Taylor Swift's Eras tour topped charts as highest-grossing but it wasn't most expensive ticket
Taylor Swift and Adele had the most expensive last-minute tickets for concerts this year.
A recent list, released by Gametime, named the top 10 concert tours and performers in 2023, based on the median cost of tickets bought at the last-minute. Coming in at the top of the list is Adele, who has been performing at the Colosseum at Caesar's Palace as part of her residency in Las Vegas, since November 2022. The median ticket price for one of her shows is $1,011, according to the site.
Next on the list was Taylor Swift, whose Eras Tour started in March 2023, with a median last minute ticket price of $958. Swift just wrapped up the South American leg of the tour, with performances in Argentina and Brazil, and is set to start the next portion of her tour in Japan in February 2024.
The two are joined on the list by U2, at $502 per ticket, Drake at $473, and Usher at $406 per ticket. Other artists on the list include Bruno Mars, Harry Styles, Morgan Wallen, Suga and Garth Brooks, with ticket prices ranging from $391 to $288.
Taylor Swift performs onstage during "Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour" at Allianz Parque on November 24, 2023 in Sao Paulo, Brazil. (Photo by Buda Mendes/TAS23/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management )
TAYLOR SWIFT RETURNS TO THE STAGE WITH EPIC THREE-HOUR, 44-SONG SHOW AS SHE LAUNCHES ERAS TOUR
Adele announced she is extending her Las Vegas residency into next year, with the final show scheduled for June 2024. In her announcement, the "Hello" singer called the residency "a truly extraordinary restorative experience," which she won't soon be forgetting, filled with "hilarious, soulful, wild and heartbreaking interactions" with her fans.
"This residency, these shows have changed my life. I desperately needed to fall back in love with performing live again, and I have. I needed to reconnect with my songs and remember what they mean to me, and I have," she wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. "It’s crazy how joyful a show full of sad songs can be!! I’ve felt so much and learned so much about myself and you. It’s humanized everything I thought was scary."
She continued, "Mostly though – it’s just made me realize how much I really enjoy being on stage, that I’m bloody good at it and that it is 100% where I belong!"
Adele on opening night of "Weekends With Adele" at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace on Friday, Nov. 18, 2022. (John Katsilometes/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
Swift made a big impact this year, with her Eras Tour becoming the highest grossing tour in 2023, grossing a total of $1.04 billion, according to Pollstar. She nearly doubled what Beyoncé's Renaissance tour made, $580 million, and more than doubled Bruce Springsteen's, Springsteen and E Street Band 2023 Tour, which finished in third place, making $380 million before it was cut short due to Springsteen's health.
It was no surprise Swift's latest tour went on to become what it is, as the high demand for tickets during the pre-sale caused fans to wait in a virtual queue for over two hours. In the end, Ticketmaster canceled the public sale of tickets due to "high demand" and "insufficient remaining ticket inventory," after selling 2 million tickets during the pre-sale.
The tickets then appeared on resale sites, with nosebleed seats selling for $1,000 or $2,000 at some venues. Many fans were left without tickets, blaming Ticketmaster for their poor management of the situation, later getting upset with Swift for how long it took her to respond to the fiasco.
"There are a multitude of reasons why people had such a hard time trying to get tickets and I'm trying to figure out how this situation can be improved moving forward," her statement read in part. "I'm not going to make excuses for anyone because we asked them, multiple times, if they could handle this kind of demand and we were assured they could. It's truly amazing that 2.4 million people got tickets, but it really p----- me off that a lot of them feel like they went through several bear attacks to get them."
Those who were unable to see her show in person were able to see the concert in its entirety in the concert film, "Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour," which was filmed over the course of her five nights performing at the SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles. The movie made between $95 million and $97 million in it's opening weekend, according to AMC Entertainment.
It broke records, becoming the highest-grossing concert film just in its opening weekend, surpassing Justin Beiber’s "Never Say Never," which made $73 million in 2011.
The concert film, "Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour," has since grossed over $250 million, becoming one of the top 20 movies of the year, and has been nominated for a Golden Globe Award for cinematic and box office achievement.