Across Green Day’s 12 shows in September — 11 at stadiums, plus an amphitheater show in Austin, Texas — the band sold 415,000 tickets at an average ticket price of $114.71, combining for earnings of $47.5 million according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore. That puts the California trio’s The Saviors Tour at No. 1 on Billboard’s monthly Top Tours ranking.
The Saviors Tour kicked off in June with a $33.8 million run in Europe, before crossing the Atlantic for a 26-city tour of the United States and Canada. Though Green Day had sprinkled stadiums late in the 2004-05 American Idiot World Tour and then committed fully to the venues with Fall Out Boy and Weezer on the 2021-22 Hella Mega Tour, this marks the band’s first solo headlining run to predominantly play stadiums.
The Saviors Tour is named after Green Day’s 14th studio album. The set debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 earlier this year and spawned “Dilemma,” which spent eight weeks atop Alternative Airplay. But the trek helped juice up the band’s reach by calling back to two of its landmark albums, celebrating the 30th anniversary of Dookie and the 20th anniversary of American Idiot by playing both LPs in full each night.
In September, Green Day hit a high for its entire North American leg, with $5.7 million and 47,800 tickets at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif. That’s one of three entries for the band on Top Boxscores, at No. 24. Dates at San Francisco’s Oracle Park and San Diego’s Petco Park follow at Nos. 27 and 29, respectively.
It’s uncommon for an act to be No. 1 on Top Tours without a similarly high placement on Top Boxscores. Throughout 2024, the highest-grossing touring act has always had at least one entry in the top 10 of Top Boxscores, with the same act ruling both charts in five of the right months before September.
Further, in the 51 editions of Billboard’s monthly Boxscore charts since Feb. 2019, the artist at No. 1 on Top Tours was in the top 10 of Top Boxscores 43 times. Of the eight instances where they did not overlap, four were by Trans-Siberian Orchestra during their annual December takeover. That group routinely rules Top Tours without making impact on Top Boxscores, assembling its massive monthly total by playing multiple shows per day, with the help of two coastal touring ensembles.
Though there is only one iteration of Green Day responsible for its September victory, the strategy is similar. The punk-rock icons have the month’s biggest tour by volume, playing 12 stadium shows between Sept. 1-28. The acts that lead Top Boxscores – Coldplay, Metallica, Bruno Mars – all held splashy multi-night engagements in international territories, but didn’t tour consistently throughout the month.
Timing also helps. In August, Green Day’s $47.5-million gross would have sat behind the entire top five, helmed by Zach Bryan above $90 million and Coldplay over $80 million. The former took September off and the latter wrapped its European leg on Sept. 2, clearing a path for Billie Joe & co. to claim their first monthly victory.
Still, the individual shows on The Saviors Tour mark the biggest of Green Day’s storied career. While the SoFi Stadium shows were the biggest of the North American leg, a June 29 show at London’s Wembley Stadium ($7.9 million; 76,000 tickets) topped the entire tour. It was also the highest-grossing and best-attended night of the band’s entire reported Boxscore history.
Further, Green Day’s 25 top-earning concert engagements all come from this year’s tour. In all, The Saviors Tour grossed $132.4 million and sold 1.2 million tickets, easily ending as the band’s highest-grossing and best-selling tour ever.
Directly following Green Day on Top Tours are two of the biggest R&B acts on the road. Bruno Mars is No. 2 with $43.8 million and Usher is No. 3 with $36 million. The former played in Indonesia, Malaysia and Taiwan (plus one show in Las Vegas). Three shows at Jakarta’s Beach City International Stadium account for nearly half of Mars’ total monthly gross, bringing in $21.5 million from 142,000 tickets.
Notably, Mars is not technically on a tour, rather playing one-off engagements around his ongoing residency at Las Vegas’ Dolby Live. His last trek was the 24K Magic World Tour, which earned $396.1 million and sold 3.6 million tickets in 2017-18. His current Vegas stint is among the top 10 residencies in Boxscore history, now up to $138.8 million.
Usher, on the other hand, is amidst his first proper headline tour since 2015, after closing out his own Vegas residency late last year. Usher: Past Present Future kicked off in August, averaging $2.3 million per show in September. Its biggest stop so far was a four-night run at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, which brought in $10.2 million and sold 58,000 tickets.
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Rock tours flood the rest of the top 10, with Metallica, Jeff Lynne’s ELO and Pearl Jam following at Nos. 4-5 and 8, respectively. Coldplay, Twenty One Pilots and the Eagles line up consecutively just outside the top 10.
While Green Day crowns Top Tours while missing the top 10 of Top Boxscores, Coldplay does the opposite, at No. 1 on the latter chart while sitting at No. 11 on the former. Coldplay only had two shows during September, but they made them count. The British quartet played four concerts at Dublin’s Croke Park – two on Aug. 29-30, which counted toward the August chart, and two on Sept. 1-2. The September dates grossed $24.8 million and sold 165,000 tickets.
Further down on Top Boxscores, Sebastian Maniscalco grossed $10.7 million across five nights at Madison Square Garden, earning the No. 8 entry. It’s the highest-grossing report for a comedian in Boxscore history. The number of comedy acts who can play one night at an arena is small, so consider Maniscalco one of very few who could sell out five.
