Author: Adam DuVander

Flip open your Guinness Book of World Records… or just visit the site. There are world records for anything from anamorphic prints to YouTube views—including the highest-attended concerts.

While a French artist started the Guinness Book entry with a 1979 concert, it has since been surpassed… though, amazingly, the same artist still ties for the title thanks to an even bigger performance.

The 48 concerts on the map have had 100,000 people or more attend. For context, the highest-attended Super Bowl ever saw 103,985 football fans in the stands. Yet even the lowest of these concerts had nearly identical numbers, with some even holding over 33 times that amount.

So let’s stage dive into the world’s 10 highest-attended concerts, the artists who have played multiple 100,000+ concerts, and the most common years for these record-breaking events.

View Highest-Attended Concerts in a full screen map

The World’s 10 Highest-Attended Concerts Were Free for Millions

Altogether, the 10 largest concerts ever performed entertained 20.5 million people. That could have included you and millions of your closest friends for free. Yes, all of the largest concerts ever cost nothing to attend, as you’ll see in the table below.

Artist	Title or event	Venue	City	Attendance	Year
Rod Stewart	New Year’s Eve	Copacabana Beach	Rio de Janeiro	3,500,000	1994
Jean-Michel Jarre	The 850th Anniversary of Moscow	State University of Moscow	Moscow	3,500,000	1997
Jorge Ben Jor	New Year’s Eve	Copacabana Beach	Rio de Janeiro	3,000,000	1993
Jean-Michel Jarre	Bastille Day	La Défense	Paris	2,500,000	1990
AC/DC, Pantera, Metallica, The Black Crowes, E.S.T.	Monsters of Rock	Tushino Airfield	Moscow	1,600,000	1991
Various artists	Live 8	Philadelphia Museum of Art	Philadelphia	1,500,000	2005
The Rolling Stones	A Bigger Bang	Copacabana Beach	Rio de Janeiro	1,500,000	2006
Jean-Michel Jarre	Rendez-vous Houston	Downtown Houston	Houston	1,300,000	1986
Various artists	Paz Sin Fronteras II	Plaza de la Revolución	Havana	1,100,000	2009
Jean-Michel Jarre	Bastille Day	Place de la Concorde	Paris	1,000,000	1979

While free concerts can complicate direct comparisons to the rest of the map’s ticketed, single-artist concerts, their attendances are still notable, especially the four headlined by the same artist: Jean-Michel Jarre. The French composer, performer, and record producer is known for his outdoor performances featuring his music (electronic, ambient, and new-age) paired with laser displays, projections, and fireworks.

Jarre first broke attendance records in 1979 at his Bastille Day show at Place de la Concorde in Paris. In 1986, he again bested previous attendance highs when 1,300,000 people attended his Rendez-vous Houston. He did so again in Paris in 1990 with 2,500,000 attending Bastille Day. Finally, his 1997 The 850th Anniversary of Moscow remains tied for the #1 highest-attended concert ever held to this day.

Additionally, two more of the highest-attended concerts were held at the same venue, for the same event during subsequent years: New Year’s Eve at Copacabana Beach. Brazilian singer Jorge Ben Jor played for 3,000,000 fans in Rio de Janeiro on December 31st, 1993 while British rocker Rod Stewart brought his Hot Legs to the same stage the following year when 3,500,000 showed up. It just goes to show that NYE isn’t only popular in the U.S., though the country is certainly known for its variety of ball drops, like an 80-pound decorated cheese wedge or 100-pound stick of bologna.

To see only the most highly attended ticketed single-artist concerts, select the “Type” group on the map and filter by “Single-artist concerts.” Now let’s take a look at more artists like Jarre who have performed for high numbers numerous times.

8 Artists Have Played Multiple 100,000+ Concerts

French artist Jean-Michel Jarre is tied with Rod Stewart for the #1 spot. But Jarre differs in that he has also played three shows with almost-as-many attendees. Stewart only had the one. Along with Jarre, other artists appear on the map more than once. In fact, eight such artists have headlined at least two of the 48 highly-attended concerts on the map.

• Jean-Michel Jarre: 4 concerts attended by 100,000+
• Michael Jackson: 3
• Queen: 3
• Robbie Williams: 3
• The Rolling Stones: 3
• Madonna: 2
• Oasis: 2
• Vasco Rossi: 2

Of course, all four of Jean-Michel Jarre’s best-attended concerts were free, as was The Rolling Stones’ A Bigger Bang show at Copacabana Beach.

Meanwhile, all three of Queen, Michael Jackson, and Robbie Williams’ highest-attended shows were ticketed, single-artist events. Queen’s 1981 The Game Tour at Estádio do Morumbi saw 131,000 attendees.

