Did You Know That Country Artists Own 4 Of The 5 Largest Ticketed Concerts In US History?

On Saturday, September 27, Zach Bryan did the unthinkable and made history at the first-ever concert at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor. Back in February, he announced that he would be playing the show along with John Mayer, Ryan Bingham and the Texas Gentlemen and Joshua Slone. And while selling out a stadium show in any capacity is no small feat, the Michigan Show proved to be nothing short of monumental, given the fact that it has the largest capacity […] The post Did You Know That Country Artists Own 4 Of The 5 Largest Ticketed Concerts In US History? first appeared on Whiskey Riff.

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Did You Know That Country Artists Own 4 Of The 5 Largest Ticketed Concerts In US History?

On Saturday, September 27, Zach Bryan did the unthinkable and made history at the first-ever concert at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor.

Back in February, he announced that he would be playing the show along with John Mayer, Ryan Bingham and the Texas Gentlemen and Joshua Slone. And while selling out a stadium show in any capacity is no small feat, the Michigan Show proved to be nothing short of monumental, given the fact that it has the largest capacity in the country with an official capacity of 107,601 and the ability to host over 115,000. When tickets went on sale for the show, they sold out within hours, with Zach announcing that it would be the largest ticketed show in United States history:

“You guys just sold out the biggest ticketed show in American history. I owe you my life, my humility and every ounce of effort I have. I love y’all more than any song. What a wild and rowdy damn 6 years. God bless the musicians who came before us.

The respect is immeasurable. Thank you so much for having us University of Michigan, we won’t let you down.”

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A post shared by Zach Bryan (@zachlanebryan)

At the time, it was uncertain that the record would actually stick by the time the concert rolled around this past weekend. However, it was confirmed by multiple sources that Bryan did, in fact, break the U.S. record for the largest ticketed concert in history, with a final total of 112,408 in attendance.

Bryan would later take to X this morning to thank the entire crew at Michigan Stadium, his band and the fans who attended the record-breaking show, signing off with a “see u next year,” indicating that he’ll be hitting the road in some capacity in 2026:

Also, I didn’t get the proper chance to thank all the crew, police, security, chefs, stage hands, the people who ran the cameras and every soul who had a part in the show at Michigan yesterday
I love you and I owe you so so big pic.twitter.com/Q6zZ2afRZO
— Zach Bryan (@zachlanebryan) September 28, 2025

in other news, still gyrating over Michigan, very proud of my band, hard to keep a thing going for this long let alone years I love you guys more by the day and you’re my best friends in the world, see u next year pic.twitter.com/H8uUupGkdM
— Zach Bryan (@zachlanebryan) September 29, 2025

With all the talk about concert attendance records going on over the last few days, I thought it would be interesting to see just how monumental Bryan’s performance on Saturday was in regard to other notable concert attendance records.

As we know, the previous record for the largest ticketed concert in the U.S. was briefly held by George Strait, who played Texas A&M University’s Kyle Field, in College Station, Texas, last June with fellow Texas natives Parker McCollum and Catie Offerman. The attendance for that show was 110,905, just over 1,500 less than Bryan had in Michigan Saturday night. Before that, the record stood for a staggering 47 years when the Grateful Dead performed to 107,019 at Raceway Park in Englishtown, New Jersey, back in 1977.

While it shouldn’t be entirely surprising that one of the biggest bands of all time and arguably the most popular country artist ever own the top two and three spots below Bryan’s new record, what does become a bit interesting is who rounds out the Top 5.

Neither Taylor Swift, Michael Jackson, Backstreet Boys, U2, Madonna or KISS make appearances inside the Top 5 of ticketed concerts in the U.S. Instead, the final two spots are taken by George Strait once again for his 2014 performance at AT&T Stadium in 2014 and Garth Brooks‘ recent show at LSU’s Tiger Stadium in 2022, making four of the top five most attended ticketed concerts in America’s history owned by country artists.

One thing that should be kept in mind is that there are different distinctions between concert/festival attendance records. There have been multiple free concerts and multi-night concerts that have brought in anywhere from a million people (The Beach Boys’ free 4th of July concert in Philadelphia in 1985) to 420,000 (Taylor Swift’s 6-night run in Sofi Stadium during the Eras Tour). That’s not even mentioning some of the free concerts in Brazil, which have seen upwards of 3.5 million people in attendance over the years.

What can be noted and observed fairly definitively here is just how much country music fans are willing to pay and retroactively travel to see some of the biggest acts in the genre here in the States extremely consistently. It seems as if there’s no venue too big, no price too steep and no event too daunting to keep fans of the genre from showing up and paying the big bucks to see these massive shows. It’s often said that country music has some of the most diehard fans in all of music, and I think stats like these further prove it.

The Top 5 list, complete with date, location and venue, is as follows: