Guns N’ Roses lead touring revenue with massive takings in Australia and NZ
It was always clear that Guns N’ Roses would do just fine with their enormous ‘Not In This Lifetime’ world tour, but the takings from their Australia and New Zealand leg have now been revealed, contributing a huge $38 million USD towards the current tour gross of $230 million.
That Australian figure, Billboard reports, places them at the top of the food chain in announced touring revenue this week by a very wide margin, and doesn’t include the seven markets in Asia that followed. As compiled by Boxscores reports, they handily beat their closest competitors, with a podium of Eric Church and the Dixie Chicks each announcing tour grosses in the $2-3m range.
Gunners’ Australasian leg began particularly strongly in New Zealand with sell-out shows in Wellington and Auckland, while Brisbane drew a crowd of 39,000 to QSAQ Stadium. Melbourne’s single show at the MCG brought in 74,000 tickets on its own, and Sydney’s two shows at ANZ Stadium brought a combined total of over 84,000 tickets – its $9.2m gross the fourth-highest for a city on the tour so far. All told, the Aus/NZ leg sold over 350,000 tickets in total.
The tour is not even close to being done, starting up again on May 27 in Ireland, and continuing on through to the final date in Chile on September 29. While fans clamoured for the return of original guitarist Izzy Stradlin alongside Axl Rose, Slash and Duff McKagan, he apparently declined due to an uneven distribution of the profits being proposed, although considering any percentage of this figure might make him regret that decision. Thankfully, the band have already pointed to a return to Australia, so he may have another chance to jump on board.
Notably, three other acts in this week’s top 10 tours also toured Australia, with The Dixie Chicks, Twenty One Pilots and Santana all heading to Perth, and highlighting the relatively remote city’s importance on international touring schedules.
This article originally appeared on The Industry Observer, which is now part of The Music Network.