Similar numbers (125,000) were reported at two of Michael Jackson’s concerts and all three of Robbie Williams’, though Williams’ were subsequent days of the same tour at the same venue, which you can see on the map.

When Major Concerts Were Popular

We’ve answered the who and what of these major events—now it’s time for the when. While the dates of some of these shows have already been mentioned throughout this post, you can see which years most of these huge events were held when you use the map filtering and grouping feature.

For example, group by “Year” and you’ll see various ranges. Here we’ve plotted these large concerts by decade:

This style of concert clearly peaked in the 1980s and 90s, though the 2020s have already nearly caught up to the decade prior. Perhaps there’s a comeback?

What a simple column chart doesn’t show is where the concerts were popular during each decade. You’ll be able to see this visually on the map as you use the grouping options to filter which markers are displayed.

You could do the same with month—July in Europe looks pretty popular! You can scroll back to the top of this post and explore the map or view the larger version.

While it’s fun to imagine Mick Jagger, Freddie Mercury, and other artists strutting across these mammoth stages, you might prefer to visualize your own data on a map. All you need is a spreadsheet of locations, such as customers or other points of interest. And you can make your first custom map for free.

At the national level, governmental officials must manage a country’s economic, political, and social situations, among many other things. Further complicating their work is potential corruption, which can be defined in a multitude of ways. The non-governmental organization Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) defines corruption as “abuse of entrusted power for private gain.”

The index, which has been published each year since 1995, ranks countries around the world by perceived corruption in the public sector. Many countries rank low in corruption, including Denmark, New Zealand, and Finland. However, many more are riddled with corrupt politicians according to the CPI, such as South Sudan, Syria, and Somalia as you can find on the map below.

View Countries by corruption in a full screen map

The Most Corrupt Countries in Africa and Asia

The Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) scores and ranks countries by their perceived levels of government corruption. A score of 0 indicates the most corrupt country, while a CPI of 99 means little corruption.

The 123 countries that scored between 0 and 49 in 2021 are therefore perceived as more corrupt. Yet while a score of 49 isn’t something to be proud of, it’s nothing compared to some of the absolute lowest-rated countries that you’ll see on the table below or when you group the map by the lowest 2021 Scores (“17 – 11” and “28 – 19”).

Nation or Territory	2021 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI)
South Sudan	11
Somalia	13
Syria	13
Venezuela	14
Afghanistan	16
North Korea	16
Yemen	16
Equatorial Guinea	17
Libya	17
Burundi	19
Turkmenistan	19

The table above shows the 11 most corrupt countries, according to the CPI. Of these, South Sudan is the worst. In 2012, it was reported that South Sudanese politicians had stolen $4 billion in government funds since the advent of self-rule in 2005. That said, South Sudan is hardly the only African country worth calling out. Somalia, Equatorial Guinea, Libya, and Burundi also rank high in corruption.

The rest of the table consists of mostly Asian countries, with Syria being the most corrupt of these. Syria is followed by Afghanistan, North Korea, Yemen, and Turkmenistan on the CPI. This leaves Venezuela, the only South American country to make the list.

But of course, the world’s not all corrupt, thanks to those on the other end of the spectrum.

10 of the Least Corrupt Nordic Countries

South Sudan, Syria, and 121 other countries may have had CPIs of 0-49 in 2021 but there are 56 countries in the 50-99 range. Though there are far fewer of these non-corrupt countries, you can see the top of these on the list below.

• Denmark (88) CPI
• New Zealand (88)
• Finland (88)
• Singapore (85)
• Sweden (85)
• Norway (85)
• Switzerland (84)
• Netherlands (82)
• Luxembourg (81)
• Germany (80)

Including Denmark and Finland, 40% of the 10 least corrupt countries in the world are Nordic. Sweden and Norway are the other two Nordic countries with the same high CPI score (85 for both).

Expanding to continents, 8 out of 10 are in Europe. The Nordic countries are included in this, all four ranking higher than any of the other European countries in the top 10: Switzerland, Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Germany.

Meanwhile, New Zealand and Singapore round out the top 10 in Oceania and Asia, respectively. Singapore’s inclusion is perhaps the most notable, considering many of the most corrupt countries we discussed in the previous section were located on the same continent.

If you’re wondering where the U.S. falls, it has a CPI of 67, which, interestingly enough, is a six-point fall from 2012. Let’s dive more into these changes next.

View Changes in Chart Form

As for changes through the years, you can sort the map by “10-Year Change: 2012-2021.” But it’s one thing to look at a snapshot—and another to see how it changed: all at once or gradually.

This is where charts come in handy, which we created using our inline charts tutorial. Now let’s take a look at the largest changes.

Seychelles, a collection of over 100 islands in the Indian Ocean, has the largest positive change (and largest overall change). In 2012, it had a CPI of 52, just narrowly missing the cutoff for corrupt countries. In 2021, Seychelles has a score of 70, ranking among the top X best. The largest change year-to-year was in 2017, as noted in its inline chart.

