During Super Bowl 50, Beyoncé performed along with Coldplay and Mark Ronson, and after her performance an ad announced her first headlining stadium tour this year that will begin in the summer with 40 stops. Called “Formation,” the world tour is set to begin April 27. As the hysteria builds among fans and the Amex pre-sale begins next week, we take a look at Beyoncé’s star-studded, lucrative tour history and the high points of some of her biggest shows.
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THE MRS. CARTER SHOW WORLD TOUR
Announced in February 2013, the tour had six legs and 132 shows, beginning in Belgrade, Serbia, on April 15, 2014 and concluded in Lisbon, Portugal, on March 27 of the same year. It featured royal themes, which the platinum-selling singer and actress channeling imagery of queens, collaborating with international designers and luxe fashion houses. She performed songs from all four studio albums of her solo career, and later shows incorporated tracks from her fifth studio album, Beyoncé.
Tickets for this tour sold out almost immediately after they were released and the tour reportedly grossed $188.6 million in 2013 and $41.1 million in 2014, bringing the tour’s total gross revenue to more than $229 million. It was the highest grossing female and solo tour of 2013, Beyoncé’s highest grossing tour to date and one of the highest grossing tours of the decade.
ON THE RUN TOUR
On this tour, the Houston-bred star partnered up with her husband Shawn “Jay Z” Carter. The tour, which was announced in April 2014,
had presale tickets available to fans first through Beyoncé’s website and Chase. The concerts had a film-style theme and featured elements of artistic cinematic production, where the two would interchange working the crowd alone and together, and perform both solo and duo hits.The pair’s 19 North American shows during the tour grossed more than $100 million in ticket sales and sold at more than 90% capacity, according to Billboard. The tour’s nightly take averaged more than $5.2 million and per-show attendance reached close to 45,000. It was one of the top-selling tours of 2014.
THE BEYONCÉ EXPERIENCE
Her third solo concert tour, it was launched in 2007 and featured performances of her songs from her second album, B’Day, which went triple-platinum. She performed 96 shows in five legs with concerts in Asia, Australia, North America, Europe, and Africa.
Beyoncé collaborated with America’s Second Harvest on a campaign to raise awareness on world poverty and the organization’s fight against famine, holding pre-concert food drives at every stop during the tour. She saéng songs from B’Day as well as Dangerously in Love and some Destiny’s Child hits, and opening acts included Chris Brown, Robin Thicke, and Sean Kingston.
Between April 21 and Sept. 8 of that year, it was reported that the tour grossed $24.9 million and more than 272,000 fans attended shows during that time. The tour grossed a total of $90 million upon its completion.
I AM… WORLD TOUR
This tour, which was announced in October 2008, was the singer’s fourth concert tour, and it kicked
off in late-March 2009. Spanning from the Americas to Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia, it included 108 shows. Just as some others, it included pre-concert food drives as part of a campaign by General Mills’ Hamburger Helper entitled, “Show Your Helping Hand.”Performing in Thierry Mugler-designed costumes on a stage that featured special effects and an all-girl band, she performed songs from her first three solo albums as well as Destiny’s Child hits. The first European leg of the tour sold more than 350,000 tickets for 32 shows and the UK leg sold out completely. In 2009, the tour was nominated for Eventful Fans’ Choice Award at the 6th Annual Billboard Touring Awards. By the time the tour ended, it grossed $119.5 million.