Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter Tour sold out its way into the record books. Billboard Boxscore put the final gross at $407.6 million from 1.6 million tickets, more than 40 venue records broken, and the biggest country tour ever. In December 2025 Pollstar named it the top-grossing tour of the year, worldwide and in North America.
The run opened April 28, 2025, in Inglewood, California, and closed July 26 in Paradise, Nevada. Thirty-two stadium shows in all, her fifth all-stadium tour, written around her 2024 album Cowboy Carter. Its full name is Cowboy Carter and the Rodeo Chitlin’ Circuit Tour.
How it came together
The tour was hinted at before it was announced. A short clip added to the end of her Netflix “Beyoncé Bowl” special, which captured her Christmas Day 2024 halftime show in Houston, carried a date of January 14, 2025. The reveal was pushed back after the Southern California wildfires. On February 1, Netflix tweeted a lyric from “Sweet Honey Buckiin’,” fans spotted “Cowboy Carter Tour” on a title card, and around midnight on February 2 Beyoncé posted the name, a poster and 22 dates.
Tickets sold through Ticketmaster, whose website crashed under what the company called “massive demand.” US buyers faced three presale events before the public on-sale, among them the Beyhive presale, which ran from February 11 into the next day.
The Chitlin’ Circuit in the title refers to the US venues where African-American musicians played under Jim Crow segregation. Historian Mia Bay has called them “one of the more successful segregation-era businesses.” Some of those cities appear on the tour route.
On the stage
Each show lasted about three hours and was split into acts, as the Renaissance World Tour had been. A giant widescreen with a triangular gap in the middle formed the top of a five-pointed star, the main set piece. The staging also used levitating platforms, mechanical bulls, pyrotechnics and the robotic arms from Renaissance. A “B-stage” at the back left of the stadium carried the sign “JOLENE’S,” and Beyoncé flew there on a horseshoe-shaped swing.
One prop failed. A levitating red Cadillac Eldorado stuck during the first night in Houston, and a golden mechanical horse replaced it.
Dsquared2, Alexander McQueen, Oscar de la Renta and Diesel were among the houses that built the costumes. Donatella Versace said she spent 1,100 hours on two looks for the London concerts.
Critics praised the visuals, choreography and Beyoncé’s performance, and many singled out the sociopolitical arguments in the show. Various outlets gave it their highest rating.
