List of Madonna concerts
American singer Madonna has performed on twelve concert tours, nineteen one-off concerts, nine benefit concerts, and three music festivals. Madonna has been nicknamed by some publications as the "Queen of Concerts" or "Queen of Touring", recognizing her "years-deep involvement in the touring game" and stage shows.[1][2] Once the highest-grossing female touring artist according to Billboard Boxscore and Pollstar,[3][4] Madonna remains one of the highest-grossing live touring acts.
Madonna concerts
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Her 1985 debut concert tour, The Virgin Tour, was held in North America only and went on to collect more than US $5 million.[5] In 1987 she performed on the worldwide Who's That Girl World Tour, which visited Europe, North America and Japan, and earned $25 million.[6][7] One of the tour's shows in Paris in front of 130,000 fans was the largest paying concert audience by a female artist at the time and remains the largest crowd of any concert in French history.[8][9] In 1990, she embarked on the Blond Ambition World Tour, which was dubbed the "Greatest Concert of the 1990s" by Rolling Stone.[10] BBC credited the tour with "invent[ing] the modern, multi-media pop spectacle".[11] In 1993, Madonna visited Israel and Turkey for the first time, followed by Latin America and Australia, with The Girlie Show.[7] A review in Time by Sam Buckley said: "Madonna, once the Harlow harlot and now a perky harlequin, is the greatest show-off on earth."[12]
Madonna did not tour again until the Drowned World Tour in 2001. She played the guitar and her costumes included a punkish tartan kilt and a geisha kimono. Some critics complained that the show concentrated on material from her most recent albums, but generally, the response was favorable.[7] She grossed more than US $75 million with summer sold-out shows and eventually played in front of 730,000 people throughout North America and Europe.[13][14] The Drowned World Tour was followed by the 2004 Re-Invention World Tour. Madonna was inspired to create the tour after taking part in an art installation called X-STaTIC PRo=CeSS, directed by photographer Steven Klein.[15] Billboard awarded Madonna the "Backstage Pass Award" in recognition of having the top-grossing tour of the year, with ticket sales of nearly US $125 million.[16]
Madonna's next tours broke world records, with the 2006 Confessions Tour grossing over US $194.7 million,[17] becoming the highest-grossing tour ever for a female artist at that time.[18] This feat was surpassed in 2008 with the Sticky & Sweet Tour, which at the time, became the highest-grossing tour ever by a solo artist, and the second highest-grossing tour of all time, with approximately US $411 million in ticket sales.[19] In 2012, The MDNA Tour was completed as the tenth highest-grossing tour of all time with US $305 million, the second highest among female artists at the time, only behind the Sticky & Sweet Tour.[20] Her 2015–16 Rebel Heart Tour was an all-arena tour which grossed $169.8 million from 1.045 million attendance.[21]
Madonna has embarked on several promotional concerts to promote her studio albums, as well as performing award shows and benefit concerts like Live Aid (1985), Live 8 (2005) and Live Earth (2007). In 2012, she headlined the Super Bowl XLVI halftime show, which at that time was the most-watched halftime show in history. According to Billboard Boxscore, Madonna grossed over $1.31 billion in concert ticket sales between 1990 and 2016; she first crossed a billion gross with The MDNA Tour. Overall, Madonna ranks third, with just The Rolling Stones ($1.84 billion) and U2 ($1.67 billion) ahead of her.[21] During the London stop of her 2006 Confessions Tour, Madonna became the first performer to be inducted into the Wembley Arena Square of Fame.[22]