Boxoffice Insider: Drake’s Return To London’s O2 Arena

Prince Williams / Wireimage – Drake
Drake’s two-night stint at the United Center in Chicago Aug. 17-18 moved 35,795 tickets and grossed $4.13 million.

Drake’s Assassination Vacation tour during March and April marked the Canadian rapper’s return to European markets with an arena trek for the first time since his Boy Meets World tour in 2017. 

A highlight of this year’s jaunt that spanned just over five weeks was a series of seven performances at London’s O2 Arena between April 1 and 11, marking the artist’s fourth consecutive tour with a multiple-show appearance at the venue while playing Europe. In a nod to his popularity at The O2 and his hit song “God’s Plan,” the arena even changed signage temporarily to “O3” during Drake’s engagement – turning “the O2 into the O3, dog,” as the song’s lyric says.

Ticket sales from this year’s run have not yet been reported, but Pollstar’s boxoffice archives show a rich history at The O2 arena for the hip-hop superstar. Two years ago, he performed eight shows there – five from Jan. 30 through Feb. 5, two more shows on Feb. 14-15 and an eighth night on March 20 during the final days of that tour’s nine-week opening leg in Europe. 

Boxoffice archives show a combined eight-show gross of $13.2 million (£10.6 million) at the arena during the Boy Meets World tour with an overall sold ticket total of 128,523. That’s an average of $1.6 million and 16,065 sold seats per show.

Looking at boxoffice results from Drake’s two earlier stints in Europe, we see a slight increase in gross averages at The O2 arena from tour to tour. On the Club Paradise tour, his second as a headliner but first in Europe, he grossed $2.1 million (£1.3 million) from two performances with 34,575 total tickets, averaging just over $1 million per show. 

Kyle Gustafson / For The Washington Post / Getty Images – Drake
Drake’s Aubrey and The Three Amigos Tour stops at Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C., Sept. 13.

Two years later, on his Would You Like A Tour? trek, he played three nights at The O2 to wrap the European leg of that tour, taking in $4.3 million (£2.5 million) from 50,832 tickets – an average gross of $1.4 million.

From this year’s Assassination Vacation tour, Pollstar has so far received boxoffice numbers from the first two stops: Manchester and Paris. The Manchester Arena moved 29,441 tickets for shows on March 10-11, grossing $3.8 million, while the AccorHotels Arena in Paris earned $3.5 million from 30,475 tickets at three shows on March 13-15. After Paris, multiple-night engagements in March were staged at 3Arena in Dublin (March 19-22) and Birmingham’s Resorts World Arena (March 26-28). Following the London performances, Drake had dates planned for Antwerp on April 13 and Amsterdam on April 15-16. Providing support during the tour was rapper Tory Lanez.

Drake spent last year on the road with hip-hop group Migos, playing a slate of 54 shows booked in 23 North American markets. Dubbed Aubrey & the Three Migos tour, the North American trek grossed more than $103 million from a total of 877,241 sold tickets. Among the cities on that 14-week jaunt, both New York City and Los Angeles offered fans seven shows staged at two separate arenas. 

In New York, the artist performed four shows at Madison Square Garden and three at Barclays Center. The Garden’s stats included $8.9 million in revenue from 67,446 tickets, and the Brooklyn arena’s gross reached $5.7 million from 44,007 sold seats. In greater Los Angeles, The Forum in Inglewood hit a sales total of $8.1 million from 65,832 tickets at four shows, and Staples Center saw a $7.1 million take from 47,428 tickets over three nights.