Coldplay are on track to become the first band to sell more than 13 million tickets on a single tour and could earn about £1 billion from their 225-date Music of the Spheres world tour, industry figures and reports say.
Concert data company Pollstar estimated cumulative grosses for the tour had reached about $1.39 billion before the band's London run, and suggested the Wembley dates should push the total past $1.4 billion. Those figures, combined with merchandise and other ancillary sales, would put Coldplay ahead of previous UK touring earners, including Sir Elton John’s Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour, which reported roughly £718 million in grosses.
The financial milestone comes as the band concludes a 10-night run at Wembley Stadium that has produced a string of widely reported incidents. At a recent Wembley show, frontman Chris Martin brought two fans onstage who identified themselves as Israeli and were booed by portions of the crowd. Martin addressed the reaction onstage, saying he treated people ‘‘as equal humans on Earth regardless of where you come from,’’ and later acknowledged Palestinian fans in the audience.
A video of the exchange circulated online and prompted a range of responses. One of the women who went onstage told Israel’s Kan broadcaster she had briefly considered saying she was from Malta before identifying herself as Israeli. Pro-Israel commentators criticized Martin for not shielding the fans from boos, and at least one identified technology figure, writing on X, described the moment as ‘‘especially hurtful.’’ Other concertgoers and viewers praised Martin’s handling of the incident and his appeals for unity.
Later in the Wembley program, Martin performed a duet with Palestinian-Chilean singer Elyanna on the song "We Pray," which includes a verse in Arabic. Elyanna has previously postponed a U.S. tour at the outbreak of Israel’s military operations in Gaza and has sold merchandise with proceeds directed to a Middle Eastern children’s charity, according to reports.
The Wembley episode was the latest publicity-generating moment on the tour. In July, a stadium "kiss cam" at a show in Foxborough, Massachusetts, captured an intimate embrace between Astronomer chief executive Andy Byron and the company’s head of human resources, Kristin Cabot. The clip led to online identification of the pair and subsequently to their resignations, news outlets reported.
Tour organizers and Coldplay representatives had not released final ticket or revenue figures at the time of reporting. Andy Gensler of Pollstar told The Mirror that estimates suggested overall ticket sales would hit the 13 million mark but that definitive numbers would be available only after the Wembley dates concluded.
If confirmed, the tour’s financial and ticket milestones would mark a significant commercial achievement in live music, reflecting the scale of contemporary stadium touring and the band’s global draw. The Music of the Spheres tour has spanned multiple continents and an unusually large number of shows, with promoters and venues reporting strong demand for tickets and additional merchandise spend.
Representatives for Chris Martin and Coldplay did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the Wembley incident or the tour’s final box-office totals.