BillBoard Magazine
Bette Midler’s Divine Intervention Tour Wraps With $32 Million Grossed
By Bob Allen | July 23, 2015 3:38 PM EDT
Bette Midler’s recently ended Divine Intervention tour grossed $36 million from 32 performances, according to Billboard Boxscore.
The pop diva’s latest trek — her first touring production since 2004 — wrapped with two shows in London on July 18 and 19. The final performances at the O2 Arena drew 22,991 fans and grossed $3.2 million, the second-highest gross on the tour. (Among those in attendance on July 19: Adele.)
The tour’s top numbers came in New York, with $3.5 million in sales reported from two sellouts at Madison Square Garden on June 25 and 26.
The Divine Intervention tour launched on May 8 in Hollywood, Fla., and played to 286,787 attendees.
Midler ranks fourth on the latest Billboard Hot Tours tally (see list, below), powered in part by the London performances.
At the top of the new Hot Tours roundup, however, is the Grateful Dead.
With $52 million in ticket sales from five sold out farewell performances, the Grateful Dead claims the No. 1 Hot Tours ranking with the Fare Thee Well tour, celebrating the band’s legendary 50-year career. Original bandmates Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann reunited this summer for a final stand at two stadiums, joined by guest musicians Trey Anastasio, Bruce Hornsby and Jeff Chimenti.
Produced by Peter Shapiro and AEG Live’s Madison House Presents, the two-city tour kicked off in the San Francisco market – Levi’s Stadium in the suburb of Santa Clara – with 151,650 tickets sold for performances on June 27 and 28. The final shows were staged the following weekend (July 3-5) at Chicago’s Soldier Field, a venue rich with Grateful Dead history.
The Chicago stadium logged a total of 210,283 sold tickets during the three-day run, setting a new single-show attendance record of 70,094. U2 previously held the record at the venue with 67,936 sold seats per show during a two-show stint in September 2009 during its 360° tour. Grateful Dead’s own attendance record at Soldier Field dated all the way back to June 22, 1991 when 58,416 tickets were sold for one performance. The 90-year old stadium was also the site of the Dead’s final performances with the late Jerry Garcia who died on August 9, 1995. The band had just played two sold out shows at the stadium a month earlier with 113,327 fans in attendance on July 8 and 9.
Billboard began compiling its annual list of the year’s highest-grossing tours in the late 1980s. Grateful Dead was No. 1 on that list twice (1991 and 1993) but ranked among the top 10 for nine consecutive years – from 1987 through 1995.
Following at Nos. 2 and 3 on the Hot Tours recap are Taylor Swift’s 1989 tour and Kenny Chesney’s Big Revival tour with grosses reported from ongoing treks through North America. Swift takes the second slot on the tally with $25.9 million from concerts at two arenas and two stadiums, and Chesney is No. 3 with $9 million in revenue from a club, arena, stadium and two amphitheaters. Swift’s top gross was $13.4 million from MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J. with 110,105 fans in attendance on July 10 and 11. Chesney scored a $5.9 million take from his top grosser, a sellout on July 11 at Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field. Both tours are promoted by AEG Live’s The Messina Group.
HOT TOURS – July 21, 2015
Ranked by Gross. Compiled from Boxscores reported July 14-20
Rank ACT
Total Gross
Show Date Range
Show Venue/City (Shows/Sellouts)
Total Attendance (Capacity)
1 GRATEFUL DEAD
$52,232,413
June 27-July 5
Levi’s Stadium, Santa Clara, Calif. (2/2)
Soldier Field, Chicago (3/3)
361,933 (361,933)
2 TAYLOR SWIFT
$25,978,974
July 6-14
Canadian Tire Centre, Ottawa, Ontario (1/1)
Bell Centre, Montreal (1/1)
MetLife Stadium, East Rutherford, N.J. (2/2)
Nationals Park, Washington, D.C. (2/2)
223,369 (223,369)
3 KENNY CHESNEY
$9,006,377
July 2-11
Anselmo Valencia Tori Amphitheater, Tucson, Ariz. (1/1)
The Joint, Hard Rock Hotel, Las Vegas (2/2)
CMAC Performing Arts Center, Canandaigua, N.Y. (1/1)
Quicken Loans Arena, Cleveland (1/0)
Lincoln Financial Field, Philadelphia (1/1)
95,112 (96,261)
4 BETTE MIDLER
$8,402,984
July 9-19
Barclaycard Arena, Birmingham, U.K. (1/1)
Manchester Arena, Manchester, U.K. (1/1)
SSE Hydro, Glasgow, U.K. (1/1)
First Direct Arena, Leeds, U.K. (1/1)
O2 Arena, London (2/2)
63,619 (63,619)
5 RASCAL FLATTS
$2,363,151
June 12-July 12
Farm Bureau Live, Virginia Beach, Va. (1/0)
Jiffy Lube Live, Bristow, Va. (1/0)
XFINITY Theatre, Hartford, Conn. (1/0)
Coral Sky Amphitheatre, West Palm Beach, Fla. (1/0)
MidFlorida Credit Union Amphitheatre, Tampa (1/0)
77,933 (97,000)
6 BRAD PAISLEY
$1,946,014
June 12-28
Toyota Amphitheatre, Wheatland, Calif. (1/0)
Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View, Calif. (1/0)
First Niagara Pavilion, Burgettstown, Pa. (1/0)
Darien Lake Performing Arts Center, Darien Center, N.Y. (1/0)
61,815 (80,000)
7 JASON ALDEAN
$1,377,220
July 11
Scotiabank Saddledome, Calgary, Alberta (1/1)
13,386 (13,386)
8 JAMES TAYLOR
$650,346
July 14
Van Andel Arena, Grand Rapids, Mich. (1/1)
7,789 (7,789)
9 SMASHING PUMPKINS & MARILYN MANSON
$313,578
July 10
The Joint, Hard Rock Hotel, Las Vegas (1/1)
4,136 (4,136)
10 IDINA MENZEL
$254,799
July 11
Mohegan Sun Arena, Uncasville, Conn. (1/0)
5,669 (7,236)
