Pollstar’s Q1 Top 100 Tours: Travis Scott’s Astroworld Is Tops

Jason Squires / Getty Images – Travis Scott
La Flame: Travis Scott tops Pollstar’s Q1 Top Tours with 438,982 tickets reported sold.

The first-quarter touring charts of 2019 have arrived with ranked compilations of box office activity reflecting Pollstar’s new reporting period: Nov. 22, 2018 through Feb. 20, 2019. It is a three-month window that is traditionally a slower time for touring compared to the rest of the year since it includes the holiday season as well as the first two months of the year, often dark for touring acts.

But nothing was “slow” for 27-year-old rapper Travis Scott who leads the ranking of Worldwide Top 100 Tours in Q1, scoring the most sold tickets of any touring artist during the first-quarter time frame. Even with holiday time off from the winter tour in support of his August release Astroworld, he still drew 438,982 fans to 29 concerts in 27 North American markets – more than any other artist based on worldwide box office data reported to Pollstar. 

Two arenas hosted the artist for three performances: Madison Square Garden in New York City on Nov. 27-28 during the trek’s opening run of shows with 32,602 total tickets and again on March 2 (after the Q1 cut-off). The Forum in the Los Angeles market reported 48,792 total tickets from shows on Dec. 19-20 and Feb. 8.

On Scott’s heels is the No. 2 headliner, Trans-Siberian Orchestra, with 429,813 sold tickets during the group’s winter tour. TSO  marked its 20th anniversary season in 2018 and the second trek without founder Paul O’Neill, who died in April 2017. With two companies on the road simultaneously during November and December each year, the band tours almost exclusively in North American cities, although brief European runs were added in 2011 and 2013.

Following in the third slot is Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band with 318,359 sold tickets on the veteran rocker’s Travelin’ Man tour that marks his final stint on the road after more a half-century as a touring artist. Playing North American arenas, Seger kicked off the tour in November and is currently slated to continue through June, wrapping with a final string of six shows booked at DTE Energy Music Theatre in his hometown of Detroit. 

Pop superstar Justin Timberlake, heavy metal titans Metallica and Sir Elton John follow in the rankings, all with ticket sales topping 200,000 during Q1. 

Timberlake’s Man Of The Woods tour, now on its last leg after more than a year since launch, is to conclude April 13. His sold ticket count for these rankings totals 293,828 but, since the tour began, he has drawn more than 1.5 million fans to concerts in North America and Europe. Metallica hits the chart with 234,918 sold seats during the final North American leg of the band’s WorldWired tour that is to wrap this fall after more than a three and a half year span. Elton John’s Farewell Yellow Brick Road jaunt, currently booked through 2020, moved 220,759 tickets during Q1, based on sales reported at 12 arenas stateside.

Quite a diverse slate of headliners round out the Top 10 beginning with violinist André Rieu (No. 7), who took his Johann Strauss Orchestra to 25 arenas during Q1 and amassed a sold ticket tally of 197,094. Fleetwood Mac notches the No. 8 ranking with ticket sales reaching 177,546 in 13 performances in U.S. cities, and Cher – the only solo female headliner in the Top 10 – is ninth with 175,514 total tickets. Finally, British band Mumford & Sons grabs the No. 10 spot with 171,139 tickets from dates in North America, Europe and Australia. s