The Highest-Grossing Tours Of 2015

These days, most artists make the majority of their money from touring, and in 2015, some acts made a lot of bank from their massive treks.

Unsurprisingly, Taylor Swift leads the charge with her 1989 World Tour. The global adventure, which played 71 shows and to just under two million people throughout 2015, took in an impressive $217 million. That is certainly a far cry from the all-time totals that are several times larger than that, but it is still a huge sum of money. Considering that Swift is a solo performer, she is certainly going to make quite a nice chunk of change from bouncing around the world and playing her big hits. The vast majority of that sum was from North America, where her popularity seems to know no bounds.

The only other act in 2015 to pass the $200 million mark was One Direction. The British boy band was on what could end up being their final tour, as they are officially on hiatus after releasing and promoting their fifth album, Made In The A.M. The group’s tour played more shows (80) and to more fans (2.3 million) than Swift’s routing, but she had some larger venues, and she was at times about to charge a bit more for tickets, and thus her total gross is higher.

After those two pop favorites come three time-tested road veterans, all of whom were able to sell more than $100 million in tickets. U2 is in third place with the Irish rockers’ Innocence + Experience World Tour. The Rolling Stones impressively come in fourth place, considering they only played eighteen shows in 2015, but ticket prices were high enough to net them just under U2’s $133 million. Rounding out the top five is country star Kenny Chesney, who brought in $114 million from live shows last year.

It is worth noting that while The Grateful Dead’s reunion only sold just over $52 million—less than one fourth of Taylor Swift’s total—the band did so in just five concerts, while others needed dozens to hit such an impressive sum.