the highest grossing artist to perform primarily in arenas, although her schedule also included a run of stadium dates in Australia and Asia in December and January.

Luke Combs rounds out the top 5 with his stadium tour that grossed $170.2 million in North America and Europe. His best-attended performance was at Ohio Stadium in Columbus with a sellout crowd of 97,367 in attendance.

The remainder of the top 10 include K-pop group TWICE with $157.3 million, followed by co-headliners Chris Brown and Usher, No. 7 with $153.4 million. Then Noah Kahan is No. 8, AC/DC lands at No. 9 and Ed Sheeran follows at No. 10, all three with grosses in the $100 million range.

Top Touring Artists Writ Large

The top 10 artists at Q3 grossed a massive $2.26 billion from 14.3 million tickets at 332 shows. All three of those totals are higher compared to 2025’s top 10 touring artists. Grosses are 9.8% higher, ticket sales increased 5.1%, and there are 29 more shows this year. Much of this speaks to one thing: bigger. Bigger buildings, bigger tours and bigger prices.

The top 25 artists grossed $3.48 billion collectively this year, up 1.3% over 2025, but the increase is even greater for the top 50 with $4.78 billion in grosses this year. That’s an increase of 4.9% over the top 50 in 2025.

If these live business trends continue, it’s a sure bet that 2026 will be yet another record-setting year for this industry’s top tours.

That said, Pollstar recognizes that this data only represents the largest tours and not the mid-level and smaller tours. Consequently, this month’s “Deep Data Cuts” (see page 28) looks at all eight venue segments where the data is more mixed, especially for smaller buildings, yet shows a broader picture of the live business.

_Originally reported by [Pollstar](https://news.pollstar.com/2026/09/22/strength-in-numbers-a-record-setting-q3-surpasses-6b-bts-bad-bunny-the-weeknd-top-charts-q3-analysis/)._