Bad Bunny Didn’t Need the U.S. to Set Touring Records This Year

Big Bunny

Artist's Debí Tirar Más Fotos world tour is now highest grossing and best-selling tour in history to ignore the states, and his ticket sales have pushed him past $1 billion in gross sales

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, making him not only the first Latin artist to achieve this distinction but for artists who don’t perform in English. Fewer than 25 acts have achieved this feat. Additionally, his disinterest in touring in the United States made the tour the highest grossing and best-selling tour in history to ignore the States.

Debí Tirar Más Fotos world tour is also Bad Bunny’s biggest tour ever. So far, it has grossed $360 million and sold 2.4 million tickets, including a 10-gig residency in Madrid. Those figures surpass the success of his 2022 outing, World’s Hottest Tour, which claimed him $314.4 million in gross sales and 1.9 million tickets.

For context, Billboard reports Bad Bunny has grossed nearly twice as much as Take That, who launched a tour that avoided the U.S. in 2011 and earned them $185.2 million. Similarly, the Rolling Stones’ 2014 tour of Asia, Europe, and Oceania grossed $165.2 million.

Bad Bunny previously broke records when his 2020 album, El Ultimo Tour Del Mundo, became the first all-Spanish album to top Billboard.

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Last September, Bad Bunny said he chose to skip the United States on the Debí Tirar Más Fotos world tour because he was worried about the Trump administration’s rhetoric and ICE’s actions in deporting Latinos. At the time, he was performing a residency in Puerto Rico. “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. “Latinos and Puerto Ricans of the United States could also travel here, or to any part of the world. … But there was the issue of — like, fucking ICE could be outside [my concert]. And it’s something that we were talking about and very concerned about.”

One U.S. performance he didn’t turn down, though, was the Super Bowl Halftime show. Some 137.8 million viewers tuned in to watch the spectacle in Santa Clara, California, this past February, and more than 4 million people watched it total, including all viewership platforms.