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This article lists the most-attended concerts of all time. The oldest 100,000-crowd concert reported to Billboard Boxscore is Grateful Dead's gig at the Raceway Park, Englishtown, New Jersey on September 3, 1977. The concert was attended by 107,019 people. Internationally, 40 paid concerts have surpassed the initial record set by Grateful Dead. Frank Sinatra, Tina Turner, and Paul McCartney broke the record respectively in Maracanã Stadium. With an audience of over 184,000 people on April 21, 1990, McCartney's record was broken by a Japanese rock band, Glay, which held a concert with an audience of 200,000 people on July 31, 1999, in Chiba, Japan (Makuhari Parking Lot). GLAY held the record for 6 years. Italian singer Vasco Rossi surpassed the record with his solo concert on July 1, 2017 with a total of 225,173 tickets sold at Modena Park. The concert was a celebration of his 40 years of career.
Although the attendance numbers of free concerts are known to be exaggerations,[1] several concerts have been reported to have a million audience or more. Both Jean-Michel Jarre's concert in Moscow 1997 and Rod Stewart's concert in Copacabana 1994 have been reported to attract audiences of more than 3.5 million people. Jean-Michel Jarre has attracted a live audience of more than a million spectators on five occasions, three times in Paris, 1979, 1990 and 1995, once in Houston, 1986, and once in Moscow, 1997. He is the only artist ever to have done so.
Both Jean-Michel Jarre's concert in Moscow 1997 and Rod Stewart's concert in Copacabana 1994 have been reported to attract audiences of more than 3.5 million people. In the 21st century, Madonna's closing performance of The Celebration Tour in Rio de Janeiro, which was free to attend, attracted over 1.6 million people.[2] It became the all-time most attended standalone concert for any artist performing for free.[3]
Most-attended concerts
[edit]* | Indicates the concert was the most-attended of all time up to that point |
‡ | Indicates standalone free concert |
Ticketed concerts
[edit]The following are the most-attended single-artist's ticketed concerts (excluding music festivals) with attendance of 100,000 people or more.
Free concerts
[edit]The following are free concerts with reported attendance of one million people or more. The first ever was by French artist Jean-Michel Jarre in Paris in 1979, which created the Guinness Book entry. It also includes multi-artist festivals which may not be directly comparable with single-artist concerts. Attendance numbers for many of the kinds of events listed here rely on estimations from the promoters and are known to be exaggerations.[1]
See also
[edit]- List of most-attended concert tours
- List of highest-grossing concert tours
- List of largest peaceful gatherings
References
[edit]- ^ a b Dwyer, Jim (July 23, 2008). "Great Lawn: A Bubble of History Bursts". The New York Times. Retrieved December 29, 2016.
- ^ Frost, Caroline (May 5, 2024). "Madonna Makes History With 1.6million Crowd In Rio On Final Night Of Tour". Deadline. Retrieved May 5, 2024.
- ^ Kreps, Daniel (May 5, 2024). "Madonna Closes Out Celebration Tour in Front of Record-Setting 1.6 Million Fans in Brazil". Rolling Stone. Retrieved May 5, 2024.
- ^ Gottfried, Gideon (June 29, 2017). "Rossi Sets Record In Italy". Pollstar. Retrieved December 9, 2017.
- ^ Salini, Antonella (July 7, 2017). "Modena Park, Vasco oltre il sold out: c'erano prenotazioni per altri 160mila biglietti". Agenzia Dire (in Italian). Retrieved February 2, 2024.
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- ^ While there are reports of over 250,000 people attending the concert, other sources state lower numbers. The precise number of spectators is unclear.
- ^ "10 年ぶりの『Glay Expo』をWowow で独占生中継!". Oricon (in Japanese). September 18, 2014. Retrieved April 11, 2019.
- ^ "Arts and Media/Music Feats & Facts/Solo Rock Show Crowd". Guinness World Records. May 25, 2006. Archived from the original on May 25, 2006. Retrieved December 9, 2017.
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