The Year In Women: Again Making Their Marks On The Charts

Women continued to make gains at the box office in 2024, including many not named Taylor, Beyoncé or P!NK. While veteran stars like Madonna, Nicki Minaj and Janet Jackson also mounted top tours and landed in the upper reaches of the chart, there was a slew of newer talent earning positions on Pollstar’s Top 200 Worldwide Tours chart in 2024, as well.

While three women (Taylor Swift, P!NK and Madonna) occupied slots in the top 10 tours, Karol G (11) and Olivia Rodrigo (22) were not far behind. And high-profile newcomers like Melanie Martinez (59), Charli XCX (124), and Sabrina Carpenter (184) joined them on the Top 200 Worldwide Tours for the first time.

It’s a substantial improvement from not so long ago, when no women appeared in the top 10 of 2021 Top 100 Worldwide chart (the highest-ranking woman was Alanis Morissette at No. 16); and only four others made the cut: Lady Gaga (39); Lauren Daigle (45); Gwen Stefani (84) and female-fronted Little Big Town (94).

Karol G just missed the top 10 at No. 11 with her stadium tour grossing $165,986,682 from 1,520,844 tickets over 47 concerts. She isn’t just one of the top touring women, she’s also the third-highest-ranking Latin artist, behind only Luis Miguel and Bad Bunny. She’s consistently in Pollstar’s year-end rankings, finishing at No. 14 in 2023 and No. 17 in 2022.

Rounding out 2024’s top 25 is one of live’s brightest newcomers: Olivia Rodrigo, with $127,104,981 grossed and 979,161 tickets sold across 67 shows from her “GUTS World Tour” – which pulled a sort of double-duty by introducing her sizable audience to support artist Chappell Roan, who blew up in 2024 and is certain to be a mainstay of future charts.

And Roan won’t be alone. A number of women have begun to loudly ring box office cash registers, including Sabrina Carpenter and Charli XCX – not all necessarily total newcomers to touring but gaining momentum as live performers with exciting futures.

Roan’s box office numbers from 2023 into the first half of 2024, while certainly respectable with mostly sold-out, per-show averages at clubs and theaters of 2,914 tickets sold and $110,536 gross sales, didn’t prepare promoters for massive crowds she drew at soft-ticket festivals including Lollapalooza, Bonnaroo and Austin City Limits – all of which experienced what were believed to be stage records when she performed.

A recalibration of expectations might be in order for the Midwest Princess in 2025, but as Lollapalooza’s social media accounts posted after her Aug. 1 appearance in Chicago, “It’s Chappell’s world and we’re just living in it.”

Sabrina Carpenter’s 2024 chart gross of $13,206,792 with 109,800 tickets sold as reported to Pollstar landed her on the Top 200 Worldwide Tours chart for the first time, though she initially made a splash in 2017 as an 18-year-old crossover star from the Disney career incubator.

Carpenter returned to the charts in a big way, riding the success of her “Espresso” hit single to the top of San Francisco’s 2024 Outside Lands bill on late notice when Tyler, the Creator had to drop off the lineup in August. She opened for the Latin American, Australian and Asian legs of Taylor Swift’s “Eras Tour” and quickly amassed more than 80 million monthly listeners on Spotify.

Having started the year on the iHeart Radio “Jingle Ball” tour, followed by the support run for Swift and festival appearances including Coachella, Carpenter effectively began her “Short n’ Sweet” North American arena tour at Outside Lands. In 2025, Carpenter will continue the run with a massive European arena tour.

And while Charli XCX has yet to appear on Pollstar’s year-end top tours charts, her “Brat 2024 Arena Tour” of mostly sold-out arenas included two sold-out shows Oct. 15-16 at Kia Forum in Inglewood, California, selling 29,548 tickets for a gate of $3,193,958. The tour’s success sets the stage for her “Brat 2025 Arena Tour,” which is set to go deep into next year.