U2 Gross Nearly $60 Million in Europe
U2 dominates the current top grossing concerts with the final dates of a 10-week, 32-day tour of Europe and the Middle East that grossed a total of $58,697,632, drawing more than 1.5 million fans from Ireland to Israel.
The tour included the largest outdoor show ever held in Northern Ireland and the first since the recent IRA cease-fire ended years of violence. A total of 39,362 fans jammed Botanical Gardens in Belfast Aug. 26 to see the group. The Sept. 20 festival-type show at Reggio Emilia, Italy, drew the largest single-day crowd — 150,000! The $5,294,117 gross came from tickets priced at $34.42. U2’s top grossing date was a two-day stand at London’s Wembley Stadium, where a crowd of 144,308 paid $6,753,356 on tickets topping out at $53.17 Aug. 22-23.Since the U2 PopMart Tour began April 25 at Sam Boyd Stadium in Las Vegas 2,669,268 tickets were sold for 61 shows grossing a total of $112,495,872. Only four of these shows grossed less than $1 million each, and two of those – Sept. 23 in Bosnia and Sept. 26 in Greece – were due to extremely low ticket prices of $12 and $14.50. The tourreturns to the North American circuit Oct. 26-27 for more stadium dates through mid-December.