Ed Sheeran's Divide tour took more money than any other artist in the past three decades

18 December 2018, 16:22 | Written by Cerys Kenneally

(News)

(Ed Sheeran)

Having played 53 cities and 94 shows, Ed Sheeran's Divide tour has been named the highest grossing tour of the year, as well as topping all artists from the past 30 years.

Pollstar reports that the global music industry saw $10.4billion spent across 152.1m tickets in the past 12 months, with Ed Sheeran's Divide tour raking in $432.4million.

Including his 2017 shows, Sheeran's latest tour is the third highest-grossing tour of all time, behind U2’s 360 ($735m) and the Rolling Stones’ A Bigger Bang ($558m).

Ed Sheeran's tour even overtook Taylor Swift's Reputation tour ($345m), and Jay-Z and Beyoncé's On The Run II tour ($254.1m).

On average, his tour was grossing $4.6m a night - yes, each night.

For the 94 shows he played in 2018, Sheeran sold a whooping 4,860,482 tickets.

As a collective, the top 10 tours of 2018 have, for the first time ever, surpassed $2 billion in gross revenue, compared to 2017's collective annual figure of $1.8 billion.

Next year's contenders have got a lot of tickets and merch to sell, that's for sure.