Bad Bunny Shatters Touring Records Without Stepping Foot in the U.S.
Bad Bunny has achieved a historic $1 billion in touring revenue, setting a new benchmark for non-English language artists while intentionally bypassing the United States.
The massive success of Bad Bunny’s Debí Tirar Más Fotos world tour has helped him break several records, according to Billboard Boxscore, which has tabulated tour data for the past four decades.
Most significantly, the tour, which included stadium gigs in South America, Australia, Asia, and Europe, propelled his total gross touring revenue beyond the $1 billion mark. This achievement makes him the first Latin artist to reach this milestone, a feat shared by fewer than 25 acts in history. Furthermore, his decision to forgo touring in the United States has made this the highest-grossing and best-selling tour ever to ignore the American market.
A Historic Run
The Debí Tirar Más Fotos world tour stands as Bad Bunny’s most successful outing to date. To date, the tour has grossed $360 million and sold 2.4 million tickets, including a notable 10-gig residency in Madrid. These figures comfortably surpass his 2022 World’s Hottest Tour, which generated $314.4 million in gross sales and moved 1.9 million tickets.
For context, Billboard reports that Bad Bunny has grossed nearly twice as much as Take That, who famously launched a tour that avoided the U.S. in 2011, earning $185.2 million. Similarly, the Rolling Stones’ 2014 tour of Asia, Europe, and Oceania grossed $165.2 million, further highlighting the scale of the Puerto Rican superstar’s global dominance.
The Decision to Bypass the U.S.
Last September, Bad Bunny explained that he chose to skip the United States on this tour due to concerns regarding the political climate and the rhetoric surrounding immigration. At the time, he was performing a residency in Puerto Rico, noting the logistical and emotional concerns regarding the presence of ICE and the treatment of Latinos in the U.S.
“I’ve enjoyed connecting with Latinos who have been living in the U.S., but specifically, for a residency here in Puerto Rico, when we are an incorporated territory of the U.S. … People from the U.S. could come here to see the show,” he said. “But there was the issue of — like, f**king ICE could be outside [my concert]. And it’s something that we were talking about and very concerned about.”
While he avoided a traditional U.S. tour, he did make a high-profile appearance at the Super Bowl Halftime show this past February, where approximately 137.8 million viewers tuned in to watch the performance in Santa Clara, California.