Coldplay are only halfway through their current Australian tour, but already it’s managed to break a long-standing attendance record in the country.
Touring in support of their ninth and tenth albums, 2021’s Music of the Spheres and 2024’s Moon Music (which peaked at No. 4 and No. 1 on the Billboard 200 upon release, respectively), the group launched their current trek at Melbourne’s Marvel Stadium on Oct. 30, with their fourth show in the city wrapping up on Nov. 3.
While the run of shows has featured a few surprises (including a guest appearance from The Karate Kid’s Ralph Macchio during their song of the same name), their Melbourne run has been completed with news that the band broke the attendance record for a band at the venue, with 227,000 fans turning out across the four shows.
“Coldplay have officially broken our all-time largest attendance record for a band at Marvel Stadium, with 227k people attending across the four Music of The Spheres World Tour shows held at the Stadium,” the venue wrote on Instagram on Nov. 4.
According to the venue’s own history, the current record for highest-attended concert belongs to fellow English musician Adele, whose performance on March 19, 2017 was attended by a total of 77,327. Just shy of one year later, Ed Sheeran broke the record for the largest attendance for a concert series by a single artist, bringing in a total audience of 257,751 across four shows in March 2018.
Coldplay’s new attendance figure breaks the previous record set by Australian rockers AC/DC, whose Black Ice World Tour saw the band perform three shows at the venue in February 2010 to a total of 181,495 patrons.
The new record sees Coldplay only just relegated to third place in terms of the venue’s all-time attendance records, with Pink’s ‘Summer Carnival’ Tour resulting in a total of 228,000 concertgoers across four shows in February and March of this year.
The current tour is Coldplay’s first in Australia since 2016, though they performed two shows in Perth in 2023 due to an exclusive agreement with the state’s tourism board. Coldplay will finish their Australian tour with four shows at Sydney’s Accor Stadium this week.
