The Weeknd has finally reached the summit of the monthly touring world. After spending years inside the upper tier of the Top Tours chart, the global superstar claimed his first No. 1 ranking in July with a massive $124.4 million gross and 892,000 tickets sold across 16 stadium shows.
It was a landmark month for the artist born Abel Tesfaye, marking his 15th appearance on the chart since his After Hours til Dawn Tour launched in 2022. That run has included 13 top 10 placements, nine top five finishes and seven top three results, but never the top spot until now. The July achievement places The Weeknd's gross just under 1% ahead of Bad Bunny's $123.7 million from September 2022, making it the largest one-month gross by a solo male act since the monthly ranking began in 2019. Among all acts, it ranks as the seventh biggest monthly gross in chart history.
On the attendance side, The Weeknd's 892,000 tickets is the second highest monthly figure ever recorded, narrowly ahead of his own 891,000 tickets from July 2023 by less than one tenth of a percentage point. Only Harry Styles has sold more in a single month, with 967,000 tickets in June 2023. Interesting nuance: The Weeknd's two 800,000-plus months occurred entirely in European stadiums, as did Styles' record-setting month. Stadium capacities outside the United States often exceed those at home, and The Weeknd averaged more than 55,000 tickets per show in July. By contrast, the six biggest months ranked by revenue all included North American shows.
Paris Stadium Run Leads the Way
The centerpiece of The Weeknd's July was a four-show stand at Paris' Stade de France on July 8-9 and 11-12. That run generated $44.2 million from 300,000 tickets sold, easily the highest-grossing and best-selling concert engagement of the month. It also added to the tour's history at the venue. Combined with two shows at the same stadium on July 29-30, 2023, the After Hours til Dawn Tour now claims six sold-out performances at Stade de France, with more than $60 million and 450,000 tickets generated in total.
Beyond Paris, The Weeknd delivered multiple nights in Lille and Nice in France, as well as Amsterdam, Milan and Frankfurt. All six of those stops appeared on the monthly Top Boxscores ranking, with his Paris dates at No. 1 and two nights at Nice's Allianz Riviera on July 21-22 at No. 30.
Tour Milestones and Historical Context
Since its launch in 2022, the After Hours til Dawn Tour has played 141 shows through Aug. 1. Those concerts have collectively grossed $910.1 million and sold 7.1 million tickets, placing it as the fourth-highest-grossing tour of all time behind Taylor Swift, Coldplay and Elton John. According to the singer's team, a further dozen shows already played and nearly two dozen more scheduled will push the tour past $1 billion, making it only the third tour ever to reach that milestone.
The tour is already the biggest by an R&B artist and the biggest by a Black artist in Boxscore history, based on both gross and attendance. The Weeknd is also the first R&B artist to lead the monthly Top Tours chart in 2026, and only the third in the chart's seven-year history. He follows Beyoncé, who topped it seven times between 2023 and 2025, and Chris Brown, who achieved a three-peat last year.
The Weeknd's July dominance is particularly notable given how deep into the tour's life it comes. More than four years after the trek began, he continues to set new personal highs. The European-heavy scheduling allowed him to play some of the largest venues in the world, and his consistent ticket sales demonstrate that his international appeal has not faded. The enthusiasm also reflects the enduring popularity of his catalog, which spans multiple chart-topping albums and a loyal global fan base.
The singer's live career has evolved since his early days in Toronto's alternative R&B scene. From intimate club shows to the biggest stadiums on Earth, The Weeknd has grown into one of the most dependable live attractions in popular music. His albums, from House of Balloons to After Hours and Dawn FM, have provided a deep well of hits that translate to large-scale productions. The After Hours til Dawn Tour is a visual and sonic spectacle with elaborate staging, frequently changing setlists, and a theatrical take on his catalog.
The commercial success of this tour also highlights the importance of international markets. The Weeknd's European stadium run in July was possible because of the sheer scale of venues like Stade de France, which can hold tens of thousands more fans than most U.S. stadiums. That capacity advantage, combined with strong demand across multiple countries, allowed him to pile up numbers that would have been difficult to achieve with a purely domestic trek.
A Record-Breaking Month for Touring
The Weeknd wasn't the only artist making noise in July. BTS landed at No. 2 with $102.5 million and 582,000 tickets sold. The group's four stops in July, in Brussels, London, Munich and Paris, ranked at No. 3 and Nos. 5-7 on the Top Boxscores list. Like The Weeknd, BTS found its biggest numbers in Paris, generating $30.6 million from 185,000 tickets at the Stade de France.
BTS previously topped the Top Tours chart in April and May, and they have two prior wins from earlier tours. After slipping to No. 6 in June with a lighter schedule, an expanded run of eight dates brought them back near the top. One month after Bad Bunny joined the club, BTS became the third act to gross a reported $100 million in multiple months, alongside Beyoncé. This also marked only the second time that two tours grossed more than $100 million in the same month, after Beyoncé and Kendrick Lamar & SZA achieved the feat in May 2025 with both above $150 million.
Since launching in April, BTS' Arirang World Tour has earned $433.2 million and sold 2.3 million tickets over 38 shows through Aug. 11. It is already by far the biggest tour of the group's career and is scheduled to continue through March 2027.
Chris Brown and Usher's co-headline The R&B Tour took No. 3 for July with $98.4 million and 538,000 tickets sold. Including the tour's opening shows in June and an Aug. 1 date in Syracuse, N.Y., the trek earned $115.9 million across its first 16 shows, with more than 40 still to report. The strong showing from multiple R&B acts underlined the genre's growing power on the road, with The Weeknd, BTS and the Brown-Usher pairing filling stadiums and arenas around the world.
The R&B Tour's early success is especially significant for Usher, who has spent recent years cementing his legacy as a live performer with residencies and international dates. For Chris Brown, the joint tour continues a long streak of high-grossing roadwork. The pairing of the two stars proved that co-headlining packages can generate blockbuster results when both artists bring devoted fan bases.
Altogether, the top 30 tours of July grossed a reported $1.155 billion and sold 8.189 million tickets, setting record highs since the monthly ranking's 2019 launch. Beyond the chart itself, it was the highest-grossing calendar month in the history of the touring industry by reported grosses. Even accounting for unreported figures from Taylor Swift's massive Eras Tour, it is highly unlikely that any month in 2023-24 could have matched July's numbers. The previous best month was June 2025, with $1.029 billion and 7.534 million tickets, and July exceeded those records by 12% and 9%, respectively.
Source:Billboard News