Music Break my soul, break these records: Beyoncé's Renaissance World Tour by the numbers Meanwhile, it's been 15 months since Renaissance dropped and we're still listening to it. No skips. By Lester Fabian Brathwaite Lester Fabian Brathwaite Lester Fabian Brathwaite is a staff writer at Entertainment Weekly, where he covers breaking news, all things Real Housewives, and a rich cornucopia of popular culture. Formerly a senior editor at Out magazine, his work has appeared on NewNowNext, Queerty, Rolling Stone, and The New Yorker. He was also the first author signed to Phoebe Robinson's Tiny Reparations imprint. He met Oprah once. EW's editorial guidelines Published on October 3, 2023 11:10PM EDT The Renaissance World Tour has come to a close, leaving a trail of snatched wigs, discarded silver lamé, and depleted checkbooks in its wake. All in all, Beyoncé's ninth concert tour pulled in $579 million, making it the highest-grossing tour by a female artist in history, and the seventh-highest-grossing tour overall. Beyoncé. Julian Dakdouk But if you look at it based on number of shows, Queen Bey maintains her crown. The Renaissance Tour had 56 shows that ran the course of the summer versus, say, the No. 6 highest-grossing tour, Guns N' Roses three-year, 158-show Never In This Lifetime... Tour. And then there's the average gross per show: Bey made $10.3 million per show, compared to the highest-grossing tour of all-time, Elton John's Farewell Yellow Brick Road, which averaged $2.8 million per show (it ran for five years and 330 shows, grossing $939.1 million). The Renaissance Tour also broke Billboard's record for biggest one-month gross with $127.6 million. All that money helped boost the American economy, with The New York Times estimating that the Bey bump generated about $4.5 billion, comparable to what the 2008 Olympics did for Beijing. Across 10 countries and 39 cities, the Renaissance Tour machine employed 304 people, as Beyoncé gagged 2.7 million fans in 148 different looks from over 35 fashion houses, while singing 34 songs per night. And for those who missed out on the live o-p-u-l-e-n-c-e, there's a Renaissance concert film coming to theaters Dec. 1, fulfilling the promise of those long-awaited visuals. And we only had to wait 490 days. But who's counting? Related content: Beyoncé flies out a fan after he was denied a flight because of the size of his wheelchair On Beyoncé's Renaissance: To be queer, gifted, and Black…oh what a lovely, precious dream Beyoncé pays tribute to fan fatally stabbed after voguing to her music: 'Rest in Power O'Shae Sibley' Hairspray actress Sarah Francis Jones goes into labor at Beyoncé's bday concert, avoids obvious name choice