
Bow down to the Queen. Beyonce slayed the competition as 2016’s top Money Maker with a mammoth $62.1 million — $20 million more than the No. 2 act. The bulk of that payday stemmed from her Formation World Tour, in support of her sixth album, Lemonade, an all-stadium trek that boasted DJ Khaled and Rae Sremmurd as opening acts, not to mention Kendrick Lamar and husband JAY-Z as surprise guests at the MetLife Stadium finale in East Rutherford, N.J. That tour sold 1.2 million tickets and grossed an industry-leading $161 million across 32 North American dates, but Bey didn’t stop there. Finishing in the top 15 in every category we measured, she was one of only six artists to earn more than $1 million in each category and ranked sixth in total artist royalties ($6.2 million). And while Lemonade may have lost the Grammy for album of the year, it earned 2.2 million equivalent album units in 2016, according to Nielsen Music (and added 260,000 more this year). LAST YEAR: N/A