Ed Sheeran’s ongoing Divide Tour just became the highest-grossing tour of all time — and counting!
As well as this, ticket prices were far lower than most other top-ranked tours.
The ranking comes from Pollstar, which emailed its findings to Digital Music News on August 2.
The Divide Tour reportedly crossed $736.7 million in estimated gross revenues with its stop in Hannover, Germany.
This beats U2’s all-time record of $735.4 million, set on July 30th in 2011.
Sheeran’s tally is still going, however, with the final dates slated for August 23-26 in Ipswich, England. Overall, Sheeran’s tour has been going for more than two years, with roughly 255 shows spanning 893 days.
That span is impressively long, but it makes the comparison to U2 a bit difficult. U2’s 360 Tour had far fewer dates — 110 shows total — but it also stretched an impressive 760 days from June 30th, 2009 to July 30th, 2011.
Both tours were longer than two years, however, with U2 focusing on fewer dates with far higher prices.
The ticket pricing differences are notable, and not just in comparison to U2.
Last year, it was noted that Sheeran’s lower-price strategy was helping the singer-songwriter beat tours from Taylor Swift, the Rolling Stones and Bruno Mars.
The average ticket price on Divide is $86.75, which is actually cheap compared to most big-name tours.
By comparison, the average ticket price for U2’s 360 tour was $101.15, which is actually $115.94 in 2019 inflation-adjusted dollars. That’s a difference of nearly 34%, with far fewer U2 shows available by comparison.
Separately, Sheeran’s streaming volumes are also setting records. But revenues from platforms like Spotify are notoriously low, a reality that has forced artists like Sheeran to focus on touring revenues instead.
Incidentally, Sheeran’s rise pre-dated the widespread popularity of streaming platforms, and the singer-songwriter has credited free file-sharing as the reason for his success.
Meanwhile, Sheeran himself is staring at another smashing threshold.
At just 28, it’s speculated that the singer-songwriter could become a billionaire before age 30, and Divide’s receipts certainly aren’t hurting Sheeran’s chances.
Are you a fan of Ed Sheeran? What do you think of his feat of smashing U2’s tour record? Let us know by commenting below.
Written by Jackson Miller
