The Rolling Stones: Still Gathering No Moss After 60+ Years

2024 Top 10 Worldwide Tours
No. 6 The Rolling Stones
Gross: $235,077,193
Average Ticket Price: $277.28
Average Tickets Sold Per Show: 47,100
Total Tickets: 847,800
Average Gross: $13,059,844

The Rolling Stones played their first show in 1962 at London’s Marquee Club and, 62 years later, they continue to lay waste to the road – topping Pollstar’s 2024 Top 200 North American Tours chart and landing at No. 6 on the Top 200 Worldwide Tours chart, grossing $235,007,193 and selling 847,800 tickets on “The Stones Tour ’24: Hackney Diamonds.”

Incredibly, the “World’s Greatest Rock ‘N Roll Band” more than doubled their chart-topping total gross of $115.5 million from 2021’s “No Filter Tour” ($130.9 million if one includes two dates that fell outside of the chart eligibility period).

And such is the indefatigable determination of Mick & The Boys to perform at the top of their game, year in and year out, tour after tour, decade after decade. That’s how the Stones roll.

Age ain’t nothing but a number, and with the three-month “Hackney Diamonds” tour cheekily sponsored by AARP, core members Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Ron Wood carried on with gusto, performing in 18 shows in 15 stadiums across North America plus a long-delayed appearance at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and a tour-ending, July 21 outdoor date at Thunder Ridge Nature Arena in Ridgedale, Missouri.

Unsurprisingly, those stadium shows – starting April 28 at NRG Stadium @ NRG Park in Houston – sold out quickly, generating doubles at MetLife Stadium May 23 and 26 outside New York City (their biggest stop on the tour with 105,124 tickets sold for a $29,155,574 gross); Soldier Field in Chicago June 27 and 30 (94,451; $23,519,746); and SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, July 10 and 13 (92,729; $24,358,456).

The tour was augmented by a diverse support lineup that over the course of the caravan included Gary Clark Jr., Carín León, The Pretty Reckless, Joe Bonamassa, Red Clay Strays, Ghost Hounds, Tyler Childers, Kaleo, Widespread Panic, Bettye Levette, Lainey Wilson, The Beaches and The Linda Lindas.

The tour announcement wasn’t as much of a surprise, perhaps, as was the announcement of the Hackey Diamonds album itself – the Stones’ 26th studio album and first of original material in nearly 20 years since 2005’s A Bigger Bang.

And when the band showed up with Lady Gaga in tow as a special guest for a surprise underplay Oct. 19, 2023, at New York’s 650-capacity Racket NYC, followed by a cameo appearance on “Saturday Night Live,” a 2024 tour became a foregone conclusion.

Again promoted by Concerts West, helmed by longtime execs John Meglen and Paul Gongaware, and represented by manager Joyce Smith of Glastry, The Rolling Stones continue to add to a historic touring career.

During the Pollstar Era, a Rolling Stones tour has always been one to watch, from a business perspective. Whether it was the Stones’ embrace of tour sponsorship for the first time during their 1981 American Tour (Jovan Musk cologne, for those keeping score) or upstart promoter Michael Cohl outbidding the preeminent showman of the day, Bill Graham, for 1989’s “Steel Wheels” tour, The Rolling Stones have consistently performed at the top echelon and innovation often upended business as we knew it along the way.

The Stones’ 1994-95 “Voodoo Lounge” tour hit $320 million with 6.4 million tickets sold, while the 2005-07 “Bigger Bang” hauled in $558 million gross despite selling fewer tickets, with 4.7 million sold.

In the 2000s, The Rolling Stones pulled in some $870 million; in the 20-teens, they finished just behind U2 with $929 million earned. Across those decades, the Stones accounted for an estimated $2.6 billion in ticket sales.

The Rolling Stones did not take “Hackney Diamonds” to Europe in 2024 and, if the dice tumble the right way, there may be more to come in 2025. Guitarist Ron Wood was caught on a Nov. 11 BBC interview telling presenter Tom Sutcliffe the Stones hope to launch “a tour of Europe … next year.”