Beginning with two dates in Brisbane in mid-March and culminating in two mammoth shows at Hanging Rock, Bruce Springsteen’s first Australian visit in a decade, as part of the Wrecking Ball World Tour, was not only a major event for fans of The Boss, but for the 63-year-old musician himself, with Billboard reporting that Springsteen’s Australian visit is one of the year’s highest grossing tours.
Bruce Springsteen tops Billboard’s weekly Hot Tours chart, a list of the world’s highest grossing tours currently going ’round, beating out pop stars Rihanna, Olly Murs, and Taylor Swift off the back of his 10 date Australian tour, with the Boss and the E Street Band (including subbed-in Rage guitarist Tom Morello)’s itinerary across Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, and Macedon’s iconic Hanging Rock, ringing in $25 million in ticket sales.
The biggest figures came from the three-show run at Sydney’s Allphones Arena, with a total 47,796 fans heading out to see Springsteen and the E Street Band on March 18, 20, and 22nd, generating over $7 million in ticket sales. A trio of shows at Melbourne’s Rod Laver Arena drew similar numbers drawing over $7 million from 46,740 ticket sales to shows on March 24th, 26th, and 27th. The Boss and the E Street Band’s itinerary across Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, and Macedon’s iconic Hanging Rock, ringing in $25 million…
Frontier Touring presented Springsteen’s Australian shows, with boss Michael Gudinski wrapping the tour with two ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ dates in his own backyard, at Hanging Rock in the Macedon Ranges, with Springsteen playing his mammoth three-hour sets with support from Jimmy Barnes and The Rubens over the Easter Weekend of March 30th and March 31st.
Playing to over 34,000 fans, the two Hanging Rock shows generated $5 million total, a quarter of the Australian tour revenue, while the opening Brisbane dates of the tour brought in $4.2 million from more than 24,000 in ticket sales, according to The Daily Telegraph.
The Wrecking Ball Tour now heads to Europe, where Springsteen and the E Street Band will finish April in Norway, before hitting Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Italy, and Germany in May, then travelling across Europe to the UK through ’til September.
By comparison, Springsteen’s $25 million Australian tour figure trounced the second place numbers on Billboard‘s Hot Tours list, with Rihanna’s first dates from the Diamonds World Tour generating $11,659,037, while a run of UK shows from English pop star Olly Murs generated more than $10 million in ticket sales from 24 dates earning third place on the current weekly list.
Springsteen’s crowning at the top of the Hot Tours chart follows on from tours from Elton John and Bon Jovi, with the English singer-songwriter’s 40th Anniversary Rocket Man tour claiming the top spot in late March. The tour kick-started in Australia in November 2012 and went on to earn over $6 million from four dates in Brazil from March 5th-10th, while Bon Jovi topped Springsteen’s figures just as he was kick-starting his Aussie Tour.
In the same week they debuted at #1 on the ARIA Charts, beating Bowie’s first album in 10 years to the top spot, Bon Jovi raked in $26,530,704 from 264,927 in ticket sales across a sold-out 16 date American leg; likely to do big business when the band rolls into Australia before the end of the year. The group’s itinerary for supporting their latest album, What About Now, thins out towards September/October with titular frontman Jon Bon Jovi teasing that “we are coming (but) not until the end of the year in December.”
