The record for biggest concert attendance is held by Vasco Rossi (left) for a ticketed concert and Jean-Michel Jarre and Rod Stewart (right) for a free concert.

This article lists the highest-attended concerts of all time. The oldest 100,000-crowd concert reported to Billboard Boxscore is Grateful Dead's gig at the Raceway Park, Englishtown, New Jersey on September 3, 1977. The concert was attended by 107,019 people, which remains the largest ticketed concert in the United States to date. Frank Sinatra, Tina Turner, and Paul McCartney broke the record respectively in Maracanã Stadium. With an audience of over 184,000 people on April 21, 1990. McCartney's record was broken by A-ha in 1991 during the Rock in Rio, when they drew about 198,000 people with tickets. Their record was broken by a Japanese rock band, Glay, which held a concert with an audience of 200,000 people on July 31, 1999, in Chiba, Japan (Makuhari Parking Lot). GLAY held the record for 6 years. Italian singer Vasco Rossi surpassed McCartney's record with his solo concert on July 1, 2017. The concert was a celebration of his 40 years of career.

Although the attendance numbers of free concerts are known to be exaggerations,[1] several concerts have been reported to have a million audience or more. Both Jean-Michel Jarre's concert in Moscow 1997 and Rod Stewart's concert in Copacabana 1994 have been reported to attract audiences of more than 3.5 million people. Jean-Michel Jarre has attracted a live audience of more than a million spectators on five occasions, three times in Paris, 1979, 1990 and 1995, once in Houston, 1986, and once in Moscow, 1997. He is the only artist ever to have done so. Metallica played Moscow in 1991 in front of 1.6 million people.

Highest-attended concerts

Key
* Indicates the concert was the highest-attended of all time up to that point

Single-artist concerts

The following are the highest-attended single artist's ticketed concerts (excluding music festivals) with attendance of 100,000 people or more.

Date Artist Venue City Title Attendance Ref.
1 July 2017 Vasco Rossi * Parco Enzo Ferrari Modena Modena Park 2017 225,173 [2]
28 June 2005 Bijelo Dugme * Belgrade Hippodrome Belgrade 2005 Tour: Sarajevo, Zagreb, Belgrade 220,000 [3]
31 July 1999 Glay * Makuhari Messe Chiba Glay Expo'99 Survival 200,000 [4]
26 January 1991 A-ha * Maracanã Stadium Rio de Janeiro Rock in Rio festival 198,000 [5][6] Guinness World Records
20 April 1990 Paul McCartney * The Paul McCartney World Tour 184,000 [7]
16 January 1988 Tina Turner * Break Every Rule World Tour 180,000 [8][9]
26 January 1980 Frank Sinatra * Frank Sinatra Live 175,000 [8][10]
10 September 2005 Luciano Ligabue Aeroporto di Reggio Emilia Reggio Emilia Campovolo 165,264 [11]
19 July 1988 Bruce Springsteen Radrennbahn Weissensee Berlin Tunnel of Love Express Tour 160,000 [12]
28 June 2013 Ceca Ušće park Belgrade Poziv Tour 150,000 [13]
20 September 1997 U2 Aeroporto di Reggio Emilia Reggio Emilia PopMart Tour 150,000 [14]
18 June 1983 Kiss Maracanã Stadium Rio de Janeiro Creatures of the Night Tour/10th Anniversary Tour 137,000 [15]
20 March 1981 Queen Estádio do Morumbi São Paulo The Game Tour 131,000 [16]
29 August 1987 Madonna Parc de Sceaux Paris Who's That Girl World Tour 130,000 [17]
30 Apr 2022 Garth Brooks Tiger Stadium Baton Rouge The Garth Brooks Stadium Tour 127,000 [18]
5 August 1995 The Rolling Stones Strahov Stadium Prague Voodoo Lounge Tour 126,742 [19]
11 September 1988 Michael Jackson Aintree Racecourse Liverpool Bad World Tour 125,000 [20]
7 September 1996 Michael Jackson Letná Park Prague HIStory World Tour 125,000 [21]
10 August 1996 Oasis Knebworth Park Stevenage (What's the Story) Morning Glory? Tour 125,000 [22]
[23]
11 August 1996 125,000
1 August 2003 Robbie Williams 2003 Tour 125,000 [24]
2 August 2003 125,000
3 August 2003 125,000
20 May 2022 Vasco Rossi Trentino Music Arena Trento Vasco Live Tour 2022 120,000 [25]
21 March 1981 Queen Estádio do Morumbi São Paulo The Game Tour 120,000 [16]
25 July 1982 The Rolling Stones Roundhay Park Leeds The Rolling Stones European Tour 1982 120,000 [26]
9 August 1986 Queen Knebworth Park Stevenage Magic Tour 120,000 [27]
6 November 1993 Madonna Maracanã Stadium Rio de Janeiro The Girlie Show World Tour 120,000 [28]
20 September 1996 Michael Jackson Bemowo, Airport Warsaw HIStory World Tour 120,000 [29]
24 September 2003 Dave Matthews Band Central Park New York City The Central Park Concert 120,000 [citation needed]
7 September 1994 Pink Floyd Strahov Stadium Prague The Division Bell Tour 115,000 [30]
3 September 1977 Grateful Dead * Raceway Park Englishtown Terrapin Station Tour 107,019 [31]
7 June 2014 George Strait AT&T Stadium Arlington The Cowboy Rides Away Tour 104,793 [32]
27 June 1980 Bob Marley and the Wailers San Siro Milan Uprising Tour 100,000 [33]
25 November 2017 Ricky Martin Zócalo Mexico City One World Tour 100,000 [34]
28 March 2007 Shakira Giza Plateau Cairo Oral Fixation Tour 100,000 [35]

