The final tally on the Rolling Stones A Bigger Bang tour is in and it topped a half billion -- $558,255,524 to be exact. The staggering total was accumulated between the fall of 2005 and Aug. 26, when the tour wrapped at the O2 in London after a run of European makeup dates.
The box office gross figure, which was provided to Billboard by longtime Stones tour producer Michael Cohl, is plenty enough to make A Bigger Bang the top grossing tour in history. In fact, the tour already owned that honor after passing U2's Vertigo, which topped out at $389 million. The previous mark had been the Stones' $320 million Voodoo Lounge tour of 1994-95.
The 144 shows on A Bigger Bang drew a paid attendance of 4,680,000, according to Cohl.
The tour was certainly not without its challenges, including the now infamous fall from a tree in Fiji by guitarist Keith Richards in April 2006.
"It was a long tour, but more than anything it was fantastic," Cohl tells Billboard. "We had to overcome a lot; this was like Homer's Odyssey. There were all sorts of difficulties to overcome and it turned out to be just one amazing triumph."
Live Nation recently purchased the remaining interest in Cohl's CPI, including CPI's merchandising and marketing arms, and Cohl still sits on the Live Nation board.
The box office gross figure, which was provided to Billboard by longtime Stones tour producer Michael Cohl, is plenty enough to make A Bigger Bang the top grossing tour in history. In fact, the tour already owned that honor after passing U2's Vertigo, which topped out at $389 million. The previous mark had been the Stones' $320 million Voodoo Lounge tour of 1994-95.
The 144 shows on A Bigger Bang drew a paid attendance of 4,680,000, according to Cohl.
The tour was certainly not without its challenges, including the now infamous fall from a tree in Fiji by guitarist Keith Richards in April 2006.
"It was a long tour, but more than anything it was fantastic," Cohl tells Billboard. "We had to overcome a lot; this was like Homer's Odyssey. There were all sorts of difficulties to overcome and it turned out to be just one amazing triumph."
Live Nation recently purchased the remaining interest in Cohl's CPI, including CPI's merchandising and marketing arms, and Cohl still sits on the Live Nation board.
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