Welcome To Pollstar’s 2026 Comedy Special: $837 Million Worldwide Can’t Be Wrong

In a world with a million different opinions on just as many subjects, one thing that bridges a chasm of unnecessary division is laughter. Pollstar’s focus on the world of comedy shines a light on the top entertainers who make that happen, who tell the jokes and, in recent years, have developed a thriving era of comedy with grosses and attendances never seen before.

From comedy clubs with 100-seat rooms to arenas with capacity crowds and even an occasional stadium, comedians performed for 12.3 million fans last year, according to box office figures reported to Pollstar for the 2025 chart year (11/14/24-11/12/25 — below). And the overall gross at events featuring comedy headliners reached $837 million worldwide.

Those statistics reflect a continuation of comedy’s resurgence at the box office following the pandemic. In the past three years, the number of reported comedy performances topped 6,000 each year. That’s almost double the number reported in the three years prior to COVID, as the show counts in 2017, 2018 and 2019 were all in the 3,000 range. Likewise, annual grosses that were $300k or $400k in those three earlier years have been well over the $800,000 threshold since 2023. Tickets tell the same story as the three earlier years averaged just over 7 million tickets sold a year, while the average for the past three years is 12.8 million.

In 2025, the 100 highest grossing comedy artists grossed $696 million and sold more than 9.3 million tickets. Ranked No. 1 is Nate Bargatze with a whopping $77.5 million reported in 2025 – about $34 million more than the next highest comic. He sold 962,955 tickets at 93 shows during his “Big Dumb Eyes” world tour that continues this year through August. (See cover story here).

Then, with 58 shows reported, Sebastian Maniscalco ranks No. 2 with $43.5 million from 425,273 tickets, followed by Matt Rife (see page 61) at No. 3 with $33.5 million and 406,224 tickets sold. Shane Gillis and Gabriel Iglesias round out the top five with $32 million and $29 million, respectively.
The highest ranked woman in the top 100 is Nikki Glaser, who slayed at this year’s Golden Globes where she excoriated A-listers. She is ninth overall with $19.4 million in grosses. Elsewhere, aside from the comedy tours featuring multiple male and female artists, 14 more women land on the chart, including four who join Glaser in the top 25. Taylor Tomlinson follows at No. 13, while Leanne Morgan lands at No. 20. Then ranked 25th are co-headliners Tina Fey and Amy Poehler.