Beyonce and Jay-Z’s ‘On the Run II’ Tour Grosses Over $250 Million
By Jem Aswad
LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – The numbers for Beyonce and Jay-Z four-month-long, time-zone spanning “On the Run II” tour are in, and they’re impressive. The epic jaunt grossed some $254,050,706, according to Pollstar data provided to Variety.
The 48-date tour launched in Cardiff, Wales on June 6, rolled through Europe for 18 shows before crossing the Atlantic for another 30 shows in North America, wrapping at Seattle’s CenturyLink field on Oct. 4.
The tour sold 2,169,050 tickets for an average of 55,617 per show; each show’s average gross was $6,514,120.69. The biggest payday was a two-night stand at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium, which grossed $14.1 million.
Just days after the tour started, the duo surprise-released their first joint album, “Everything Is Love. ” And the couple’s marriage — so intimately documented on the trio of albums that began with ’s “Lemonade,” continued with Jay’s “4:44” and concluded with “Everything Is Love” — was unquestionably center stage during the shows.
Alex Stedman wrote in Variety , “While they play well together on stage, the most truly powerful moments tend to be when they narrate the issues of their marriages separately. Amid the hits and pyrotechnics, one of the most striking moments of the entire concert is when Beyonce, dressed in an elegant beige feathered dress, sits down in front of the audience to perform her 2006 version of “Resentment.” It’s a blistering reconciliation with the emotional carnage of being cheated on, and when Beyonce performed it on recent tours, it had a different resonance, like the pop star was working through her struggles with her husband in gut-wrenching fashion onstage. But when she performs it Saturday night, on the couple’s victory lap, it’s still passionate, but less mournful. Rather than working through it herself, she dedicates the song to anyone who’s been “lied to” or “had [their] heart broken,” helping them to make it through like she did.”
The pair last toured together in 2014 for the first “On the Run” tour, supporting her self-titled 2013 album and Jay’s “Magna Carta Holy Grail.”
