Music fans really stepped up this year. There was an astonishing 62, 138, 717 searches for the top 200 most popular artists' tour dates over the past 12 months via Stereoboard, up from 39, 128, 765 in 2022. Taylor Swift may have dominated music press headlines with The Eras Tour, but there was a plethora of other artists hitting the road in support of new music.
Check out our Top 50 tours of 2023 below, and always remember to support your local grassroots venues as well as visiting your nearest arenas and stadiums. They still need your help if they're to continue nurturing developing talent and future stars.
2023 was a very good year for the Swifties. Not only did she release Taylor's Versions of 'Speak Now' and '1989', but she announced The Eras Tour.
Introduced as "a journey through the musical eras of my career (past and present!)," the trek has already travelled across North America, and to Mexico, Argentina and Brazil.
In 2024, The Eras Tour will head to Japan, Australia, Europe and the UK, before returning to the US for a second North American leg. Can't wait? Lucky for you, this year Swift also managed to fit in releasing The Eras Tour Concert Film, which premiered in cinemas and is currently on select streaming services.
In 2022, we said Harry Styles was having a moment, and we were right. His Love On Tour travelled across the world, and saw him set a new record at New York's Madison Square Garden by selling out 15 consecutive shows.
The trek also saw him introducing his fanbase to an eclectic mix of artists who opened for him, including Blood Orange, Ben Harper, Jessie Ware, Wet Leg, Mistki, Arlo Parks and Wolf Alice.
This year, Love On Tour headed to Australia and New Zealand in the spring, and the UK and Ireland for another round of dates throughout May, June and July. But Styles confirmed the end of the run was, in fact, the end. He is currently taking a well-earned break, so pack away those sequins and feather boas, at least for now. We don't wanna talk about the way that it was.
Late in 2022, Mark Hoppus, Tom DeLonge and Travis Barker announced they were reuniting for the first time in almost 10 years, and very nearly broke the internet.
They set out plans for shows in Latin America, Australia and New Zealand, North America, Europe and the UK throughout 2023, causing a frenzy in the pop-punk community.
They ramped things up even further this autumn by announcing a new album, 'One More Time..', which came out in October. The 17-track record featured their 2022 comeback single, Edging.
What can you say about The Boss that already hasn't been said? But even after all this time, his name still causes tens of thousands of fans to flock to stadiums across the world for his marathon concerts.
In 2023, Springsteen and the E Street band travelled across North America, before visiting mainland Europe, the UK and Ireland, with a second North American run taking place in the latter half of the year.
2024 will see them hitting the road for another stadium tour of the UK and Europe throughout late spring and summer, with another North American leg lined up for early spring and the fall.
Back in the '80s, Springsteen claimed he was "tougher than the rest", and with a touring schedule like that, we can see why.
Coldplay took the top spot last year with their Music Of The Spheres World Tour, racking up a whopping 4, 396, 102 searches for tickets.
The trek saw the band make numerous sustainability commitments to cut direct emissions by 50% compared to their previous run.
Having travelled across the Dominican Republic, US, Mexico and Europe in 2022, they embarked on a second European leg this spring, and have confirmed a third for summer 2024. Next year will also see them take the tour to Australia and New Zealand. Viva La Coldplay!
It may be unusal not seeing Queen Bey at number one, but with ticket searches in excess of a million and a half for what has become her highest grossing tour to date, sixth place is nothing to complain about.
The Renaissance World Tour began in late spring with a European leg, which included UK shows, with the North American leg starting in early July and running until late September. Along the way, via her BeyGOOD initiative, the powerhouse performer gave a million dollars in grants to small business owners, and the same amount in scholarship funds to colleges and universities.
If you weren't one of the lucky fans who bagged tickets, fear not, because Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé opened in North American cinemas earlier in December, with the concert film expected to make its way onto streaming services relatively soon.
Last year, The Weeknd was at number 25 on our Top Tickets Chart, but 2023 has seen him step up to the big leagues with his After Hours Til Dawn Global Stadium Tour.
This summer, the Canadian artist embarked on the extensive European leg, which included shows in Manchester, Dublin and London. He then took the tour to South America this fall, with the Australian and New Zealand leg following in late November and early December.
The recent shows Down Under concluded the album cycles for 2020's 'After Hours' and 2022's 'Dawn FM'. Keep track of what's next for the Starboy by setting up a tour alert here.
At the start of the year, the Queen Of Pop proved that her reign is far from over by announcing The Celebration Tour, which would bring together her hugely successful four decades in music into one spectacular concert.
Due to rescheduling because of ill health, the tour began this autumn with the European leg, which included an impressive six nights at The O2 in London. She took RuPaul's Drag Race winner Bob The Drag Queen along for the ride, with the multi-faceted artist opening all her shows.
The Celebration Tour recently visited Brooklyn and Washington, with the full rescheduled North American leg set to begin in January and run until April. That's a lot of shows, right? But as the legend herself once said: "We go hard or we go home, We gon' do this all night long, We get freaky if you want, Bitch, I'm Madonna!"
The 1975 were not messing around this year. They kicked things off in January with a UK and Ireland arena tour in support of their 2022 album 'Being Funny In A Foreign Language', followed by concerts in Australia and New Zealand in April.
The summer saw them play some huge outdoor UK shows, including London's Finsbury Park, following which they headed across North America in the fall.
They're nowhere near done yet, though, and in 2024 the band will head back out across the UK and Europe with the Still... At Their Very Best Tour, which visits arenas throughout February and March. Want a taster of what to expect? Check out the album 'At Their Very Best (Live From Madison Square Garden, New York, 07.11.22)', which came out this January.
Take That mania began in the '90s and, let's face it, hasn't waned since. With such voracious fans, it's no surprise that the trio had 1,221,745 searches in 2023.
In September, they announced their new album, 'This Life', and that they'd be supporting it with This Life On Tour, which will be be heading to arenas across the UK and Ireland in spring and summer 2024.
They've also lined up the This Life Under The Stars European Tour, which will run throughout June and July, and will begin with outdoor shows in Cork, Dublin and Belfast. There's not long to wait until the shows, so Keep Your Head Up until then.
We looked at what fans were searching for on Google and we’ve crunched the numbers from our Google Ads account to bring you the definitive list of the hottest tickets sought in 2023.
We did this by analysing Stereoboard’s impression share, from millions of search queries, and extrapolated that data. That enabled us to estimate, to a high degree of accuracy, the total number of fans searching for ticket related terms on Google’s search engine for each artists’ UK tour throughout the past 12 months.
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