Last night (May 4), Madonna transformed Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana Beach into the world’s largest dance club as she performed the final night of her “Celebration Tour” before some 1.6 million fans, according to Riotur, the municipality’s tourism department, and promoter Live Nation, making it the largest audience ever assembled for a stand-alone concert.
The free show surpassed the Rolling Stones’ record-setting Feb. 18 2006 “Bigger Bang” concert in the same locale, which had brought in 1.5 million fans. The attendance is also more than ten times Madonna’s previous record attendance of 130,000 at Paris’ Parc des Sceaux in 1987. Today’s record does not include the Copacabana’s New Year’s shows, an annual ritual that draws far more for the event with fireworks and concerts.
It’s only fitting the Queen of Pop’s grand finale for her “Celebration Tour,” which celebrates her magnificent record-setting 40-year career, would be one of her greatest feats. The just-wrapped tour grossed $227, 247,141 and sold 1,128,657 tickets over the course of 80 shows between Oct. 14, 2023 and May 4, 2024, according to Pollstar Boxoffice reports (and which does not include the final Rio date which was a free show).
Today’s record-setting feat is only the latest record in Madonna’s historic live career, which is inarguably one of the all-time greatest. Her touring data bears this out. Madonna’s record-setting 2008-9 “Sticky & Sweet Tour” was the highest grossing tour by a female artist for fifteen years. That historic run grossed $419 million, according to Pollstar Boxoffice reports. When adjusted for inflation, “Sticky & Sweet” is still the second-highest grossing tour by any female ever. Madonna’s four other top tours include: 2012’s “MDMA Tour,” which grossed…