When an artist gets to the top of their career, there’s one place they can still one-up themselves: Las Vegas. Residencies in Sin City are seen as the pinnacle of success in an artist’s story, and for good reason. Runs can last years, and profits can be in the hundreds of millions.
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In May 2025, Billboard put together a list of the highest-grossing residencies of all time. They came to their conclusions based on their Boxscore charts, which are voluntarily reported numbers.
While the outlet’s list included residencies outside of Vegas—Billy Joel at New York’s Madison Square Garden, for instance—we’ve stuck to shows in the singular city only.
Keep reading to see the biggest Las Vegas residencies in history.
Celine Dion’s A New Day… (2003-2007) and Celine (2011-2019)
Celine Dion nabbed both the first and second spots on Billboard‘s list for two of her residencies at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace.
Over the four years that it ran, A New Day… sold 2.8 million tickets to 714 shows, grossing $385.1 million. Dion returned to Vegas in 2011 for her self-titled residency. That go around, Dion played 427 shows to 1.7 million ticket holders, grossing $296.2 million.
“People thought I was going to finish my career here, and that the Titanic was going to sink again,” Dion told ABC News in 2019 of Las Vegas. Instead, it boosted her career and inspired other artists to follow her to Sin City.
U2’s U2: UV Achtung Baby Live (2023-2024)
The Sphere quickly became a premier Las Vegas venue when it opened its doors in 2023. That was thanks in large part to U2, who first performed at the state-of-the-art venue.
With U2: UV Achtung Baby Live, U2 put on 40 shows. They sold 663,000 tickets and grossed $244.5 million.
“It’s exceeded our wildest expectations in many ways,” The Edge told Wired of the residency. “I was always saying to people when we were working with the concepts that the audience was the missing element. You don’t really know how it’s gonna play until you have an audience in the house. Within about four songs of the opening night, I was like, ‘This is definitely working.’”
Elton John’s The Red Piano (2004 to 2009)
Like Dion, Elton John found a fruitful home at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace. It was there that the music icon hosted The Red Piano residency between 2004 and 2009.
Over that time period, John played 247 shows. He sold 982,000 tickets and grossed $166.4 million over the run.
“The whole point of coming to Vegas is to try something new,” John told journalist Anne-Marie Withenshaw in a 2004 interview. “It’s a nostalgic kind of hint to my past, a reference to my love of art and photography. [There’s] outrageous campiness, fun… I wanted to be like a roller coaster ride. So, we took a risk. We came here and it paid off, and we’re having great fun.”
Photo by DARRIN BUSH/LAS VEGAS NEWS BUREAU/AFP via Getty Images
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