64,791 people watching Fleetwood Mac live
 

I was cleaning and reorganizing at home and found my Fleetwood Mac Cds (the only CDs I still kept are the FM ones, the other hundreds were ripped and gone to recycle bins long ago).

So I was watching the Live CD book and reading the shows list, and the largest attendance numbers caught my attention.

Tusk: 2 concerts in New Zealand, each with 30,000 souls (different cities). And the Munich show with 30,000 people too. No UK or US concert reached 30,000 per night; though some US were close to. However 8 consecutive nights in London Wembley arena were 8,000 each, so we could consider 48,000 different people. Same as LA in december '79, that adds up 51,000 people (they were back in sep. '80, 17,000 souls but since was another year, maybe there were repeated attendants).

So I looked for other tours data in the web.

About Rumours, I just found the wikipedia page about the tour. If numbers are correct (couldn't confirm in te source pages), the largest number the shows in Boulder, CO (61,500) and Oakland, CA (57,500). This includes the Penguin Summer Country Safari 1978 leg.

The 1975 tour has 3 shows with more than 50,000 people: Oakland, Denver and Foxborough (weird comparing with Tusk numbers). I doubted that Fleetwood Mac could summon several tens of thousands people for a exclusive show since they were just starting to be quite successful. But maybe some ledgies here have more info about it. However the crowdest registered show was Foxborough, MA with 64,791 people. This could be the biggest audience, at least registered, of all tours. But it doesn't specify if it was part of a festival or something like that. Two California dates do have a comment they were part of a "Day on the Green" where they shared with Dave Mason, Peter Frampton, etc.

The Reunion tour (The Dance) has partial info in wikipedia page. The largest registered number there is in Melbourne (53,072). Though they played in Wembley stadium (not arena) but no numbers specified (since it was a stadium, it could be a very large number).

Couldn't find numbers for the Mirage and Tango (Shake the Cage) tours. Probably there are sources like Billboard that have more data, but I guess you have to $ubscribe first.

I sold off all my vinyl last year, with the exception of all things FM

In 1980, Billboard ran a full-page display ad congratulating Fleetwood Mac on having the best-attended (and most lucrative) tour of the year for mid-sized venues. I think a mid-sized venue was a typical sports arena — 10,000 to 18,000, and in those days, sports arenas were the dominant venue for rock concerts. So Fleetwood Mac actually had a highly lucrative tour in 1980 and scooped the box office. Whether or not the individual members saw their expected returns is another matter, given the outrageous expense of keeping Fleetwood Mac on the road.

It's crazy that they played the Hollywood Florida Sportatorium in '80. It was nothing more than a glorified airplane hanger with seats. It's kind of crazy that promoters were able to book so many bands there back in the day. That would never happen now. To see them in such a small venue would be such a treat.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_Sportatorium

I bet it was an interesting night when they rolled into that joint.

In 1990 they played at the old Wembley stadium. Its hard to find attendance figures and the capacity can vary from artist to artist depending upon the stage set up. However, I think the capacity was generally around 80,000 for concerts. I think that show was a sell out.

The 2 shows on the 2019 tour at the new Wembley stadium were also supposedly sold out. I think that holds around 90,000 for concerts, though I've read Adele has the record there with 98,000....so I'm not sure.

I’d imagine some of the largest audiences were those stadium shows in the pre-Tusk era where they played alongside bands like the Eagles.

Curious about the comment above about the Dance tour. I’m assuming this is actually for the Say You Will Tour or one of the 2009-2019 tours? They never left the States during 1997 and those shows were either arenas or sheds.

You are right! I must have confused pages, and I missed to mark those I checked that day. Now I can't find where I got that info, to see if it was my mistake or wrong info at the web. :confused:

I didn't explicitly look for the latest tours, but today I checked the On with the Show info and the largest registered number is 96,564. But it seems was the sum of two consecutive nights at the O2 Arena in London.