Phish has been named the top-grossing touring act on Billboard’s latest weekly tally of “Hot Tours”, published on Wednesday. Their spot atop the list is based on the $5.9 million they earned during their annual Madison Square Garden New Year’s Run last month. The overall ticket count for the year-end stint reached 76,598, with sellout crowds at each of the four performances.
This year marked the seventh time Phish rang in the new year at The Garden since their reunion nine years ago. According to Billboard, Phish has exceeded their previous total gross in each successive year, though they actually sold a few less tickets this year than they did in 2015 (76,973 total).
However, if you are looking at ticket sales across the entire year, and not just over its final four days, 2017 was by far Phish’s biggest year of ticket sales ever recorded at MSG. Last summer’s historic 13-night Baker’s Dozen residency alone grossed an $15 million from 227,385 seats sold to rank as the eighth highest-grossing concert engagement by any single headliner in 2017.
Phish out-grossed the next-closest act on this week’s “Hot Tours” chart, blind Italian vocalist Andrea Bocelli‘s 2-night MSG run, by nearly $900K, and earned nearly $2M more than the third “tour” on the list, Dead & Company‘s own 2 Madison Square Garden shows. The real big winners, of course, are the Madison Square Garden Company: In addition to the top three spots, numbers 9 and 10 on the list also took place at their family of venues (Bob Dylan‘s stint at the Beacon Theatre and The Killers‘ early-January arena run stopping at D.C.’s The Anthem, MSG, respectively).
You can see the full Billboard “Hot Tours” list here.
Phish just announced a full 2018 Summer Tour featuring 21 shows in predominantly outdoor venues across the country, a departure from 2017 when they mostly focused on arena dates. For more information, or to enter the ticket lottery, head to the band’s website.
[via Billboard]
[Cover Photo: Andrew Scott Blackstein]