Coldplay, U2, Ed Sheeran, Dave Matthews Band, Taylor Swift Top Pollstar’s 25 Most Popular Touring Artists Of The Millennium

Pollstar is proud to present the 25 Most Popular Touring Artists of the Millennium, led by Coldplay, U2, Ed Sheeran, Dave Matthews Band and Taylor Swift. Based on worldwide ticket sales reported to Pollstar from 2001 through the end of 2025, the 25 headlining acts collectively sold more than 340 million tickets over the past 25 years, generating grosses exceeding $35.7 billion. Reflecting pure ticket sales, the list showcases the most popular artists on the planet—those seen by more people than any others (full chart below).

Coldplay came in at No. 1 with over 24.8 million tickets sold at 731 concerts since 2001. That year, the band toured in support of their debut, 2000’s Parachutes, and now, seven tours later, their “Music of the Spheres World Tour” sold a gargantuan 13.1 million tickets since launching in 2022. It holds the record for the best-attended tour of all time and has the second highest gross of any tour on record with $1.52 billion reported during its multi-year run, and it hasn’t officially wrapped yet.

U2, another group used to setting touring records, is ranked No. 2 selling 20.2 million tickets. The group’s “360° Tour,” 2009-2011, reigned as the highest-grossing tour of all time for eight years. But Ed Sheeran, who is No. 3 with 19.6 million tickets, broke that record with his “÷ (Divide) Tour” that wrapped in 2019 after running for two and a half years.

U2’s “360°” gross hit $736 million, while “Divide” ended at $776 million. Sheeran has since broken his own gross record, however, with the “+-=÷x (Mathematics) Tour” that wrapped earlier this year with a whopping $807 million.

Since 2001, U2 has staged six tours including “The Joshua Tree Tour” that began with a five-month stadium run in 2017 and returned in 2019 for another 15 shows. The band also christened the Las Vegas Sphere with their stunning “U2:UV Achtung Baby Live at Sphere” residency which featured 40 concerts from September 2023 to March 2024.

Sheeran meanwhile has completed five tours since his debut, the “+ (Plus) Tour,” 2011-2013. And he just kicked off his sixth, the “Loop Tour,” at Le Zénith in Paris on Dec. 1.

The highest ranked American headliner in the top 25 is Charlottesville, Virginia’s own Dave Matthews Band, which quietly made its way to No. 4 with a 25-year ticket count hitting an impressive 19.5 million. The jam band is one of only three artists in the top 25 with more than a thousand shows recorded in the box-office archives since 2001. The other two are Elton John at No. 10 and orchestra conductor André Rieu at No. 14.

North American amphitheaters are the primary destination for DMB, and most of them have multiple shows in the archives. The Gorge Amphitheatre in George, Washington is one of the sheds hosting the group almost every year. With 62 shows on record since 2001, the Gorge has welcomed more than 1.2 million DMB fans and grossed $66.7 million.

Rounding out the top five is Taylor Swift with 18.9 million tickets sold and a $3.1 billion gross, most of which came from “The Eras Tour” that holds the record as the highest grossing tour of all time. It grossed over $2 billion from 10.2 million sold tickets in 2023 and 2024. That tour, the sixth of her career, set countless venue attendance records around the world and was her second all-stadium tour. Her first was 2018’s “Reputation Tour,” although all her headlining tours contained at least one stadium event.

Elsewhere in the top 25, Kenny Chesney is the highest ranked country headliner at No. 7 with 18.2 million in ticket sales, and Beyoncé (no. 13) represents the R&B genre with a sales total of 11.8 million.

Collectively, the average ticket price among all 25 artists is $104.83, but Swift has the highest average at $165.54, followed closely by The Rolling Stones, ranked No. 12, at $162.96.

Ticket prices and higher ticket sales are two of the primary engines driving the live industry’s unprecedented level of growth over the past 25 years. In 2001 the average ticket price for all events reported that year was $36.68; in 2025 it rose to $90.27, a 146% increase. The number of concert tickets sold increased even more, 214% in the last 25 years, while grosses leaped a staggering 673%.

Part of that rise is due to the proliferation of larger buildings and artists who can fill them. Just in the last year, there’s been an 11% increase in tickets sold at stadiums between 2024 and 2025. And in this era, far more artists and genres are represented in the big buildings. Gone are the days when only a handful of legends were able to fill the 50,000 seaters.

Regardless of the venue size, though, of the 25 most popular artists this century, all but five have topped 10 million in ticket sales worldwide. Nineteen of them have surpassed the $1 billion threshold. That’s more revenue than some major companies will ever see.