By The Numbers: Boxoffice Highlights From Ozzy Osbourne’s Multiple Decades On Stage

In commemoration of heavy metal pioneer Ozzy Osbourne, who died on July 22, box office totals that were reported to Pollstar during his career help frame the impact of his half-century as an entertainment icon. Ticket sales data from concert performances as a solo artist and as co-founder of Black Sabbath are enshrined in the box office archives stretching back as far as the Pollstar charts have existed.

Beginning with his first concert on record, an April 24, 1981 solo performance at Capitol Theatre in Passaic, New Jersey, grosses reported from Osbourne’s live shows total $385 million from more than 9.1 million tickets sold worldwide. Together, a total of 816 performances as both a solo artist and the Black Sabbath lead vocalist are stored in the box office archives.

Looking at individual event stats among all his shows reported since the early 1980s, the highest gross and attendance were both recorded at the same performance, a Black Sabbath concert at Estádio Cícero Pompeu de Toledo in São Paulo, Brazil on Dec. 4, 2016. It was the last show scheduled that year on “The End Tour,” the group’s final reunion trek that launched in January 2016 and wrapped in February of the following year. The show grossed over $5.59 million with a crowd of 64,744 Brazilian fans in attendance.

Two more Latin American concerts on Black Sabbath reunion tours also surpassed the 60,000 threshold in ticket sales. On the 2012-2014 world tour supporting 13, the band’s final studio album released in June 2013, ticket sales totaled 61,433 on Oct. 26, 2013 at Mexico City’s Foro Sol, now named Estadio GNP Seguros. Then, three years later at the same stadium, 60,506 tickets were sold for one concert in November 2016, again during “The End Tour.”

Osbourne’s best attended solo appearances, prior to 2000 and after, were both part of Ozzfest, the multiple-artist festival event created by Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne in 1996 and staged as an annual tour for many years. Ultimately, it continued off and on in various incarnations until 2018.

In 2002, Osbourne performed as part of Ozzfest at Donington Park in Leicestershire, England, playing for a total of 46,668 attendees, the most on record among his shows as a solo artist. Then, before 2000, his top attendance was recorded at Float-Rite Amphitheatre in Somerset, Wisconsin, now named Somerset Amphitheater, on July 18, 1998. It was the first of eight Ozzfest tours booked at the venue through 2006.

The 1998 Ozzfest event in Somerset drew a total of 40,900 fans to the all-day festival that included a one-time-only merger with that year’s Warped Tour. Dubbed “Ozz Gets Warped,” the event that day featured almost 50 bands on six stages over a 12-hour period.

Ozzfest was first staged in October 1996 with shows at only two amphitheaters, the Blockbuster Desert Sky Pavilion in Phoenix, now called Talking Stick Resort Amphitheatre, on the 25^th and Blockbuster Pavilion in Devore, California, now called Glen Helen Amphitheater, the next day. Boxoffice totals reported from the second performance on Oct. 26 show a recorded attendance of 35,000.

In 1997, both Osborne and Black Sabbath were main stage headliners for Ozzfest in its first multiple-date tour that ran from May until July. With shows set primarily in sheds, the tour also included a New York-area stadium event at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey with an attendance of 30,884.

Black Sabbath also appeared as part of the Ozzfest line up again in 1998 for European shows early that summer prior to the U.S. trek which featured Osbourne atop the bill. The band returned for the 1999 North American tour and again in 2001, 2004 and 2005, along with a handful of the later Ozzfest-branded concerts.

According to the Boxoffice archives, sales figures were reported for 140 of the Ozzfest events. With a total number of sold tickets topping 2.3 million at those shows, attendance averaged about 16,700 per concert. Overall, reported grosses from the Ozzfest shows on record top $95 million, an average of $685,000 per show. Since the Ozzfest dates occurred primarily in the late 1990s and early 2000s, that per-show figure would be valued well over $1 million in 2025 dollars.

After Osbourne left Black Sabbath in 1979, his first solo headlining tour was the “Blizzard of Ozz Tour” in 1980-1981. Only a handful of those shows were reported to Pollstar, but his second solo trek, the “Diary of a Madman” tour, 1981-1982, is archived with 59 of the North American shows reported. With a total of 528,132 tickets sold, that tour, set mainly in arenas, averaged 8,951 sold seats per show with a per-night gross of $88,275, or about $295k in today’s dollars. His final performance, just 17 days prior to his death, was a benefit concert on July 5, 2025, by Black Sabbath featuring the original lineup – Osbourne with Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward – performing together for the first time in two decades. Proceeds from the concert at Villa Park in the band’s home city of Birmingham, England, went to local U.K. charities.