Her 1985 debut concert tour,
The Virgin Tour, was held in North America only and went on to collect more than US $5 million.[5] In 1987 she performed on the worldwide
Who's That Girl World Tour, which visited Europe, North America and Japan, and earned $25 million.[6][7] One of the tour's shows in Paris in front of 130,000 fans was the
largest paying concert audience by a female artist at the time and remains the largest crowd of any concert in French history.[8][9] In 1990, she embarked on the
Blond Ambition World Tour, which was dubbed the "Greatest Concert of the 1990s" by Rolling Stone.[10]BBC credited the tour with "invent[ing] the modern, multi-media pop spectacle".[11] In 1993, Madonna visited Israel and Turkey for the first time, followed by Latin America and Australia, with
The Girlie Show.[7] A review in Time by Sam Buckley said: "Madonna, once the
Harlow harlot and now a perky
harlequin, is the greatest show-off on earth."[12]
Madonna did not tour again until the
Drowned World Tour in 2001. She played the guitar and her costumes included a punkish tartan
kilt and a
geishakimono. Some critics complained that the show concentrated on material from her most recent albums, but generally, the response was favorable.[7] She grossed more than US $75 million with summer sold-out shows and eventually played in front of 730,000 people throughout North America and Europe.[13][14] The Drowned World Tour was followed by the 2004
Re-Invention World Tour. Madonna was inspired to create the tour after taking part in an art installation called X-STaTIC PRo=CeSS, directed by photographer
Steven Klein.[15]Billboard awarded Madonna the "Backstage Pass Award" in recognition of having the top-grossing tour of the year, with ticket sales of nearly US $125 million.[16]
Madonna's next tours broke world records, with the 2006
Confessions Tour grossing over US $194.7 million,[17] becoming the highest-grossing tour ever for a female artist at that time.[18] This feat was surpassed in 2008 with the
Sticky & Sweet Tour, which at the time, became the
highest-grossing tour ever by a solo artist, and the second highest-grossing tour of all time, with approximately US $411 million in ticket sales.[19] In 2012,
The MDNA Tour was completed as the tenth highest-grossing tour of all time with US $305 million, the second highest among female artists at the time, only behind the Sticky & Sweet Tour.[20] Her 2015–16
Rebel Heart Tour was an all-arena tour which grossed $169.8 million from 1.045 million attendance.[21]The Celebration Tour, which acted as Madonna's first retrospective show, became one of the
world's fastest-selling concert tours. Billboard reported the Celebration tour to have grossed over $225.4 million from an audience of 1.1 million.[22] The free concert in Rio de Janeiro drew a crowd of over 1.6 million people, which became Madonna's largest crowd of her career and set records for the
largest audience ever for a stand-alone concert and the largest all-time crowd for a female artist.[23]
Madonna has embarked on several promotional concerts to promote her studio albums, as well as performing award shows and benefit concerts like
Live Aid (1985),
Live 8 (2005) and
Live Earth (2007). In 2012, she headlined the
Super Bowl XLVI halftime show, which at that time was the most-watched halftime show in history. According to Billboard Boxscore, Madonna grossed over $1.31 billion in concert ticket sales between 1990 and 2016; she first crossed a billion gross with The MDNA Tour. Overall, Madonna ranks third, with just
The Rolling Stones ($1.84 billion) and
U2 ($1.67 billion) ahead of her.[21] During the London stop of her 2006 Confessions Tour, Madonna became the first performer to be inducted into the
Wembley Arena Square of Fame.[24]
^Thompson, Douglas Henry (1991).
The movies. Secaucus, New Jersey: Carol Pub. Group. p. 57.
ISBN978-1-5597-2099-1. There were the business things: the fantastic success of the "Like a Virgin" tour which played to nearly 400,000 fans in twenty-seven cities with Beastie Boys as the supporting band.{{
cite book}}: |work= ignored (
help)
^Tassoni, Leo (1993). "En la cama con Madonna".
Madonna (in Spanish). Icaria Editorial. p. 140.
ISBN84-7426-207-0.
Archived from the original on February 7, 2023. Retrieved February 19, 2021. A lo largo de más de cuatro meses, Madonna desgranó su dieciocho temas en Japón, Norteamérica y Europa, actuando ante más de dos millones de personas
^Sawyer, Miranda (December 3, 2000).
"Madonna gets them in". The Guardian.
Archived from the original on February 22, 2014. Retrieved February 9, 2014.
^"Madonna: On Stage and On the Record". On the Record. Season 5. New York City. April 22, 2003.
MTV.
^Christman, Ed (May 10, 2003).
"Retail Track: Madonna Makes Music". Billboard. Vol. 115, no. 19. p. 45.
Archived from the original on February 7, 2023. Retrieved February 9, 2014.