Until now, only three artists hit No. 1 on Billboard’s monthly Top Tours chart throughout 2025. Coldplay ruled in January and April. In between, Shakira led for February and March. Before summer officially hit, Beyoncé kicked off the season with a rare three-peat, ruling over May, June and July. But as the August recap rolls out, a new name sits atop the chart: Chris Brown has the highest-grossing and best-selling tour of August.
According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, Brown’s 14 shows in August grossed $96.8 million and sold 590,000 tickets. That’s enough for his first month at No. 1. His only prior top 10 appearances were back-to-back showings at No. 8 last summer while on The 11:11 Tour.
What caused Brown’s sudden spike to the top? His 2025 tour, Breezy Bowl XX, elevated the R&B superstar from arenas to baseball stadiums, tripling the sellable capacity for each of his shows.
But his August gross is still a massive improvement upon his stadium performance in June on the European leg of this tour, when he ranked at No. 12. Brown, like most other R&B and hip hop acts, is a much bigger draw stateside than internationally. Plus, ticket prices are much more elastic for domestic shows, regardless of genre. And compared to 11 shows in Europe in June, he played 14 in the U.S. and Canada in August, maximizing his total reach to nearly 600,000 fans.
Not only is this a new peak for Brown himself, he enters rare space for R&B acts. He is only the second such artist to crown Top Tours, following seven wins for Beyoncé, spread between 2023 and 2025. But three of Queen Bey’s victories were for this year’s Cowboy Carter Tour, which notably became the highest-grossing country tour in Boxscore history when it wrapped earlier this summer. That makes Breezy Bowl XX the first R&B tour to conquer the list since the Renaissance World Tour in September 2023.
The highlight of Brown’s August was a double-header at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., with $15 million and 107,000 tickets on Aug. 12-13. Stops in Detroit, Toronto and Atlanta also pulled eight-figure grosses with two shows apiece. Those four cities landed him at Nos. 9-11 and 14 on Top Boxscores.
Breezy Bowl XX is head-and-shoulders Brown’s biggest tour yet. Through Sept. 27, the tour has brought in $241.4 million and sold 1.7 million tickets. That marks a 193% increase over the gross of The 11:11 Tour ($82.3 million) and a 270% jump over its attendance (446,000).
Still, Brown has more gas in the tank. Breezy Bowl XX has seven more shows scheduled before wrapping in Memphis, Tenn. on Oct. 18. Based of the $7 million per-show average in North America, he should add another $45-50 million in the next three weeks. At $457 million in career grosses, he could cross the half-billion mark.
Three acts follow closely in both grosses and attendance. Coldplay is No. 2 on Top Tours, while The Weeknd and Ed Sheeran bunch up at Nos. 3-4, respectively. All three acts wrapped their 2025 schedules in the first week of September, potentially clearing space at the top of the chart for next month’s recap.
Coldplay grossed $85.4 million in August, largely from its marathon run at London’s Wembley Stadium. The first six shows fell during August, landing at No. 1 on Top Boxscores. The final four shows have yet to be reported and will impact the September listing. The Music of the Spheres World Tour is the best-selling trek in history, at 12.8 million tickets through Aug. 31, with more dates teased in 2027.
August marks The Weeknd’s fourth consecutive month in the top 10, after hitting No. 2 in June and July. The After Hours Til Dawn Tour is the biggest R&B tour ever, with more dates announced for 2026.
Sheeran rounds out the upper echelon with $75 million and 583,000 tickets. In early September, he wrapped The Mathematics Tour after playing stadiums around the world since 2022. His previous tour, The Divide Tour became the biggest tour of all time when it wrapped in 2019, but this one outgrossed it by nearly $100 million, finishing with $875.7 million.
August was a major month for music festivals. The Top Boxscores tally is dotted by three weekend events, each in a different country. San Francisco’s Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival is No. 2, with $41.4 million from Aug. 8-10. Laois, Ireland’s Electric Picnic Festival is next at No. 6, earning $18.2 million from an audience of 57,800 on August 29-31. Finally, Montreal’s Osheaga Music & Arts Festival is No. 13 with $14.6 million from the first weekend of the month.
Outside Lands took place at San Fran’s Golden Gate Park, which is the month’s top-grossing venue. Just beneath the festival on Top Boxscores is the venue’s weekend with Dead & Company is No. 3, adding $38.3 million and 167,000 tickets (Aug. 1-3). Together, these events combined for $89.6 million and 426,000 tickets.
Wembley Stadium is next ($78.9 million) for its Coldplay shows, followed by Las Vegas’ Sphere (No. 1 on Top Venues [15,001+ capacity]), Toronto’s Rogers Centre, and Mexico City’s Estadio GNP Seguros, each of which grossed more than $30 million.
