The numbers don’t lie. R&B and hip-hop crossovers into country music are a big business.
It’s no secret that Beyoncé has been dabbling in the latter genre as of late. Now, though, it’s come to light that her Cowboy Carter Tour is the highest-grossing country tour in Billboard Boxscore history.
Beyoncé capped off the tour on Saturday with a performance at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas. The totals for the run of 32 dates as calculated by Billboard Boxscore are 1.6 million tickets amounting to $407.6 million, beating out Zach Bryan’s 2024 Quittin Time tour total of $321.3 million.
That’s not the only record broken by Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter Tour. It’s also her highest grossing tour on a per-show basis, with each of its dates bringing in $12.7 million between 49,000 tickets sold at $255.36, on average. Her team accomplished this by including fewer dates than they did on her Renaissance World Tour, but focusing on eight of its highest-performing locations. At only 32 shows, Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter Tour also broke the Billboard Boxscore record for fastest tour to surpass the $400 million mark.
It bears mentioning that Billboard Boxscore has access to limited information. The resource has only been active for about 50 years, and participating venues, artists, and promoters must opt in to provide them the information they publish.
Beyoncé’s aforementioned Renaissance World Tour still remains her highest-grossing tour at $579.8 million. It’s also the highest-grossing tour specific to R&B in Billboard Boxscore history.
By no means is Beyoncé the first R&B or hip-hop artist to find commercial success in a country crossover. Lil Nas X arguably wrote the blueprint with his 2018 single “Old Town Road” that still remains the fastest song to ever sell 10 million copies to this day. Diplo followed suit with his country-inspired Thomas Wesley project that same year, and he continues to take the project to country fairs and the like.
Suffice it to say, these two styles of music might seem to mix like oil and water at first, don’t underestimate the power of a crossover. In Beyoncé’s case, at least, it was something of a power move.