Free concerts

The following are free concerts with reported attendance of one million people or more. The first ever was by French artist Jean-Michel Jarre in Paris in 1979, which created the Guinness Book entry.[36] It also includes multi-artist festivals which may not be directly comparable with single-artist concerts. Attendance numbers for many of the kinds of events listed here rely on estimations from the promoters and are known to be exaggerations.[1]

Date Headlining artist Location City Event Attendance Ref.
September 6, 1997 Jean-Michel Jarre * State University of Moscow Moscow The 850th Anniversary of Moscow >3,500,000 [37]
December 31, 1994 Rod Stewart * Copacabana Beach Rio de Janeiro New Year's Eve >3,500,000 [38]
December 31, 1993 Jorge Ben Jor * Copacabana Beach Rio de Janeiro New Year's Eve 3,000,000 [39]
July 14, 1990 Jean-Michel Jarre * La Défense Paris Bastille Day 2,500,000 [40]
September 28, 1991 AC/DC, Pantera, Metallica, The Black Crowes, E.S.T. Tushino Airfield Moscow Monsters of Rock 1,600,000 [41][42]
July 2, 2005 Various artists Philadelphia Museum of Art Philadelphia Live 8 1,500,000 [43]
February 18, 2006 The Rolling Stones Copacabana Beach Rio de Janeiro A Bigger Bang 1,500,000 [44][45]
April 5, 1986 Jean-Michel Jarre * Downtown Houston Houston Rendez-vous Houston 1,300,000 [46][47]
September 20, 2009 Various artists Plaza de la Revolución Havana Paz Sin Fronteras II 1,100,000 [48][49]
July 4, 1985 The Beach Boys Philadelphia Museum of Art Philadelphia Independence Day concert 1,000,000 [50]
July 14, 1979 Jean-Michel Jarre * Place de la Concorde Paris Bastille Day 1,000,000 [36]
June 24, 2001 Antonello Venditti Circus Maximus Rome AS Roma's 3rd Serie A victory 1,000,000 [51]
December 31, 2006 The Black Eyed Peas Copacabana Beach Rio de Janeiro New Year's Eve 1,000,000
August 3, 2019 Kult Kostrzyn nad Odrą Pol'And'Rock Festival ~1,000,000 [53]

See also

References

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