Pollstar’s Top 200 North American Tours

While you’re perusing our list of the top 200 North American tours, here are a few fun facts to amaze your family and impress your coworkers:

With all 2012 box office reports for North America totaling more than $4.3 billion, the Top 100 tours accounted for more than half that amount, generating $2.52 billion.

People also bought more tickets in 2012.  When all was said and done, the stats revealed more than a five percent rise in ticket sales with 36.7 million sold in 2012 compared to the previous year’s 34.74 million.  However, those figures aren’t nearly as high as the concert industry’s record-breaker in 2009 when it sold 40.49 million tickets.

And you already know the average ticket price during the past 12 months was a tad higher than in 2011.  The 2012 average was $68.76, or an increase of $1.54 over 2011’s average price of $67.22.  Pollstar believes that much of that increase was driven by a handful of tours that priced tickest in three-digit figures.

There were also more tours pricing tickets above $100 than in 2011.  In fact, of our Top 10 earners in North America, more than half – Madonna, Cirque du Soleil’s “Michael Jackson: The Immortal.” Roger Waters, Van Halen, Barbra Streisand and Elton John –  averaged prices above the $100 mark.  By the end of the year 24 tours had  Benjamin-busting ticket prices compared to 18 the previous year.