The Weeknd's 'After Hours Til Dawn' Tour Crosses $1.3 Billion, Setting Male Artist Record

When The Weeknd walked off the stage at TM Stadium Nasional in Kuala Lumpur on November 5, he closed a four-year run that had just become the highest-grossing tour ever by a male artist. Live Nation put the final tally at more than $1.3 billion, a figure that surpasses the previous record.

According to Live Nation, the 'After Hours Til Dawn' stadium tour moved more than nine million tickets over 176 shows spread across 67 cities, 30 countries, and five continents. On the all-time touring list, it sits in third place, trailing Taylor Swift's Eras Tour at over $2 billion and Coldplay's Music of the Spheres at over $1.5 billion.

The record it surpassed was set by Elton John, whose Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour brought in more than $939 million.

The tour opened at Philadelphia's Lincoln Financial Field on July 14, 2022, and the Kuala Lumpur finale was the second of two nights in the Malaysian capital — show No. 176. What began as an 11-date fall Asia swing announced in May turned into the tour's debut in the region and expanded to 17 sold-out stadium shows.

Along the way, the tour stacked venue records. No other act had filled Stade de France six times within a single tour before The Weeknd did it. At Los Angeles' SoFi Stadium, his seven-show run set records for both the number of performances and gross by a male artist, while six nights at Toronto's Rogers Centre represented the most appearances there by a male solo act on one tour, according to Live Nation.

The Asia leg produced its own milestone moment. Nearly 200,000 tickets were sold across four nights at Hong Kong's Kai Tak Stadium, a figure that, according to complex.com, made The Weeknd the city's top-selling international male solo act. Out of those shows came a new single, 'Hong Kong,' pairing The Weeknd with Cantopop icon Faye Wong and built around a sample of her 1993 song 'Monsoon'; he performed it for the first time on October 24, the opening night at Kai Tak, and put it out on October 31.

Beyond the commercial figures, the tour channeled $8.5 million to the XO Humanitarian Fund and Global Citizen. Included in that figure is $3 million raised this year for the UN World Food Programme and Global Citizen through per-ticket contributions of €1 in Europe and £1 in the UK, according to complex.com.

Why it matters — The milestone redraws the ceiling for what a solo male artist can earn on the road, with The Weeknd's total nearly 40 percent above the previous record — a benchmark that will define touring ambitions for years.

Reported by variety.com, usatoday.com, complex.com, jambase.com