Meanwhile, the largest negative change belongs to Saint Lucia. Back in 2012, the island nation‘s CPI was 71. Throughout the years (and especially in 2017 when it dropped by five), it has fallen by 15, now standing at 56.

For detailed instructions on adding inline charts to your maps, check out our post about it. You can also see the charts in action in Where U.S. Beer is Brewed.

Research by Scientific American shows that humans are not very good at estimating distances. Luckily, we have computers to help us much of the time, such as our vehicle’s GPS or driving directions on a website. It’s only natural that you’d also want to use these with your own custom locations. These distance calculations can be important in many cases, from sales and customer visits to deliveries. One error could mean a lot of time, not to mention money, wasted.

Instead of calculating distance manually or relying on scientifically proven poor estimates, use tools that take out all of the guesswork.

Let’s go over one such tool, our mapping software, which has multiple ways of determining the distance between your points, starting with point selection.

1. Select Your Points

Let’s start by selecting the locations on your map that you want to calculate the distance between. If you don’t already have a map, here’s how to prepare the data of your choice for our copy-and-paste mapping tool.

There are multiple ways you can select your points, including:

• Selecting rows on a table via Data View
• Using Advanced Mode’s selection tool shapes:
  • Rectangle
  • Circle
  • Polygon

Right-click (or hold control and click on Mac) any BatchGeo map to bring up additional ways of viewing (i.e. Data View) along with other options. If you’re a BatchGeo Pro user, among these is Advanced Mode.

You can use either Data View or Advanced Mode to select your points for distance calculations.

Advanced Mode will reveal even more selection tools in the upper left-hand corner of your map (the Rectangle, Circle, and Polygon selection tool). Choose a shape and then draw it to capture your points.

Depending on which of the distance calculation tools you want to use, you’ll select one or two groups of points.

2. Calculate Distances Multiple Ways

With our points selected, we can now move on to using our various distance calculation tools: Match Closest Pairs, Match New Selection, and the multi-distance tool.

Match Closest Pairs

Once you select your points, you’ll see options near the bottom of your map. Choose Match Closest Pairs if you wish to use only your currently selected points. Then, pick from one of the following options that pop up:

Calculate Least Distance goes through each point and finds its nearest point that hasn’t already been selected. You end up with pairs that are near each other. Odd numbers of points will leave one out.

Calculate Closest Neighbor goes through each point and finds its nearest point overall. There will likely be duplicates, but you know each place’s nearest other place.

Finally, Calculate Closest Unique Neighbor goes through each point and finds its nearest point. If there’s a duplicate, it favors the closest. In the end, you have the closest distances that don’t repeat any locations.

Note that each of these options will add a new column to the “Data View” of your map, displaying the distance between each of the points involved.

Though Match Closest Pairs covers the most common use cases, there are still other ways you can calculate distances.

Match New Selection

There’s a second distance calculation choice when you’ve selected your points: Match New Selection. This option brings up the same sub-prompts as Match Closest Pairs.

However, instead of only selecting an initial group of points, when you’re using Match New Selection, you’ll select a second group to compare to the first.

How to Match New Selection:

1. Select your first group
2. Click Match New Selection
3. Select a second group
4. Choose one of the three options (Calculate Least Distance, Calculate Closest Neighbor, Calculate Closest Unique Neighbor).

Without a second group of points, you won’t be able to select one of the sub-prompts, as you can see here:

Once you’ve selected a second group, you’ll see the familiar prompts from which you can choose (i.e. Calculate Least Distance)

While the options work the same, Match New Selection always looks to connect each point in the first group with a point in the second group.

These two methods of matching locations with distances can help you make sense of many points at once. The final distance calculation method is useful when you’re looking for answers about a smaller number of points.

Marker Measure Tool

The Marker Measure Tool is another Advanced Mode feature, though it lives in the upper left-hand corner of your map under Measuring tools.

There’s no pre-selection needed with this tool. Just click it and then drag the pin on top of the location, which could be a current marker on your map or not, you want to know the distance of from the rest of your points.

Map Your Data to Determine Distance

View Mechanics: Sales in a full screen map

You can calculate distances in completely customizable ways—all when you follow the steps to map your data with our tool.

1. Open your spreadsheet
2. Select (Ctrl+A or Cmd+A) and copy (Ctrl+C or Cmd+C) your data
3. Open your web browser and navigate to batchgeo.com
4. Click on the location data box with the example data in it, then paste (Ctrl+V or Cmd+V) your own data
5. Check to make sure you have the proper location data columns available by clicking “Set Options”
6. Click “Map Your Data” and you’re done!

Start calculating the distance between your points today at batchgeo.com.